Not leaving your unsatisfactory job: analyzing female, migrant, elderly and lower-educated employees

• Date: 06 February 2024
• Pages: 18-38
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-07-2023-0223
• Published date: 06 February 2024
• Author: Luuk Mandemakers,Eva Jaspers,Tanja van der Lippe

Not leaving your

unsatisfactory job: analyzing

female, migrant, elderly and

lower-educated employees

Luuk Mandemakers, Eva Jaspers and Tanja van der Lippe

Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

Abstract

Purpose –Employees facing challenges in their careers –i.e. female, migrant, elderly and lower-educated

employees –might expect job searches to have a low likelihood of success and might therefore more often stay

in unsatisfactory positions. Thegoal of this study is to discover inequalitiesin job mobility for these employees.

Design/methodology/approach –We rely on a large sample of Dutch public sector employees (N530,709)

and study whether employees with challenges in their careers are hampered in translating job dissatisfaction

into job searches. Additionally, we assess whether this is due to their perceptions of labor market alternatives.

Findings –Findings show that non-Western migrant, elderly and lower-educated employees are less likely to

act on job dissatisfaction than their advantaged counterparts, whereas women are more likely than men to do

so. Additionally, we find that although they perceive labor market opportunities as limited, this does not affect

their propensity to search for different jobs.

Originality/value –This paper is novel in discovering inequalities in job mobility by analyzing whether

employees facing challenges in their careers are less likely to act on job dissatisfaction and therefore more likely

to remain in unsatisfactory positions.

Keywords Career challenges, Job search, Job dissatisfaction, Perceived labor market alternatives

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

In recent years, research on why employees leave organizations peaked (Hom et al., 2017).

Studying turnover behavior gained popularity since it was associated with negative

implications for organizations, such as high replacement costs (O’Connell and Kung, 2007)

and inferior service quality (Hausknecht et al., 2009). Yet, research showed that turnover can

also be positive for individual employees, as job switches are strong predictors of career

progress and wage growth (Cheramie et al., 2007;Stumpf, 2014). Likewise, not being able to

switch jobs when being dissatisfied is harmful and constitutes unhealthy retention, as it

increases the risk of reduced productivity (Hom et al., 2012), workplace deviance (Sheridan

et al., 2019) and lower well-being (Steng



ard et al., 2016). Although establishing a wide range of

antecedents (Fakunmoju et al., 2010;Griffeth et al., 2000), previous literature rarely addressed

differences in turnover trajectories for employees who face challenges in their careers. With

widespread acknowledgment of career challenges for female, migrant, elderly and lower-

educated employees –e.g. wage gaps, lack of promotion opportunities and labor market

discrimination (see, e.g. Ballenger, 2010;Blommaert et al., 2012;Kahanec and Zaiceva, 2009;

Kunze, 2018;Moore, 2009;Yap and Konrad, 2009)–it appears as if not everyone is equally

EDI

43,9

18

© Luuk Mandemakers, Eva Jaspers and Tanja van der Lippe. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may

reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-

commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of

this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 13 July 2023

Revised 19 December 2023

Accepted 11 January 2024

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 9, 2024

pp. 18-38

Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-07-2023-0223

able and likely to switch jobs. Consequently, we study whether migrant, female, elderly and

lower-educated employees are less inclined to act on job dissatisfaction and likely to remain

stuck in unsatisfactory jobs.

We specifically focus on job searches as an indicator of turnover, as this allows us to study

whether employees facing challenges in their careers refrain from engaging in turnover

processes altogether. Switching jobs often consists of a sequential process in which

employees move through several intermediate steps –e.g. considerations on quitting jobs and

on whether to search for another job (Griffeth et al., 2000;Hartog et al., 1988;Mobley, 1977).

Following a subjective evaluation of utility (SEU), employees assess the likelihood of success

before embarking on job hunts (Mobley, 1977). Searching for a different job is typically the

first stage after employees become dissatisfied with their jobs and marks the onset of

turnover processes. Consequently, as we argue that limited career perspectives might

negatively affect the success rate of job searches, this stage captures the earliest moment at

which employees facing challenges in their careers can be discouraged to translate job

dissatisfaction into job switch processes.

Moreover, for some groups of employees with challenges in their careers, existing

knowledge poses a conundrum. For example, migrant and female employees are incidentally

reported to search for jobs more often as result of experiencing higher levels of workplace

exclusion and lacking promotion opportunities (Downes et al., 2014;Hofhuis, van der Zee and

Otten, 2014;Keith and Williams, 2002;Mckay et al., 2007;van Hooft et al., 2004). Accordingly,

employees with career challenges may be more often dissatisfied with their employment,

which could explain observations of elevated job search rates. Focusing on differences in job

search behavior when groups of employees have similar degrees of dissatisfaction overcomes

this issue and allows us to study whether employees with career challenges still face obstacles

in their job search trajectories despite on average searching more often for different jobs.

Furthermore, in a first attempt to discover which mechanisms explain that employees

with limited career perspectives are discouraged in searching for different jobs, we scrutinize

how they respond to their perceptions of labor market alternatives. Although challenges on

the demand side of the labor market are well-documented -e.g. the existence of labor market

discrimination by employers- (see, e.g. Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2004;Blommaert et al.,

2012;Hersch, 2007;Moore, 2009), little research investigates responses and job searches of

employees themselves (van Hooft et al., 2004;Pager, 2007). Until now, sociological

contributions studying job searches centered around job search methods and strategies

(see, e.g. Pager and Pedulla, 2015;Mau and Kopischke, 2001;Weber and Mahringer, 2008) -e.g.

by showing differences between formal, informal, online and offline search methods or

showing that migrant employees are likely to include lower standard jobs in their searches-.

We extend research on responses to limited labor market alternatives by studying whether

perceptions of labor market alternatives discourage employees with career challenges to

translate job dissatisfaction into job searches.

We use datafrom the work context of employeesin the Dutch Public Sector(WORKresearch

2019). This cross-sectional data were gathered by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and

commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations of the Netherlands.

With many types of functions represented in theDutch public sector, this dataset allowsus to

studythe full range of the labor marketand to make several contributionsto the literature.First,

whereasprevious research largely neglectsturnover differencesbetween groups of employees,

our study assesses whether employees with career challenges are more likely to remain in

unsatisfactorypositions as result of hamperedjob mobility. Second, existingliterature focuses

largely on turnover in the private sector and in the USA (Rubenstein et al., 2018). As labor

market inequalities continue to exist in the Netherlands (see, e.g. Blommaert et al., 2012), it is

important to examinein the Dutch context to what extent employees are discouragedby their

perceptions of labor market alternatives. Third, our study contributes to the vast body of

Job search

differences

between

employees

19