This study presents a systematic investigation of the level of job satisfaction among anational cross-section of early labor force participants in the public and private employmentsectors in the late 1980s. While the conventional wisdom would suggest that there is a "crisis"in the level of job satisfaction among public sector employees—due to extensive "bureaucratbashing" and the alienative internal dynamics of working within overly rigid and rule-boundorganizations—the findings presented here suggest that public sector employees manifest significantly higher levels of job satisfaction than their private sector counterparts. After controlling for a variety of background, personal, and situational factors, the higher level of publicsector job satisfaction remains. The empirical evidence utilized in this study is from theNational Longitudinal Survey's Youth Cohort.
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