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Study Finds Most Fulfilling Jobs: Self-Employment, Government Work, Managing, and Social Service (seattletimes.com) 55

"Envy the lumberjacks, for they perform the happiest, most meaningful work on earth," the Washington Post wrote almost two years ago, after analyzing more than 13,000 journals from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' time-use survey. (For the first time the surveys asked how workers felt during the day.) And outdoor forestry jobs "look awesome by that metric, dangerous as they often are in the long run," the Post wrote in a recent follow-up. [Alternate URL.]

But is that really the right metric? "Readers kept reminding us that there's more to a fulfilling job than how happy you are while doing it." What about those wanting jobs where they're meaningfully impacting the world? We didn't have a stellar way to measure other feelings about work, but we kept our eye on an often-overlooked federal data provider: AmeriCorps. The independent agency, which CEO Michael D. Smith described to us as "bite-sized" but "punching well above our weight," funds the Civic Engagement and Volunteering Supplement, part of the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey... In 2021 and again in 2023, the researchers behind the CEV asked if you agree or disagree with these four statements:

- I am proud to be working for my employer.
- My main satisfaction in life comes from work.
- My workplace contributes to the community.
- I contribute to the community through my work....


The workers most likely to say they're proud to be working for their employer and that they gain satisfaction from work are — surprise! — the self-employed. The self-employed who are incorporated — a group that often includes small-business owners — are almost twice as likely as private-sector, for-profit workers to strongly profess pride in their employer.

Government and nonprofit workers fall somewhere in the middle on those questions. But they rank at the very top on "My workplace contributes to the community" and "I contribute to the community through my work." Local government workers, who include teachers, take the top spot for strong agreement on both, followed by nonprofit workers. Private-sector, for-profit workers once again lag behind. The jobs that do worse on these measures tend to be in manufacturing or other blue-collar production and extraction jobs, or at the lower-paid end of the service sector. Folks in food services (e.g., bartenders and food prep), janitorial roles and landscaping, and personal services (e.g., barbershops, laundry and hotels) all struggle to find greater meaning in their work. Though some better-paid service jobs also struggle by some measures — think sales, engineering or software development.

On the questions regarding pride in your employer and life satisfaction, we see managers and our old friends in agriculture and forestry take the top spots. But right behind them — and actually in the lead in the other question — lurks the real standout, a set of jobs we'd classify as "care and social services." That includes, most notably, religious workers. Looking a bit deeper at about 100 occupations for which we have detailed data, we see clergy were most likely to strongly agree on every question.

Other observations from the article:
  • "As a rule, you feel better about your job as you get older. Presumably, it's some mix of people who love their work delaying retirement, people job-hopping until they find meaningful employment, and people learning to love whatever hand they've been dealt."
  • "Most measures of satisfaction also rise with education, often quite sharply. Someone with a graduate degree is twice as likely as a high school dropout to strongly agree their workplace contributes to the community."
  • But... "More-educated folks are actually a bit less likely to strongly agree that work is their main satisfaction in life."

Study Finds Most Fulfilling Jobs: Self-Employment, Government Work, Managing, and Social Service

Comments Filter:
  • by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @03:40AM (#65016179)

    Seriously? Many people agree with statement? No wonder our family life is so often barren; we expect too little...

    • Seriously? Many people agree with statement? No wonder our family life is so often barren; we expect too little...

      That only applies to people with formal education, not to autodidactic coders in their moms' basements. Ahh . . . satisfaction . . .

      • You reminded me of a cartoon:

        Psychotherapist: "Does anyone else suffer from mental illness in your family?"

        Client: "No, they seem to positively enjoy it!"
    • Sure why not. Firstly how much time do you work vs spend meaningfully with the family? And when I say meaningfully I don't mean that family satisfaction is derrived from you doing dishes while the wife is making the kids do their homework. You're at work 8 hours a day. You waste another 1-2 in traffic. Life tasks take up several more hours - cooking, cleaning, making dinner, brushing teeth, showering, chasing after your kids, etc, and then you need downtime too, add in 8 hours for sleep and the only real sa

    • I think that we conflate two very different things in general:
      There is "Work" as in "The thing you go to on monday morning and clock in so that you can get paid and can afford to do other things with your life, despite it being a drain on your very soul and your main source of unhappiness".
      And then there is "Work" as in "The thing you are good at because you have done it all your life, and it's what give you satisfaction when you put all your knowledge and experience together into something better than the

    • by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @05:33AM (#65016289)
      In my experience in the UK, Canada, & UK, when I ask people what they "do," they tell me about their job. Here in Spain, you ask the same question & people typically reply by telling you about their interests, hobbies, past times, family duties, etc.. People here work just as hard as anywhere else. The thing is, they don't don't identify themselves by their job. There's more to life & having a good work-life balance is a priority here.

      I mean, if you really want to ignore your friends & family & spend all hours working & feeling exhausted during the little time you do spend with them, they may be somewhat concerned but nobody's going to stop you. Your job won't love you back & you'll just end up more likely to die of a heart attack, or stroke, or something similar earlier after retirement.
      • I'm in Canada, and I really cannot say I know anyone like that. In fact, judging by the conversations that happen in offices most people would rather be anywhere else.
      • In my experience in the UK, Canada, & UK, when I ask people what they "do," they tell me about their job. Here in Spain, you ask the same question & people typically reply by telling you about their interests, hobbies, past times, family duties, etc.

        That only means that people in those countries interpret those questions in different ways. People normally assume cultural conventions with language and don't use a textbook meaning. If you ask some "what's up" you'd probably also get different ans

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      I'll keep it simple:

      - The bigger the company, the less you will enjoy working there.

      When you work in the resource sector, all you do is "one thing" every day. If that's what you like, and you are not compelled to move up, stay there, and keep making that money. It's the people in charge that are often the morons ruining the place, and taking pleasure in making you not enjoy it, because people get hired out of what makes them competent and happy into supervisory, management members who "don't do anything mea

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Seriously? Many people agree with statement? No wonder our family life is so often barren; we expect too little...

      Work is a place you spend 22% of your adult days, 33% of your waking time. Is it so wrong to want to get some form of satisfaction out of it? Even if it is just a bit of friendship or maybe even self actualisation.

      I really feel sorry for people who only go to work for work... You spend so much time there and miss out on a lot (but meh, it's your life).

      As for the headline, a better alternative would be "Jobs where you're not working for an already rich arsehole to make them even more rich are the most

    • Seriously? Many people agree with statement? No wonder our family life is so often barren; we expect too little...

      I was wondering about this myself.

      I guess I assumed MOST people were pretty much as mercenary with regard to their jobs as I am.

      I work PURELY and SOLEY for money....if I were independently wealthy I'd never work another day in my life...I work to make money to fund my lifestyle I prefer, to funds my hobbies and other things in life outside of 'work'.

      I know in this big world, there are all ty

    • Work makes you free. Look at North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. Workers' Paradises, every one of them.
    • by eepok ( 545733 )

      Some of us elected not to settle in a long-term career until we found something with goals aligned with our own. I work in higher education and sustainability. I genuinely enjoy the work I do (usually) and I consider my work virtuous.

      Yes, I have life outside of work, but I also look forward to doing the work that I do.

  • by lsllll ( 830002 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @03:49AM (#65016197)

    That's an odd question to ask. I love what I do and would recommend everybody to take on a job that they enjoy doing. But that's far from saying that my work is my main satisfaction in life. Mind you I've been self-employed for 27 years and would recommend that as well. Don't get me wrong. If I'm in the middle of a good coding run, I'm in Zen and enjoying myself. But as much as I like my work, I like traveling and listening to music more than my work.

    Talking about being self-employed, I have noticed how some of the people who are employees get envious of me. That even includes my wife, who has to get up at 5:45 AM while I can sleep in until 10. But as much as self-employment comes with freedom perks, it also has a lot of drawbacks, including health insurance, lots and lots of paperwork, no paid time off, being on-call pretty much all the time, yada yada. I don't think people think about all those things.

    • Self employment only works for a small subset of jobs. The chemical plant I worked at cost $1.6 billion to build. It runs 24 hours a day.

      Nor is building solar panels by hand likely to be rewarding or viable economically.

      That said I did rather enjoy keeping the plant up and running. The mining job I started at just out of college was even more fun. The ore body was not very consistent so the feed going into the mill would change with no warning. That selenium pocket was particularly memorable. By the time we

    • The thing I found got to me was effectively imposter syndrome: I could never get over the hump that this one might be the last job so I would always take a job and found I kept overworking myself. I'm glad freelancing works for you and in some sense I'm jealous not of the job per-se but of the ability to carry it off. There's no point in being jealous of a job I cannot actually hack.

      On the other hand I am now working for a startup as a senior person, I have a budget, I get to commute into work by bike (usua

  • ...for they perform the happiest, most meaningful work on earth.

    Are you sure ?!? [youtube.com]

  • Last job was good until they wouldn't replace people that quit...wouldn't even post jobs !!
  • Aren't those the people who the incoming administration thinks of as "agents of the Deep State"?

    • Aren't those the people who the incoming administration thinks of as "agents of the Deep State"?

      Just wait until people can't get their monthly checks or can't get permits or anything else they rely on the government to do. Then you'll hear the whining at which point my response will be, "You voted for this. Deal with it."

      • Aren't those the people who the incoming administration thinks of as "agents of the Deep State"?

        Just wait until people can't get their monthly checks or can't get permits or anything else they rely on the government to do. Then you'll hear the whining at which point my response will be, "You voted for this. Deal with it."

        I could say the same thing to you when you and your kids go broke paying massive taxes for government bloat because they’re incapable of understanding the concept of balance. ALL of society will have a response for you at that point. You voted for this bloat. Now pay for it.

        Quite frankly, even YOU wouldn’t be surprised if someone walked into the Government check-printing office to find 80% of the staff could be fired eliminating layers of pointless bureaucracy, all while delivering checks as

        • It isn't like we voted in anyone that is going to cut bloat, though, they're just going to privatize whatever they can while eliminating the regs that GAO used to prevent the contractors from ripping the government off. That's why they're excited about crypto and states like Texas have started proposing strategic crypto reserves, its another good way to fleece the public. At least a bureaucrat is some random middle class tax payer vs handing the money over to a tax dodging billionaire wannabe oligarch.
        • by dargaud ( 518470 )
          So you think the main task of a government worker is to write checks ? Is that what *YOU* think ?!? Good god...
          • So you think the main task of a government worker is to write checks ? Is that what *YOU* think ?!? Good god...

            So you think I can’t walk into damn near every Government office doing anything and NOT find bloat? Is that what YOU think?!?

            Checks going out, was the parents lame example. Pick any job. Pick any government office. As if you have a defense here.

            • by dargaud ( 518470 )
              And how would you even recognize bloat by walking into an office ? Those are totally disingenuous arguments.

              And there's a big difference between optimizing processes a bit, which is certainly always possible, and pretending you can fire 80% of gov workers, as I've heard Musk say, and think things will actually improve. Those guys are insane.
    • by eepok ( 545733 )

      There are many more "government jobs" than the federal ones being targeted by the incoming adminstration. There are state, county, regional, municipal, utility, public K-12, public university, etc.

  • Been there, done that. Just leaves you chewed up, pissed off and poor.

    At this point, I'd be happy to sell cigarettes and booze to four year olds.

    I mean, I still hope for the best, but in the real world it is a combination of nepotism and corruption that lets one rise.

  • By definition, if you are self employed, you are your own employer. So if you are self-employed, the only way you're not happy to work for your employer is if you are not proud of yourself. Anyone shocked this group had the highest pride in working for their employer?
    • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      Speaking from experience - being self employed also brings uncertainty. That monthly paycheque can be variable or stop altogether and with that comes stress particularly if you have a family,.

      Suffice to say I'm no longer self employed - I happily traded being my own master for a regular income doing meh jobs that might not be interesting but I can tolerate the boredom, though obviously everyone has different priorities.

      • I worked as an employee for 28 years. In such a long run, obviously work won't always be meaningful or interesting. But generally speaking I appreciated it and think I did a nice job.

        But, the important part is... I had a plan since day 1 of work. Up until my 50th birthday, every month, I would separate 10% of my income and invest it. I didn't even considered that 10% really "income". It wasn't my money, it was my future self's money.

        It worked so fine, that at 45 I could finally turn to self-employed and sim

      • To me that's the problem with saying self-employed people / business owners are happier with their jobs - survivorship bias. You only keep doing it if you can make it work, and don't hate it.
    • It's sad that so many governments around the world are trying to make self-employment a much less attractive offer than permanent work. The UK seems to be leading the charge, Australia and Canada coming in fast, and even the USA, spearheaded by California are getting in on the action.

      Whether you're self employed or just work for a small company (a "micro company" perhaps) of just a couple of people, keeping it small avoids the cube-farm mentality and strips away most of the office politics. None of those th

  • My grandpa was a coal miner. He died of silicosis.

    I get to do physically-undemanding stuff sitting behind a desk in a warm office for a living. I earn 10 times what my Grandpa used to earn.

    You know what? When it feels meaningless or not fulfilling enough, I remind myself that I could be filling my lungs full of coal dust at work.

    Here's my take: I take pride in what I do. Whatever I'm asked to do, I'll do it to the best of my abilities. If you ask me to do QA, I'll be the best QA engineer there is. If you as

  • Though some better-paid service jobs also struggle by some measures â" think sales, engineering or software development.

    They got that right. Software development is a thankless job. Most of what we hear from people is when our software doesn't work. It's extremely rare that a customer calls with "Thank you, this helps us every day." Every now and then, I get to hear second or third hand about how highly my customers regard my work. Interestingly, the self-employed work I do results in direct adulation by my customers, and gives me the most satisfaction. But I have found VERY little self-employed work because I charge $65/hou

  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Monday December 16, 2024 @08:58AM (#65016573)

    You want satisfaction? Find a job you can do competently, provides for your needs, helps others in your group (however you have defined that), and gets you that group's appreciation.

  • Hell, when you don't have to go into the office hardly ever and nobody checks on you but you still get paid and a raise every year, who wouldn't be "fulfilled"?

  • 13,000?
    The pompous comments make this ridiculously broad headline far more interesting.
    *popcorn*

  • It looks like you can make any job be best by choosing the right metrics.

    A metric I would use would be to use a market perspective. The idea is to find people who are qualified for jobs A and B, A pays better, but they are doing B and have no intention of going for A. It means that B should be an overall better job than A by an amount proportional to the difference in pay. With enough such pairs, it should be possible to establish a ranking. My guess is that artistic jobs will rank quite high, as most artis

  • >...the researchers behind the CEV asked if you agree or disagree with these four statements:
    >- I am proud to be working for my employer.
    >- My main satisfaction in life comes from work.
    -> My workplace contributes to the community.
    -> I contribute to the community through my work.

    Sigh. These survey questions are all invalid and will skew the survey results. They are presented as positive-leaning statements, which prime the respondent [wikipedia.org] to answer more positively than they otherwise might. A valid

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