Prisoners of love? Job satisfaction in care work.
Chesters, Jenny ; Baxter, Janeen
Introduction
Most care work, paid and unpaid, is done by women. Paid care work
typically involves the provision of face-to-face services to clients and
has been defined as 'those occupations providing a service to
people that helps develop their capabilities' (England 2005: 383).
Occupations that readily fall into this category include nursing and
health care jobs, teaching, childcare, elder care and care of people
with a disability. While we know a little about the characteristics of
the care workforce, including that it is overwhelming female, low-paid
and part-time and often casual, we know less about the experiences of
care workers, their motivations for undertaking care work, their
perceptions of their work and their expectations for the future. There
are a number of reasons why we need this information, not least because
of the projected labour shortfall in the provision of care workers (OECD
1999). Population growth, population ageing, the increased involvement
of women in the paid labour market and rising rates of some illnesses
and disabilities suggest that Australia, and many other nations, will
face labour shortages in the care workforce over coming years. If these
trends continue as projected, governments and policy makers will face a
number of challenges, including the provision of suitable numbers of
care workers and the provision of quality care (Meagher 2007).
It is important, then, to examine the motivations and experiences
of those working in the care sector as a way of identifying positive and
negative aspects of care work, including the features that pull
particular kinds of workers into the industry and those that act as
barriers or impediments. Evaluating the factors that affect levels of
job satisfaction and the motivations that propel women into care work,
and perhaps deter men, may provide policy makers with a better
understanding of how to provide an environment more conducive to
attracting, and keeping, a more diverse workforce. At a broader level,
since women make up the majority of care workers, research in this field
contributes to our understanding of patterns of gender inequality in the
labour market, including issues relating to the devaluation of
women's work, the continuing sex gap in pay, sex segregation of the
labour market, and the growth of part-time, casual and other forms of
precarious and low-paid employment. This paper goes some way toward
these goals by examining variations in levels and determinants of work
satisfaction within two distinct female-dominated occupational groups in
the service sector, childcare workers and dental assistants, using new
Australian data. We briefly discuss issues identified in previous
studies as important for understanding job satisfaction in care work,
before considering some characteristics of these two occupational groups
in the Australian context.
Job Satisfaction and Care Work
There is a growing body of research on the care workforce. In the
United States the work of Nancy Folbre (1994; 2001), Paula England
(2005) and Arlie Russell Hochschild (1983) has been at the forefront of
attempts to develop theories explaining the characteristics and
experiences of care workers. England has identified a number of
conceptual frameworks to explain the pay deficit in care work. Some of
these provide a means of understanding variations in satisfaction with
care work. The 'prisoner of love' approach, on one hand,
argues that care workers enjoy higher intrinsic rewards than other
workers and hence employers are able to pay them lower wages. In other
words, care workers have altruistic motives that encourage them to enter
caring occupations and these motives are sufficient to sustain their
involvement and prevent them from seeking work with higher pay. This
approach implies that levels of satisfaction in care work will be high
compared to other occupations because of higher intrinsic rewards from
the job.
The 'commodity of emotion' approach, on the other hand,
suggests that care workers will have lower levels of satisfaction due to
the greater stresses and strains associated with the need to perform
emotional labour in addition to other work demands. This approach draws
heavily on Hochschild's (1983) work on emotional labour. Hochschild
argued that service workers are forced to act emotions and feelings that
they may not feel and that in doing so are subjected to additional
strains and stresses compared to other workers. For example, flight
attendants and other 'front desk' workers are required to
smile and be cheerful and deferential to customers, even though they may
feel annoyed and angry with customer demands. The implication of
Hochschild's work is that care workers are likely to experience
increased stress and hence lower levels of work satisfaction, heightened
by the fact that emotional work must be performed on demand and under
the control of others.
Previous empirical research has tended to find support for the
prisoner of love approach, finding that levels of job satisfaction among
service workers are as high, and in some cases higher, among those who
perform emotional labour (Wharton 1993). Wharton (1993) explicitly
attempted to test Hochschild's arguments concerning emotional
labour using data collected from workers employed in a banking company
and a large hospital in the United States. She found only limited
evidence that workers who performed emotional labour were more likely to
suffer emotional exhaustion and, contrary to expectations, found that
emotional labour was positively associated with job satisfaction. In
other words, those who performed emotional labour had higher levels of
job satisfaction than those who did not. Her results suggest some
variations in relation to job tenure, job autonomy and working hours,
with those who worked longer hours, and who had low autonomy and longer
tenure being more likely to suffer emotional exhaustion from their work
than others.
Australian research has also found relatively high levels of work
satisfaction among care workers compared to other occupational groups.
For example, Martin (2005; 2007) shows that, with the exception of
satisfaction with pay, levels of job satisfaction within the aged care
workforce are relatively high compared to the broader Australian
workforce. Over 70 per cent of respondents in his sample of personal
carers and nurses report satisfaction with their job security, the hours
worked, and the job overall. Moreover, work satisfaction was higher if
workers felt they had the opportunity to use their skills on the job
and, importantly, higher if they spent more time in direct care with
their patients. As Martin notes, this has two important implications.
First, levels of intrinsic job satisfaction of these two groups were
closely related to their work experience and the extent to which they
are able to use their skills to perform direct care work. Performing
care work is thus an important motivation for these groups of workers
and an important component of their job satisfaction. Second, job
satisfaction for these workers is determined primarily by how the work
is organised in care facilities and is therefore largely under the
control of facility managers (2007: 194). In other words, facility
managers play a very important role in meeting workers' preferences
through the allocation of work hours, organisation of shifts and
management of daily work routines. If workers are managed in a way that
enables them to spend sufficient time with residents, use their
professional skills and retain some job autonomy, levels of job
satisfaction will be higher and job turnover will be lower.
Childcare Workers and Dental Assistants in Australia
Care work in Australia is a highly feminised occupation with women
accounting for 95 per cent of employees (AIHW 2007). Care workers are
typically classified as community and personal service workers and their
average incomes are substantially lower than the average incomes of
employees more generally (ABS 2009). In 2009, adult non-managerial
female community and personal service workers employed on a full-time
basis earned, on average, $921 per week. In comparison, the average
weekly income across all adult female non-managerial employees was
$1,491 per week. Adult male non-managerial community and personal
service workers employed on a full-time basis earned, on average, $1,207
per week, substantially more than their female counterparts but also
substantially less than the average of $1,841 per week earned by adult
male non-managerial employees. A recent examination of the care
workforce conducted by Meagher (2007: 160) concluded that care work
attracted a 'care penalty in the labour market' whereby care
work is highly valued, but paid care work is not highly regarded as work
(2007: 163). This results in a high turnover of staff as care workers
move into non-caring occupations commensurate with their qualifications
in order to attract greater earnings rewards.
Childcare work, in particular, is characterised by low wages, poor
returns to education and high turnover rates. A similar situation exists
in Canada (Cleveland & Hyatt 2002), the United Kingdom (Cameron et
al. 2002) and the United States (England et al. 2002). According to the
ABS (2010), the hourly earnings of childcare workers were equal to
roughly two-thirds that of the hourly earnings for all employees. Female
childcare workers, on average, earned just $20 per hour compared to
$29.80 per hour average for all female employees in 2010. Dental
assistants also earn substantially less than female employees, on
average, with the award rate for dental assistants in Queensland in
2008-2009 ranging from $17.03 per hour for a level one assistant (entry
level) to $20.30 per hour for a level four assistant (the highest grade)
(AGWA 2008).
Despite similarities such as being low-paid, heavily feminised and
located in the broad category of service care work, there are also
important differences between childcare and dental assistance work that
make these occupations distinctive from each other. Childcare workers
are responsible for the care and education of young children and may
have the opportunity to care for the same set of children for a number
of years. They have also been at the centre of public debates about care
quality, the education of young children and affordable care, as well as
highly emotive discussions about the value of family care versus public
childcare. Intrinsic motivations for entering the occupation, such as a
love of children or a desire to care for young children, are likely to
be high and there is also likely to be considerable emotional labour
involved in taking care of young children.
Dental assistants on the other hand, are involved in the care of
patients, but unlike childcare workers who may have some autonomy in the
kinds of tasks and activities they do on a daily basis, are more likely
to undertake the same set of repetitive tasks under the direct
supervision of a dentist with a constantly changing set of patients.
Intrinsic reasons for entering the occupation are less obvious than is
the case for childcare. But like childcare workers, dental assistants
may be required to perform considerable emotional labour both in front
desk and surgery tasks.
In sum, there are similarities between these two groups at a
general level in terms of occupational type, level of feminization and
broad pay rates. But on a day-to-day level they each involve quite
distinctive types of activities which may lead to very different
on-the-job experiences. Comparison of these two occupations will thus
enable us to examine whether the broad similarities of the occupations
or specific day-to-day experiences are most important in terms of levels
of job satisfaction.
In this paper, we examine the link between intrinsic motivations
for undertaking care work and work satisfaction, and extend previous
work by also examining extrinsic motivations. We are unable to assess
the commodity of emotion approach as we do not have direct measures of
this in our data and both childcare workers and dental assistants are
likely to be required to perform emotional labour at various times in
their work. Our research thus addresses three main research questions:
1. Are childcare workers and dental assistants satisfied with
their work conditions?
2. How do levels of work satisfaction vary between these two
groups?
3. What factors lead to variations in work satisfaction for
childcare workers and dental assistants?
Data
We analyse data from the 2009 Women-Work-Care Project, a recent
project conducted by researchers at the University of Queensland in
partnership with the Queensland Office for Women and the Queensland
Office of Fair and Safe Work. The Women-Work-Care Project surveyed
childcare workers and dental assistants, two female-dominated 'care
work' occupations within the health and community services industry
in Queensland in 2009 (N=1,767). These are occupations in which pay
increases had been delivered under Queensland's Equal Remuneration
Principle in 2005 and 2006, and hence for the purposes of the broader
project, provided useful case studies to examine the impact and
sustainability of these interventions and the ways in which they are
affected by federal legislative developments. But they are also
occupations of interest in relation to examining women's
experiences of care work, comprising two distinct, but highly feminised
forms of care work.
The project team mailed questionnaires to 371 child care centres
and 649 dental surgeries throughout Queensland. Completed questionnaires
were received from 889 employees in 215 child care centres and 878
employees in 369 dental surgeries. The project team calculated a
workplace response rate by estimating the number of workplaces from
which at least one completed questionnaire was received as a percentage
of the number of workplaces contacted. The employee response rate was
then calculated by estimating the number of completed questionnaires
received as a percentage of the total number of employees in
participating workplaces. The workplace response rate was 58 per cent
for child care centres and 57 per cent for dental surgeries. The
employee response rate was 30 per cent for child care workers and 49 per
cent for dental assistants (Chesters et al. 2010).
We restrict our sample of childcare workers to group leaders and
childcare assistants, excluding those who defined themselves as
Directors, and our sample of dental assistants to respondents who spent
at least part of their time at work as chair side assistants. We focus
solely on women, as less than one per cent of respondents were men. Our
analytical sample includes 682 childcare workers and 661 dental
assistants.
For the purpose of comparison with a broader national sample of
Australian employees in Table 1, we also examine data from Wave 9 of the
HILDA project collected in 2009. HILDA is a panel survey which collects
data from the same respondents each year. In the first wave in 2001, a
nationally representative sample of all Australian households was
selected and 13,969 people aged 15 years or older living in those
households were interviewed (Watson & Wooden 2002). Of these, 9,245
were re-interviewed in 2009 for wave 9 (Summerfield 2010). Only
respondents who were employed at the time of the wave 9 survey are
included in these analyses (n=6,851).
Descriptive Statistics
The characteristics of our sample are shown in Table 1. Both
childcare workers and dental assistants are relatively young: 47 per
cent of childcare workers are aged less than 30 years as are 63 per cent
of dental assistants. Service workers (1) in the HILDA sample are also
relatively young with 43 per cent of male and 39 per cent of female
service workers aged less than 30 years. Only 36 per cent of male
employees and 35 per cent of female employees in the broader working
population sampled in HILDA are aged less than 30 years.
The majority of childcare workers (80 per cent) and dental
assistants (66 per cent) hold a tertiary qualification at either
certificate or diploma level. In contrast, 41 per cent of male service
workers, 50 per cent of female service workers, 36 per cent of male
employees and 29 per cent of female employees in the HILDA sample hold a
certificate or diploma level qualification. Childcare workers are much
more likely to be employed on a permanent part-time basis (61 per cent)
compared to dental assistants (13 per cent), or service workers and
employees more generally. In contrast, only 25 per cent of childcare
workers are employed on a full-time (2) permanent basis compared to 44
per cent of dental assistants. Childcare workers are also less likely to
be employed on a casual basis (14 per cent) compared to dental
assistants (42 per cent).
Overall these results suggest that the average childcare worker is
likely to be a young woman with formal qualifications working less than
38 hours per week. Dental assistants also tend to be young but are less
likely than childcare workers to hold a formal qualification or to be
employed part-time. Despite their higher educational qualifications,
childcare workers earned, on average, $18.72 per hour, somewhat less
than the $21.25 per hour earned by dental assistants. These hourly
earnings are also lower than the average hourly earnings reported by
service workers in the HILDA sample. Female service workers, on average,
earned $21.69 per hour and male service workers, on average, reported
earning $27.49 per hour.
Extrinsic/Intrinsic Job Motivation
One of the reasons that care work is so female dominated is that
care work is more consistent with gender stereotypes about appropriate
labour for women compared to men. Paid employment in these occupations
is often seen as an extension of their work at home. Previous research
(Martin 2006; Wharton 1993) suggests that a consideration of
workers' motivations for entering particular kinds of jobs is
important for understanding their levels of job satisfaction. Therefore
in our analysis we include a variable to identify whether our
respondents were motivated to enter into these fields for primarily
intrinsic reasons or extrinsic reasons. Intrinsic reasons for entering
particular occupations may be related to the desire to care for others
or the desire to have a job generally regarded as being useful to
society, such as jobs in the health and education sectors. Intrinsic
reasons for entering childcare work include wanting to care for young
children or wanting to work in the education sector. Dental assistants
may be motivated by intrinsic factors such as a desire to care for
patients or to work in the health sector. Extrinsic reasons for entering
either of these fields include the level of pay, the career path and the
availability of jobs.
Respondents in the Women-Work-Care project were asked about the
main reason they chose to work in their current occupation. Table 2
shows that the majority of childcare workers chose either 'I really
wanted to care for young children' (49 per cent) or 'I really
wanted to be an early childhood educator' (22 per cent). This
indicates that intrinsic rewards were major factors encouraging entry to
this occupation. Ten per cent of childcare workers selected more than
one reason for choosing their current occupation and of these, the
majority (94 per cent) of these included either or both of these
options. Almost half of the dental assistants chose one of the two
intrinsic factors as being the main reason for working as a dental
assistant. Twelve per cent selected 'I really wanted to care for
patients' and 37 per cent selected 'I really wanted to work in
the field of dentistry'. The majority of respondents (85 per cent)
who chose more than one reason included either or both of these options.
Five per cent of childcare workers and 17 per cent of dental assistants
chose the response category 'other'. These responses were
assigned as either intrinsic or extrinsic. For example, factors
mentioned by childcare workers coded as intrinsic included:
'Inability to have my own children' or 'I love the
job'. Factors such as 'the first opportunity that came my
way' or 'the only study available' were coded extrinsic.
For dental assistants, factors such as 'it interests me' and
'the diversity of the duties' were coded as intrinsic and
factors such as 'opportunity arose' or 'I needed a job
and one was available' were coded as extrinsic.
Respondents were divided into two categories according to their
responses to these questions. Respondents who selected all intrinsic
factors were assigned to the intrinsic category (78 per cent).
Respondents who selected all extrinsic factors were assigned to the
extrinsic category (19 per cent). Respondents who selected a mixture of
intrinsic and extrinsic factors were coded as mixed (3 per cent). For
the regression analyses we exclude those who reported mixed motivations
and include a dummy variable coded 1= intrinsic and 0= extrinsic.
Job Satisfaction
In our analyses, we include three measures of job satisfaction:
intrinsic, extrinsic and overall job satisfaction. Extrinsic job
satisfaction concerns levels of satisfaction with issues such as job
security, level of pay, hours worked and flexibility. Intrinsic job
satisfaction concerns the level of freedom in job activities, public
perception of the occupation, and levels of job stress. The
Women-Work-Care survey included questions about satisfaction with
specific aspects of the job which allow us to examine satisfaction with
individual aspects of the job as well as job satisfaction more
generally. Table 3 presents the percentages of childcare workers and
dental assistants who were satisfied with specific aspects of their
jobs. Levels of satisfaction vary considerably between employees in
these two occupations. For example, only 59 per cent of childcare
workers indicated that they were satisfied with their job overall
compared to 72 per cent of dental assistants. Moreover, only 19 per cent
of childcare workers were satisfied with their rate of pay compared to
46 per cent of dental assistants. Child care workers were also less
satisfied with the level of stress associated with the job: 27 per cent
compared to 40 per cent of dental assistants. In sum, dental assistants
report higher levels of satisfaction with all aspects of their job
compared to childcare workers.
To examine levels intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction more
comprehensively, we created two indexes, an extrinsic job satisfaction
index and an intrinsic job satisfaction index. The Women-Work-Care
project asked respondents four questions relating to their intrinsic job
satisfaction:
How satisfied are you with the effort you have to put into your
work?
How satisfied are you with the stress you have in your job?
How satisfied are you with your freedom to decide how to do your
job?
How satisfied are you with the public perception of your job?
Response categories ranged from 1= very dissatisfied to 5 = very
satisfied. We constructed an intrinsic job satisfaction index by summing
the values of responses to the four questions and taking the mean. To
test the internal consistency of this index we calculated the
Cronbach's alpha. The Cronbach's alpha takes a value of
between 0 and 1 and is calculated on the basis of the number of
contributing variables and the correlations between them. A reliable
indicator should have a value of alpha of at least 0.7. The values for
this index of 0.80 for childcare workers and 0.82 for dental assistants
indicate that the measures are all tapping the same underlying concept
and may therefore be combined into a single index measure.
Respondents were also asked four questions relating to extrinsic
job satisfaction:
How satisfied are you with your overall rate of pay?
How satisfied are you with your usual hours of work?
How satisfied are you with your job security?
How satisfied are you with the flexibility to balance work and
family?
Again, response categories ranged from 1= very dissatisfied to 5 =
very satisfied. We constructed the extrinsic job satisfaction index by
summing the values of responses to these four items and taking the mean.
The Cronbach's alpha score for these measures were 0.72 for
childcare workers, 0.79 for dental assistants. We also examined levels
of overall job satisfaction using the responses to the question asking
respondents how satisfied they were with their job overall.
Table 4 reports the results of the t-tests conducted to determine
the statistical significance of differences in mean levels of
satisfaction between childcare workers and dental assistants. The mean
for childcare workers is lower on each of the three measures, including
intrinsic job satisfaction, indicating that childcare workers were less
satisfied with their jobs than dental assistants. The differences
between the satisfaction levels of childcare workers and dental
assistants reported here are highly statistically significant, returning
p-values of less than 0.0001. These results indicate that although
intrinsic motivations for entering childcare and dental assistant work
are high, these motivations are not necessarily rewarded, particularly
in the case of childcare workers.
Explaining Variations in Job Satisfaction
The final analyses turn to an examination of the factors that lead
to variations in levels of job satisfaction for childcare workers and
dental assistants. We are interested here in whether the reasons for
entering the occupation, defined as either intrinsic or extrinsic
motivations, are associated with variations in levels of work
satisfaction. As discussed above, the 'prisoner of love'
theory suggests that care workers enjoy higher intrinsic rewards than
other workers and consequently, are willing to endure other possibly
negative features of a job, such as low wages. We can extend this to
argue that those who enjoy high intrinsic rewards should also report
high levels of job satisfaction, regardless of other features of the
job. We are not able to test this directly as we are measuring
motivations for entering the job, rather than rewards or outcomes. But
what we are able to examine is whether motivations for entering the
occupation are related to rewards in terms of levels of job
satisfaction.
Further we are able to examine this association for different kinds
of work satisfaction. For example, it may be expected that intrinsic
motivations will be associated with satisfaction with intrinsic aspects
of the job but not with overall job satisfaction. Similarly, extrinsic
motivations may be associated with extrinsic job satisfaction, but not
intrinsic job satisfaction.
Our models enable examination of these associations controlling for
a range of individual and workplace characteristics. The models are run
separately for childcare workers and dental assistants and include three
main groups of independent variables, measuring characteristics of the
job, work experiences, and characteristics of the individuals.
We examine three kinds of job characteristics: occupation,
employment status and tenure. For childcare workers, occupation
differentiates those who are employed as group leaders and those who are
childcare assistants (coded 1). For dental assistants, occupation
differentiates those who are employed as both dental assistants and
receptionists and those who are solely dental assistants (coded 1). The
employment status variable has four categories and is coded as a series
of dummy variables: permanent full-time (the reference), permanent
part-time and causal full- or part-time. The tenure variable divides
respondents into three groups according to their length of time in their
current job. We distinguish those who have less than 2 years tenure (the
reference), those with 2-5 years tenure and those with 5 or more
years' tenure.
Our work experience variables are designed to capture a range of
day-to-day work-life issues including whether respondents have another
job and whether they have a good fit between work and family
commitments. We also include a range of measures of on-the-job
experiences such as whether respondents have to work extra hours,
whether they have a say in their work roster, whether they ever have to
work at short notice, or take work home, whether they are able to choose
their annual leave date, whether they are able to decide when to take a
lunch break or a tea break. Each of these variables is included as a
dummy variable (coded 1= yes).
Characteristics of the respondents included in our regression
models are age, education, marital status, ethnicity, whether they have
children at home, and whether they have any other unpaid care
responsibilities (such as elderly parents or a partner with a
disability). These variables are primarily included as controls. We
divide respondents into four age groups: aged less than 20 years
(reference category), aged 20-29 years, 30-39 years and 40 or more
years. The education variable has four categories measuring educational
attainment: less than Year 12 (reference category), completed Year 12,
completed a certificate or diploma and completed a university degree. We
distinguish those who are in a live-in partnered relationship (coded
1=yes), regardless of whether cohabiting or married, with those who are
single or not living with a partner. We control for ethnicity with a
variable measuring whether born in Australia (coded 1=yes). Unpaid work
demands are controlled with a dummy variable measuring whether
respondents have a dependent
child living at home (coded 1=yes) or whether respondents have other
unpaid caring responsibilities, such as caring for a sick relative or
elderly parent (coded 1=yes). Table A1 shows descriptive statistics for
all of the independent variables in the regression models.
Table 5 reports our results. Our findings were very similar for all
three measures of work satisfaction and for this reason we only show the
regression coefficients for our measure of intrinsic work satisfaction.
Our modelling strategy is to examine job satisfaction separately for
childcare workers and dental assistants, to include job motivation in
all models, and to sequentially include in subsequent models each of the
groups of variables of interest. The final model includes all variables.
This results in three models for each occupation group.
Our main finding in all models for both childcare workers and
dental assistants is that motivation for entering the job has no effect
on levels of work satisfaction, a finding that is consistent across all
three measures of job satisfaction. Thus there is no evidence here that
intrinsic or extrinsic motivations for entering an occupation are
associated with variations in levels of work satisfaction. Intrinsic
motivations for working in childcare, for example really wanting to work
with young children, do not lead to higher levels of job satisfaction.
Similarly extrinsic motivations, such as the flexibility to balance work
and family, are also not related to satisfaction outcomes.
The variables that are most important for determining variations in
job satisfaction for both childcare workers and dental assistants are
the measures of work experience and day-to-day work-life issues.
Childcare workers who have some control over their weekly work rosters,
who are not asked to work at short notice, do not have to take work
home, have high levels of work-family balance and are able to take
regular breaks during the day are more satisfied with their jobs than
their counterparts. Similar results are evident for dental assistants,
although here the significant variables are working at short notice and
having high levels of work family balance. Childcare workers who are
employed part-time have lower levels of intrinsic job satisfaction than
those employed full-time, but this effect is not significant in the
final model with all controls. Interestingly, the opposite pattern is
evident for dental assistants where those employed part-time have higher
levels of intrinsic job satisfaction.
The only demographic variable which is statistically significant is
the measure of dependent children. Here the coefficient indicates that
dental assistants with dependent children have higher levels of work
satisfaction than those with no children, a result that is also found
for the models of overall job satisfaction, but not for extrinsic job
satisfaction (results not shown). There is no evidence that age, level
of education, partnered status or ethnicity are related to variations in
job satisfaction.
Discussion
This paper contributes to our understanding of women's
experiences in the female-dominated care sector. Although we know that
paid care work in the service sector is typically undertaken by women
and that this work is often poorly rewarded in terms of pay and
promotion opportunities, we know much less about the reasons why women
enter these jobs or their experiences of this work. This paper focuses
on variations in levels of job satisfaction among two occupational
groups in this sector: childcare workers and dental assistants. One of
the clearest findings emerging in our study is that childcare workers
have much lower levels of job satisfaction with all aspects of their
jobs than dental assistants. Just over half of childcare workers are
satisfied with their jobs overall, compared to three quarters of dental
assistants. The discrepancies in levels of satisfaction are particularly
apparent in terms of pay, with only 19 per cent of childcare workers
reporting satisfaction with pay compared to almost half of dental
assistants. This is not surprising given the low hourly earnings of
childcare workers compared to dental assistants and indicates that care
work is quite variable in terms of pay, conditions and experiences. It
is important therefore to examine specific occupations and to be
cautious about generalising too broadly about the experiences of women
in the paid care sector.
Second, previous work has suggested that one of the reasons why
women remain in poorly paid jobs of this kind is because they love the
work and have high levels of intrinsic motivations and rewards. The
prisoner of love thesis suggests that care workers have very high
altruistic motivations and experiences of care work which sustain their
commitment to the job, despite poor financial rewards. If this is the
case, we might also expect to find high levels of job satisfaction among
these workers, notwithstanding poor pay, conditions and few other
extrinsic rewards. But although we find clear evidence that intrinsic
motivations are important factors determining entry to these
occupations, particularly for childcare workers, this does not translate
into higher levels of satisfaction in the job. Rather the opposite seems
to be the case. Just over 70 per cent of childcare workers reported
intrinsic motivations for entering childcare, but this group reports the
lowest level of satisfaction with all aspects of their job, including
intrinsic aspects. Intrinsic motivations are comparatively less
important for the dental assistants with just over half reporting
intrinsic factors as the main reason for entering the job.
This suggests that it is important to distinguish between intrinsic
motivations and intrinsic rewards. The prisoner of love thesis implies
that high intrinsic motivations will be rewarded with high intrinsic
rewards, or love of the job. But our research suggests that the two are
not necessarily related. Intrinsic motivations may encourage women to
enter childcare as an occupation, but low levels of satisfaction with
the job suggest that their experiences do not live up to expectations.
In contrast, the number of women entering dental assistant work due to
intrinsic motivations is lower and yet the level of satisfaction is
considerably higher for this group. Perhaps differing expectations about
what the work will involve are part of the reason behind variations in
levels of satisfaction. If women entering childcare do so because of a
strong desire to work with young children, but then find that the
realities of the job do not live up to expectations, their satisfaction
levels are likely to be lower than women who have entered occupations,
such as dental care, with lower expectations about intrinsic rewards.
Our third main finding is the high level of consistency across
these two groups in the factors predicting work satisfaction. Although
the occupations are quite distinct, and as discussed above, reasons for
entering them are quite different, there is remarkable similarity in the
factors predicting job satisfaction. For both groups job satisfaction is
closely related to their day-to-day experiences of the job. This is
evident for all three measures, intrinsic, extrinsic and overall job
satisfaction. The more control workers have over their rosters and their
working hours, the better the level of work-family balance and the more
opportunities to take regular breaks during the day, the more satisfied
they are with their work. These results are similar to those reported by
Martin (2005; 2007) for the aged care workforce. The implication, as
Martin notes in his study, is that levels of work satisfaction are
largely under the control of managers in specific work settings. In
other words, job satisfaction is determined, in part, by factors over
which managers and directors in particular centres and agencies have a
great deal of discretion. Managers and directors are likely able to
control for example, the ways in which rosters are organised, how much
notice is given about changes in working hours and whether there are
opportunities for regular breaks. This means that managers and directors
in particular workplaces will play a crucial role in determining levels
of work satisfaction for these groups.
Conclusion
Understanding how women experience jobs in the paid care sector is
crucial if we are to retain highly motivated and committed workers in
these areas. If the paid care sector is an area where we are likely to
witness increasing labour shortages in coming years, as some
commentators have suggested, it is important that we understand why
workers enter these jobs, and how they experience their work. Much of
the paid care sector is heavily feminised, poorly paid, has few
promotion prospects and is increasingly precarious in terms of labour
contracts and security of tenure. Yet our research also shows that there
are marked differences across occupational groups in the reasons why
women enter these jobs and in their experiences and outcomes in terms of
job satisfaction. It is impossible then to view all occupations in this
sector as similar in terms of rewards, outcomes and experiences. Rather
we need further research that is both informed by broad understandings
of patterns of gender inequality and sex segregation in the labour
market but also delves more deeply into the motivations, experiences and
outcomes of women in particular occupational settings.
Table A1: Descriptive statistics for the variables in the
regression models (a)
Childcare Dental
workers assistants
Extrinsic reason 0.19 0.45
Intrinsic reason 0.77 0.51
Job characteristics
Occupation
Group leader 0.54
Childcare assistants 0.46
Dental assistant 0.81
Comb. DA & Recept. 0.19
Employment status
Permanent full-time 0.25 0.44
Permanent part-time 0.61 0.13
Casual f/t or p/t 0.14 0.42
Fixed term f/t or p/t 0.00 0.003
Tenure
< 2 years 0.46 0.51
2 to <5 years 0.35 0.26
5+ years 0.20 0.23
Work experience
Another job (1=yes) 0.07 0.08
Extra hours (1=yes) 0.47 0.48
Say in roster (1=yes) 0.64 0.75
Work short notice (1=yes) 0.46 0.25
Take work home (1=yes) 0.52 0.07
Good family balance (1=yes) 0.85 0.91
Choose annual leave (1=yes) 0.92 0.88
Take lunch break (1=yes) 0.91 0.93
Take tea break (1=yes) 0.41 0.56
Respondents characteristics
Age
<20 years 0.07 0.14
20-29 years 0.40 0.49
30-39 years 0.24 0.15
40+ years 0.29 0.22
Education
<Year 12 0.03 0.06
Year 12 0.04 0.19
Certificate /Diploma 0.80 0.66
University degree 0.10 0.05
Born in Australia 0.83 0.84
Partnered 0.59 0.54
Unpaid care responsibilities 0.13 0.10
Dependent child 0.40 0.29
N 682 661
(a) Figures are proportions in each category of the
variable.
Source: Women-Work-Care Project, 2009
Acknowledgment
This paper uses data from the Work-Women-Care Project which was
supported under the Australian Research Council's Linkage Projects
funding scheme (LP0775131). This paper also uses unit record data from
the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey.
The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Australian
Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and
Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute
of Applied Economic and Social Research (MIAESR). The findings and views
reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not
be attributed to either FaHCSIA or the MIAESR.
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Endnotes
(1.) The term "service workers' refers to persons
employed as community and personal service workers in the Australian and
New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) (ABS 2006)
such as child care workers, dental assistants, hospitality, workers and
aged care workers.
(2.) Full-time employment refers to 38 hours per week as per the
relevant industrial awards covering these two occupations.
Table 1: Sample characteristics of selected groups from Women-
Work-Care Project and HILDA Wave 9.
HILDA Wave 9
Childcare Dental Service
workers assistants workers
Females Females Males Females
Age
<20 years 7 14 16 13
20-29 years 40 49 27 27
30-39 years 24 15 19 15
Education
<Year 12 3 6 21 19
Year 12 4 19 25 22
Certificate /Diploma 80 66 41 50
University degree 10 5 13 9
Missing 3 3
Employment status
Permanent full-time 25 44 43 18
Permanent part-time 61 13 9 35
Casual f/t or p/t 14 42 39 39
Fixed term f/t or p/t <1 <1 8 8
Occupation
Group leader 54
Childcare assistants 46
Dental assistant 81
Combined dental 19
assistant &
receptionist
Hourly earnings $18.72 $21.25 $27.49 $21.69
N 682 661 237 510
HILDA Wave 9
All
occupations
Males Females
Age
<20 years 10 10
20-29 years 25 24
30-39 years 21 19
Education
<Year 12 22 22
Year 12 18 20
Certificate /Diploma 36 29
University degree 24 29
Missing
Employment status
Permanent full-time 62 35
Permanent part-time 9 30
Casual f/t or p/t 19 25
Fixed term f/t or p/t 10 10
Occupation
Group leader
Childcare assistants
Dental assistant
Combined dental
assistant &
receptionist
Hourly earnings $29.19 $25.66
N 3398 3452
Source: Women-Work-Care Project, 2009; HILDA Wave 9, 2009.
Table 2: Main reason for working in childcare and dentistry
Childcare Dental
workers assistants
Intrinsic factors
I really wanted to care for young children 49
I really wanted to be an early 22
childhood educator
I really wanted to care for patients 12
I really wanted to work in the field of 37
dentistry
Extrinsic factors
The pay <1 3
The conditions of work 1 3
The flexibility to balance work and 6 9
family
The only work I could find near 4 9
where I live
I thought qualifications would be 2 3
easy
Other 5 17
Multiple response 10 6
N 679 653
Source: Women-Work-Care Project, 2009
Table 3: Per cent satisfied with specific aspects of job
Childcare Dental
Satisfied with: workers assistants
% (n) % (n)
Job overall 59 (663) 72 (649)
The effort you have to put in 65 (668) 74 (651)
Stress you have in your job 27 (662) 40 (649)
Freedom to decide how to do 42 (665) 53 (648)
your job
Overall rate of pay 19 (669) 46 (648)
Usual hours of work 59 (669) 63 (651)
Job security 54 (666) 74 (651)
Flexibility to balance 51 (663) 62 (650)
work/family
Public perception of job 31 (661) 49 (648)
Source: Women-Work-Care Project, 2009
Table 4: Mean levels of intrinsic, extrinsic and overall job
satisfaction and t-test of mean differences
Childcare Dental Std t-statistic
workers assistants err.
Intrinsic job factors 3.20 3.63 0.0403 -10.7563 ***
Extrinsic job factors 3.18 3.55 0.0421 -8.8761 ***
Overall job satisfaction 3.62 3.88 0.0510 -5.0718 ***
*** p < 0.0001
Table 5: Ordinary least squares regression predicting intrinsic
job satisfaction for childcare workers and dental assistants (a)
Childcare workers
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Motivation
Extrinsic reason
(ref)
Intrinsic reason 0.01 (0.08) -0.01 (0.08) -0.02 (0.08)
Job
characteristics
Occupation
Group leader (ref)
Childcare 0.14 * (0.06) 0.06 (0.07) 0.04 (0.07)
assistant
Dental assistants
(ref)
Comb. DA &
Reception
Employment status
Permanent full-
time(ref)
Permanent part- 0.16 * (0.07) -0.15 * (0.07) -0.14 (0.07)
time
Casual f/t or p/t 0.03 (0.11) -0.04 (0.10) -0.02 (0.11)
Tenure
<2 years
tenure(ref)
2 to <5 years 0.13 (0.07) -0.10 (0.07) -0.08 (0.07)
tenure
5+ years tenure -0.05 (0.09) -0.11 (0.08) -0.08 (0.09)
Work experience
Another job 0.12 (0.11) 0.13 (0.11)
(1= yes)
Extra hours 0.07 (0.06) 0.07 (0.06)
(1 = yes)
Say in roster 0.29 *** (0.06) 0.30 *** (0.06)
(1 = yes)
Work short notice 0.19 ** (0.06) -0.19 ** (0.06)
(1 = yes)
Take work home -0.19 ** (0.07) -0.19 ** (0.07)
(1 = yes)
Good family 0.49 *** (0.08) 0.48 *** (0.08)
balance
(1 = yes)
Choose annual 0.0001 (0.11) -0.001 (0.12)
leave (1 = yes)
Take lunch break 0.004 (0.11) -0.01 (0.11)
(1 = yes)
Take tea break 0.15 * (0.06) 0.15 * (0.06)
(1 = yes)
Respondent
characteristics
Age
<20 years (ref)
20-29 years -0.001 (0.13)
30-39 years 0.01 (0.15)
40+ years 0.03 (0.14)
Education
< Year 12 (ref)
Year 12 0.06 (0.23)
Certificate/ 0.05 (0.19)
diploma
University degree -0.09 (0.21)
Born in Australia -0.02 (0.08)
(1 = yes)
Partnered -0.07 (0.06)
(1 = yes)
Unpaid care resp. -0.14 (0.09)
(1 = yes)
Dependent child 0.003 (0.07)
(1 = yes)
Constant 2.96 *** (0.20) 2.65 *** (0.27) 2.75 *** (0.36)
N 669 669 669
Adjusted R2 0.0193 0.1356 0.1314
Dental assistants
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Motivation
Extrinsic reason
(ref)
Intrinsic reason 0.07 (0.06) 0.08 (0.06) 0.08 (0.06)
Job
characteristics
Occupation
Group leader (ref)
Childcare
assistant
Dental assistants
(ref)
Comb. DA & 0.10 (0.07) 0.11 (0.07) 0.09 (0.07)
Reception
Employment status
Permanent full-
time(ref)
Permanent part- 0.21 * (0.09) 0.19 * (0.09) 0.10 (0.09)
time
Casual f/t or p/t 0.19 ** (0.06) 0.18 ** (0.06 0.10 (0.06)
Tenure
<2 years
tenure(ref)
2 to <5 years -0.10 (0.07) -0.09 (0.07) -0.08 (0.07)
tenure
5+ years tenure 0.06 (0.07) -0.10 (0.07) -0.16 * (0.08)
Work experience
Another job -0.07 (0.10) -0.05 (0.10)
(1= yes)
Extra hours -0.13 * (0.06 -0.11 (0.06)
(1 = yes)
Say in roster 0.03 (0.07) 0.03 (0.07)
(1 = yes)
Work short notice -0.22 *** (0.07) -0.20 ** (0.07)
(1 = yes)
Take work home -0.12 (0.11) -0.13 (0.11)
(1 = yes)
Good family 0.34 *** (0.10) 0.31 ** (0.10)
balance
(1 = yes)
Choose annual 0.07 (0.09) 0.04 (0.09)
leave (1 = yes)
Take lunch break 0.15 (0.11) 0.19 (0.11)
(1 = yes)
Take tea break 0.13 * (0.06) 0.11 (0.06
(1 = yes)
Respondent
characteristics
Age
<20 years (ref)
20-29 years 0.10 (0.09)
30-39 years 0.02(0.13)
40+ years -0.01 (0.12)
Education
< Year 12 (ref)
Year 12 0.22 (0.13)
Certificate/ -0.20 (0.12)
diploma
University degree -0.25 (0.17)
Born in Australia 0.10 (0.08)
(1 = yes)
Partnered 0.02 (0.06)
(1 = yes)
Unpaid care resp. -0.02 (0.09)
(1 = yes)
Dependent child 0.17 * (0.08)
(1 = yes)
Constant 3.13 *** (0.24) 2.63 *** (0.27) 2.87 *** (0.30)
N 653 653 653
Adjusted R2 0.0132 0.0841 0.0943
* p <0.05, ** p <0.01, *** p <0.001. (a.) Coefficient with
standard errors in parentheses.
Dummy variables for missing cases on some variables were included
in the model (coefficients not reported).
