ABSTRACT
Are public sector workers happier than their private sector counterparts? Recent research has found an association between public sector employment and happiness but leaves many questions unanswered. The major question that remains is why this association exists. Scholars have speculated that job-related characteristics like financial satisfaction and union status may be mediators, but this has not been established empirically. Our article provides the first empirical evidence of mediation in the relationship between public sector work and happiness. Using large sample data from the World Values Survey (n = 124,541), we find that financial satisfaction and union status both mediate the association between public sector work and happiness, with financial satisfaction being the dominant mediator in most cases. When the association between public sector work and subjective well-being is stratified by household income and country income, we find that the effects are strongest among low-income government workers in low-income countries.