Job satisfaction in the social care sector in Greece: A public - nonprofit sector comparison

Although job satisfaction research has been carried out for many decades (Locke, 1976, Quarstein et al, 1992), understanding what affects the job satisfaction of employees and the differences across sectors is a very timely research topic. Social care in Greece comprises a very complicated system, where public, private and nonprofit actors coexist and function in parallel on an ad hoc basis and without institutional coordination. Job satisfaction is undisputedly connected with success in any type of organization, and comparative approaches are ideal tools for the deepest understanding of this topic. We use the Job Satisfaction Survey (Spector, 1985) to measure job satisfaction among professionals working in social care in Greece, and we compare data between sectors. Data analysis show that these professionals are generally more satisfied than their colleagues in both the private and the public sectors. The standard methodology used could enable further cross-national comparisons.