The Value of Meaningful Work

We test the arguments that the extent to which work is meaningful depends strongly on the job, and that it has its own effect on the labour market. We argue that the meaningfulness of the job mainly depends on opportunities for self-realization and on the social value of the work. We test the hypotheses on EWCS 2015 and ISSP 2015. Respondents show a high level of agreement about the
meaningfulness of their job. The analysis shows that the meaningfulness is strongly determined by job characteristics related to self-realization. We find that workers in non-commercial organizations find their jobs more meaningful than workers in commercial organizations. There is a trade-off between the
wage and the meaningfulness of the work, when we hold constant for self-realization. We conclude that the extent to which work is meaningful strongly depends on the opportunities for self-realization, and is cause for trade-offs between wages and meaningfulness.