Occupational Role Preferences and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Using responses from mailed checklists, the actual and expected values of 10 occupational roles were identified for 201 randomly selected 25-, 35-, 45-, and 55-year-old Northern Swedish subjects, who also reported their levels of satisfaction with life as a whole and with eight domains of life. The 10 occupational roles were clustered into four factors labeled “meta-roles”: family, vocational, and two leisure meta-roles. The role preferences remained stable for men and women age 35 and 45; however, 25-year-olds expected to gain some roles and 55-year-olds expected to lose the worker role in 10 years. Hence, an age-related role career was identified. Several of the 10 occupational roles and the meta-roles (factors) exhibited logical adaptations to circumstances such as gender and parenthood, as well as role career. The meta-roles were closely related to level of satisfaction within six of the eight domains, indicating that fulfillment of different occupational roles is important for different aspects of life satisfaction.