Investing job satisfaction of teachers in Karachi, Pakistan: A survey study

Job satisfaction is an important but a very complex issue, as it is all about human behavior, which is difficult to measure (Saiti, 2007). Knowledge of an employees\u27 level of satisfaction is important for both the organization and the employee because of its (job satisfaction) association with workplace productivity. Furthermore, the knowledge of employees\u27 lack of satisfaction with certain facets of the job will also prompt necessary measures by the employer for improving that aspect, so that the employees\u27 well-being and productivity can be improved. The studies around the area of job satisfaction have explored various aspects of a job and the relationship between job satisfaction and the contributing factors affecting it, which, sometimes, have yielded inconsistent and contradictory findings. The present study is an attempt to explore job satisfaction of teachers of private and government schools in the context of Pakistan. In particular, the study aimed at exploring the overall level of job satisfaction of teachers of Karachi, Pakistan and to see if there is a difference of satisfaction with job between government and private schools\u27 teachers. An important focus of the study was to see to what extent demographic characteristics such as, age, qualification, length of service and salary affect teachers\u27 satisfaction level. A questionnaire of Job Satisfaction Survey (Spector, 1985) was adapted and administered on 500 private and government teachers with a return rate of 69%. SPSS was used to analyze the data generated from the survey. The findings of the analysis revealed that the teachers were somewhat satisfied with their overall job. A comparison between private and government teachers showed that the private school teachers had a higher level of satisfaction with their job than their government counterparts. The analysis also revealed varied level of relationship between demographic characteristics and job satisfaction. The findings show that the level of job satisfaction decreases as the teachers\u27 length of service increases. In a similar way, satisfaction with job also decreases as teachers\u27 age increases. Salary was also found to have negative correlation with job satisfaction, which means the more the salary, the lesser the teachers\u27 job satisfaction, whereas academic and professional qualifications were not found to have any association with job satisfactio