Job satisfaction stability increases over time: meta-analysis and fifteen-year longitudinal study

I investigate the stability of job satisfaction under the hypothesis that stability increases with employee age and work experience. This idea is tested via both meta-analytic evidence and a 15-year longitudinal data set with four waves of observation. The target phenomenon—i.e., the increase in job satisfaction stability across time—is specified as a moderator effect of age or tenure on the relationship between job satisfaction at time t and job satisfaction at time t + 1. Results indicate that job satisfaction stability increases with age and tenure at both the between-persons and within-persons levels of analysis. At the between-persons level of analysis, rank-order correlations for job satisfaction increase with age and job tenure in linear and nonlinear patterns, based on meta-analysis (Study 1). At the within-persons level of analysis, results suggest that the intra-individual lagged effect of early job satisfaction on later job satisfaction also increases with age and tenure (Study 2). I further show additional moderators of job satisfaction stability, including time lag, job change, and organization change