Abstract

It is projected that by 2014 colleges, universities, and professional schools will witness an employment growth of 34.3% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2005). Thus, issues of faculty satisfaction, retention, and persistence will become increasingly important for university administrators and education policy makers. The need to study faculty satisfaction at universities also stems from the fact that the intellectual and social structures of higher education are changing over time. Increasingly, women and minorities are more likely to occupy higher ranks of the professoriate. The purpose of this research is to explore and compare the job satisfaction rates of faculty members employed in research institutions with special attention paid to differences across gender and disciplines. The study employs data from the 2003 Survey of Doctorate Recipients, which is a biennially collected survey of doctoral awardees and is funded by the National Science Foundation.