Reported job satisfaction : What does it mean?

International audience ; We emphasize the major influences of experienced utility gaps or regret, i.e. the difference between what happened and what might have happened, on job satisfaction. The main prediction that we test is that job satisfaction correlates with the wage gaps experienced in the past and present, holding other job-related satisfactions constant, with the possible exception of young workers. We further test that this effect of wage gaps on job satisfaction declines with working experience. We find evidence on a Canadian cross-section that the past matters.