The Effect of Public Officers’ Work-Life Balance on Job Satisfaction Differences between Men and Women*

We performed an empirical analysis based on data from a questionnaire survey that Korean government officers participated in about the effects of worklife balance (WLB) on job satisfaction in order to whether unpaid labor such as housework had a moderating effect on job satisfaction. The subjective balance of an individual’s time input in work and life was used to measure WLB. We find that WLB has a positive and significant effect on job satisfaction and that there is no statistically significant gender difference. However, the WLB effect on married female officers is smaller than that on single female officers, while it is not significant for male public officers. Child-rearing has a negative moderating effect on women’s job satisfaction, although this was not statistically significant. This result suggests that the effect of the household work burden that marriage as well as child care brings is a variable that policy makers should be keep in mind in developing WLB policies.