Job Satisfaction of Asian Americans

Abstract

Since Asian Americans have demographic and labor force characteristics more similar to Euro-Americans than African Americans, one might predict that their job satisfaction would be more like the former than the latter. And, because Asian Americans originating from different countries are heterogeneous in language culture, and recency of immigration, one might predict that they may report obtaining different amounts of satisfaction from their jobs. However, data from 21 nationally representative opinion surveys from 1972 through 1996 suggst the opposite. Asian Americans (n = 199) reported job satisfaction more like African Americans (n = 1,231) than Euro-Americans (n = 10,709), and Asian Americans from China (n = 53), Japan (n = 44), India (n = 55), and the Philippines (n = 47) reported similar job satisfaction. These differences persisted when age education, occupation, and personal income were held constant.