Scientific Presentations

LabTalks@­SocialDemography

Department Social Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, October 07, 2025

1:00 PM: Talk with Nele Spieß - Personality Traits and Job Satisfaction in the Covid-19 Era. A Longitudinal Analysis Based on Data from Germany

Room 400 and Zoom

Abstract

In the last decade the job satisfaction of employees has been steadily increasing in Germany. However, since the Covid-19 pandemic the trend has halted. Much research has been done on the effect of different determinants of job satisfaction, revealing that gender, working hours, job security as well as job income can influence job satisfaction. Several studies indicate that individual characteristics, i.e. personality traits, correlate with job satisfaction as well. Nonetheless, this variable remains underexplored in current research. Additionally, hardly any research has been able to further analyse the trend of decreasing job satisfaction in Germany during Covid-19, leaving a gap in the understanding of job satisfaction. This project wants to fill this gap and observe how the Covid-19 era affected job satisfaction of German employees. I will focus on the impact of different personality traits on job satisfaction using the “Big Five” concept for estimating personality traits. The use of the Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP) allows for a German wide representative analysis. Preliminary findings confirm the assumption of previous research that job satisfaction has decreased since ca. 2020. Further analysis is needed to confirm correlation with personality traits and/or other control variables.

Please register via email (office-myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de) for online participation. The Zoom link will be sent to you afterwards.

LabTalk, October, 7th from 1 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Rostock time)