Facets of Graduates' Job Satisfaction

The aim of this paper is to identify the main factors determining job satisfaction, with specific in-terest in job aspects such as skills achievement, career expectations, leisure time etc.. This analysis examines a sample of graduates from the University of Padova during 2007 and 2008. Observed job aspects explain about 60% of overall job satisfaction in standard linear models. However, as more than half the residual variance was due to unobserved permanent characteristics, significantly corre-lated to observed variables, standard estimates were not consistent. Consistent estimates were ob-tained with fixed effects models for longitudinal data, with control for unobserved heterogeneity. The method was applied to several subgroups of graduates, thus highlighting how the main determi-nants of job satisfaction are related to graduates varying characteristics and expectations.