We examine differences in job satisfaction between low-and higher-paid workers within the European Union (EU). to do so The European Community Houlshold Panel Data covering the period 1994-2001 is used. Then we test for differences in reported job satisfaction between these two types of workers and across countries. Our results inducate that low paid workers report a lower level of job satisfaction when compared with their higher paid counterparts in most countries, except in the UK. This supports the idea that low-wage employment in these countries mainly comprises low quality. The results also indicate that gap in average job satisfaction between low-and higher-paid workers is markedly wider in the Southern European countries than in the rest of EU. Finally, there are significant differences in the determinants of job satisfaction across countries. It seems then that a homeogeneous policy may be inapporopriate to increase satisfaction, and hence labour productivity, in the EU as a whole. Hence, lan imporovement of the quality of the jobs in the EU may require different policies. In particular, in some countries such as the United Kingdome removing low employment, namely through regulation, may worsen the workers' well-being. although in other cases such a policy may lead to a totally different outcome
