A Study of Component Gender in Job Satisfaction of University Lecturers

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1 Ref: 6.16 Type: Working Paper Stream: Gendered Issues in HRD A Study of Component Gender in Job Satisfaction of University Lecturers Ali Hajiha Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch Iran. a_hajiha@iau-tnb.ac.ir Farhad ghaffari Islamic Azad University, Science & Research Branch Iran f_ghaffari@yahoo.com Asal bahrami M.A student of public management Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch Iran assal_bahrami@yahoo.com Abstract The present research has attended to the influence of gender of job satisfaction among university lecturers. To do this, job descriptive index and other existing world standards have been used. Job satisfaction among male and female lecturers in five aspects of supervision, work itself, salary, promotion, and relations with co-workers were evaluated and compared. The statistical population for this research is Islamic Azad University, which is the largest non-government and non-profit university in Iran. This research was conducted in one of its branches located in the Northern part of Tehran. This branch embraces eight faculties. The results showed that there is no significant difference in job satisfaction between male and female lecturers. Other results show that the most share part in men's job satisfaction belongs to work itself, supervision, and co-workers in a descending order. While among women promotion and then relations with co-workers are the most important. Keywords: Job Satisfaction, Biographical Characteristics, Gender, University Lecturers

2 1. Introduction Today the most important asset of organizations and institutions is their man power. This gains even higher significance where specialist man power is required. University as the highest ranking science production institution has always been trying to elevate the level of knowledge and awareness, and train specialist man power. In this regard, it is important to pay due attention to job satisfaction of the lecturers, as individuals who are involved in education business. The nature of educational and research environments requires the job satisfaction factor to be inspected from different aspects. But one of the most important sources that causes the formation of opinions and job satisfaction is the biographical characteristics of people. Of these characteristics, gender, due to its nature and role in physical and psychological differences between men and women and their viewpoints, plays a key role affecting job satisfaction factor. On the other hand, despite all the advancements made so far in removing gender differences around the world, yet there are still several social, political, legal, and cultural problems which prevent women from using their maximum abilities and creativity. According to what was said before, this research has attended to the difference between job satisfaction in male and female university lecturers. 2. Literature review During the recent years, job satisfaction has turned to one of the most important objectives of organizations. Without providing job satisfaction to their staff members, organizations cannot gain competitive advantages at any level of production or rendering services. [1]. Among the influential factors on job satisfaction, is the biographical characteristics of people. Studying the relation between job satisfaction and gender as the number of women is increasing in businesses is among the issues which have drawn the attention of researchers [2, 3]. Researches conducted on gender index show have indicated different results. In some cases women had a higher job satisfaction ration than men, and in some others the reverse has been proved. In this regard, the researches show that women value social aspects of a job more than men do [4]. On the other hand, to men dominance in job and promotion opportunities matter more. Of course many researches have shown no significant difference between gender and job satisfaction [5]. Various researches have been done regarding different aspects of job satisfaction in universities. For example, results of a research showed that as far as two indices of promotion opportunity and supervision are concerned, women lecturers have lower job satisfaction than men. A research on job satisfaction has shown that male lecturers have lower job satisfaction compared to female ones. Another research has shown the reverse. A research has shown that in universities staff members are dissatisfied with salary and promotion most. A research done in 2005 indicated that the average salary of a female lecturer is 88% times as much as that of a male's [6]. Another similar research conducted in America showed that male lecturers receive higher salary than female ones. Another research done in England has proved the results gained from the previous one [7]. Different researches have shown that the indices of salary and its related policies affect productivity and the number of absent without leave sessions of the staff members. Therefore salary satisfaction not only is a financial matter, but also can be

3 related to psychological issues. This, in turn indicates the importance of salary and its role in job satisfaction [8]. The results of the research done regarding the relations among the university lecturers show that there is no difference between men and women in this regard [9]. In different researches, the extent of satisfaction among male and female lecturers on salary, increase in the number of their publications, job stress level, and job satisfaction were compared. Although female lecturers had lower salary, slower promotion pace, smaller number of published articles, and higher job stress, but the job satisfaction level was nearly the same in both groups [10]. In another research conducted in 2006 in Turkey, the results showed that despite the fact that female lecturers are a little underestimated, yet they show a similar satisfaction level to that of males' [11]. 3. Research Methodology In this research, to know the differences in satisfaction indices based on gender component, the following assumptions have been proposed: salary is concerned. benefiting from their opportunities to make improvement and promotion is concerned. their supervisors are concerned. their co-workers are concerned. the work itself is concerned. The means of measurement for this research was a questionnaire devised by the researcher. To collect the required data, Five point Likert scale was used. To design the questionnaire, job descriptive index and existing world standards were enjoyed. The questionnaire consisted of 36 questions on five points of job, and one question was about gender of the lecturers. So, through the collected data, research assumptions were attempted to be answered. Sampling method was cluster random sampling. This was used to select a number of lecturers. In all eight faculties, In order to determine the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach s Alpha coefficient was used. The observed coefficient in this phase was To determine the validity, face validity and opinions of the lecturers who had answered the questions were used. Thus the problems of the questionnaire were removed. In all eight faculties, 150 questionnaires were handed out among the lecturers, Of this number, 111 questionnaires were capable of being analyzed. It is worth mentioning that the required number was 110. This research took four months to be completed, from early Autumn (2008) to mid-winter (2009). Table 1 shows the indices used in designing the questionnaire.

4 JDI Facet scales Pay Table 1. Indices stipulated in the questionnaire Indices Reasonable salary, Financial security, Luxurious life, Meeting every day expenses, Additional financial advantages Promotion Improvement opportunities, Appropriate equipment, Rules and regulations, Competition, Promotion path, Giving information Co-worker Encouraging, Loyal, Accountable, Active and dynamic, Friendly, Scientific knowledge and potentiality, Scientific activities, Observing ethical values, Fair competition Supervision Work itself Merit, Updated information, Opinion poll, Job feedback, Appreciating job, Good manners, Supportive role, Scientific knowledge and potentiality Creative and new, Enjoying the job, General respect, Useful and valuable, Challenging, Independence, Research opportunities, Flexible working hours 4. Results analysis 4.1. the outcome of Mann-Whitney test To test the proposed hypotheses on job satisfaction in male and female lecturer, Mann-Whitney method, a non-parametric statistical method, was used. Therefore, as samples were separate and independent, Mann-Whitney test function was used. This test measures the mean of the opinions of the two groups of lecturers based on their gender on each aspect of job satisfaction. The results have been indicated in Table 2. Table 2. Mann-Whitney test for men and women separately Gender N Mean Rank Sum of Ranks Mann- Whitney U Wilcoxon W Z Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) Work itself female male Total supervision female male Total Co-worker female male Total promotion female male Total Pay female male Total Considering the results of Mann-Whitney test and the related probability level, it can be said that at.95 level, there is no significant difference in any job satisfaction aspects between male and female lecturers in Azad University, North Tehran Branch. The results obtained on the median of the answers in each aspect show sameness between men and women. The median of the results on the three aspects of work itself, supervision, and relations with co-workers obtained based on Likert five scale

5 showed 4. This figure shows job satisfaction between men and women on these aspects is high. On job promotion, the medians of both groups were both on the average, While the median obtained for salary was as low as 2 for both groups. The results show dissatisfaction from salary in most Iranian organizations. The results of the present research have also attended to this issue. Although there are some differences in the obtained medians for the indices involved in every aspect, but because the results are nearly the same, they were not reported Results of logistic regression model estimate In this section, through the data collected from questionnaires, two logistic regression models were estimated for male and female lecturers separately. This was done to help identify the extent of effect of the factors affecting job satisfaction in men and women lecturers. To do this, first two logistic regression models whose dependent variable is job satisfaction odds ratio logarithm, as well as descriptive variables which are relations with co-workers, work itself, supervision, promotion, and salary were estimated and defined in the form of the following equation. L i 1 cow 2 wor 3 sup 4 pro 5 pay In this equation l i shows the logarithm of odds ratio to the benefit of increase in job satisfaction and descriptive variables in the mentioned order. The results of this estimate are presented in tables 3 and 4 for men and women respectively. Table 3. Regression for men lecturers Variable Coefficient Std. Error z-statistic Prob. C Work itself Supervision Coworker Pay LR statistic (4 df) Probability (LR stat) 3.67E-11 McFadden R-squared As the results of the regression show, all coefficients except for promotion coefficient are significantly different at 90% level. Moreover, the values of the coefficients show the extent of their effect on odds ratio logarithm. In a way that the results obtained from table 3 show that the coefficient of work itself with the value of 3.56 has the most effect on dependent variables, then is the effect of variable co-worker with coefficient of 2.48 and supervision with coefficient of 2.02, and lastly salary (payment) with coefficient of Of course the obtained results require more investigation in larger populations. The analyses only show that in satisfaction among men, promotion made no significant difference. The results of LR statistics and its related probability level, along with McFadden R-squared approve the existence of a regression line and its reasonable power. Based on the obtained results, work itself has the highest effect among the five aspects. Teaching and research in universities is challenging, creative, and by nature attractive, yet men lecturers are still satisfied with their jobs, although they suffer some other aspects like salary (payment). Moreover, teaching in universities, due to its social respect and status and independence which it provides for individuals,

6 causes the moral and spiritual needs of men lecturers to be satisfied desirably. Therefore, hidden problems shall bear less importance compared to them. Table 4. Regression for women lecturers Variable Coefficient Std. Error z- Prob. Statistic CO-WOKER PROMTION C LR statistic (2 df) Probability (LR stat) 3.36E-07 McFadden R-squared The results obtained from women's regression show that in this section only coworker and promotion coefficients are significantly different at 90% level, and coefficients of the other three factors do not statistically affect the dependent variable. As shown in table 4, two factors of promotion with coefficient of 7.14 and coworker with coefficient of 6.89 positively affect the dependent variable odds ratio. On the other hand these two factors have positive effect on job satisfaction of women lecturers, but others don't. As in the definition of job satisfaction the five job description factors' effect has been emphasized, the obtained results require more analyses and investigation in larger populations. The results gained from LR statistics and the probability level and McFadden R-squared also approve that there is a regression line and the high power of the model. During the past years, Iranian women could overcome the traditions governing the society indicating that women should not work. They managed to make remarkable achievements in different cultural, economic, social aspects among others. Therefore, promotion seems to be of high importance to them. On the other hand most Iranian women are sociable; thus they enjoy interaction in their work place. This in turn leads to their job satisfaction, although they may be dissatisfied from some other issues such as their salary (payment). 5. Conclusion The results of this research showed that there is no significant difference between men and women lecturers in any of the proposed hypotheses. The most influential factors on women's job satisfaction are promotion opportunities and relations with their coworkers. As for men, work itself, relations with co-workers, supervision, and salary affect their job satisfaction respectively. The obtained results on the medians of the answers were the same for men and women for each aspect. The median of the obtained results on satisfaction from work itself, supervision, and relations with co-workers is on high. For promotion factor the results were on the average, while for salary (payment) the medians are low for both groups. References: 1- Smith, P.C. (2001), Development of compact measure of job satisfaction: the abridged job descriptive index, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Vol. 61 No. 6, p

7 2- Garcıa, B.J., Gargallo, C.A., Marzo, N.M. and Rivera, T.P. (2005), Job satisfaction: empirical evidence of gender differences, Women in Management Review, Vol. 20 No. 4, p Valentine, S. (2000), Supervisor gender, leadership style, and perceived job design, Women in Management Review, Vol. 15 No. 3, p Kundu, S.C. (2007), Human resources self-esteem across gender and categories: a study, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 107 No. 9, p Oshagbemi, T. (2000), Gender differences in the job satisfaction of university Teachers, Women in Management Review, Vol. 15 No. 7, p Groot, W. and Brink, H.E. (1999), Job satisfaction of older workers, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 20 No. 6, p Okpara, J.O. (2005), Gender differences and job satisfaction: a study of university Teachers in the United States, Women in Management Review, Vol. 20 No. 3, p Oshagbemi, T. (2003), Some aspects of overall job satisfaction: a binomial logit model, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 18 No. 4, p Oshagbemi, T. (2000), Satisfaction with co-workers' behavior, Employee Relations, Vol. 22 No. 1, p Oshagbemi, T. (2000), How satisfied are academics with their primary tasks of teaching, research and administration and management?, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 1 No. 2, p Koyuncu, M. (2006), Work experience and satisfaction of male and female professors in Turkey: signs of progress?, Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 25 No. 1, p

The Role of Gender in Job Satisfaction of University Staff Members

Ref: 6.15 Type: Refereed Paper Stream: Gendered Issues in HRD The Role of Gender in Job Satisfaction of University Staff Members Ali Hajiha Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch Iran a_hajiha@iau-tnb.ac.ir