Is there a mid-career crisis? An investigation of the relationship between age and job satisfaction across occupations based on four large UK datasets

Abstract

Previous research has yielded mixed evidence on the relationship between age and job satisfaction. While there is broad consensus that job satisfaction tends to increase from midlife into older age, considerable debate persists regarding whether it rises or falls during the early stages of a career. This study examines this relationship in depth by analysing four nationally representative datasets, which include both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from 108401 workers in the UK covering all industries, occupations and geographical areas. Our findings reveal a distinct U-shaped trajectory of job satisfaction among workers in managerial, professional and associate professional occupations. However, this pattern is not evident among workers in intermediate or lower occupational classes. These results remain consistent even after adjusting for period effects, cohort effects and fixed individual characteristics. The results of this study suggest that commonly cited reasons for the mid-career crisis, such as increased work–family conflicts, are unlikely to fully explain the pattern. Instead, the answer is likely to lie in work-related factors that disproportionately affect highly skilled workers. By highlighting the role of occupational context in shaping how individuals experience their work as they age, this study contributes to resolving a long-standing debate in the job satisfaction literature and lays the groundwork for theoretical advancements in this field.