What makes workers with disabilities happy? The importance of non-pecuniary characteristics.

The paper examines the determinants of the levels of job satisfaction reported by non-disabled and disabled workers, with special attention to the contribution of non-pecuniary job aspects. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate job satisfaction equations for non-disabled and disabled workers. The existence of unhealthy environments, hard manual work, capacity to learn and good relationships with colleagues and supervisors all have a greater influence on job satisfaction for disabled workers than for their non-disabled counterparts.