Commuting time and job satisfaction among urban employees in china: Evidence from three waves of the China family panel studies

The relationship between daily commuting and job satisfaction has received increasing attention, as the commuting time of Chinese employees has gradually increased and longer commutes have been associated with poorer physical and mental health. As an important dimension of employees’ subjective well-being, job satisfaction is an important indicator of employment quality. With the rapid development of urbanization in China, increasing commuting times have become an important component of employees’ work experience.

Using pooled data from the 2018, 2020, and 2022 waves of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study examines the association between commuting time and job satisfaction using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and complementary model specifications. Several robustness checks were conducted to assess the stability of the estimated association. A longer commuting time was negatively and statistically significantly associated with employees’ job satisfaction.

Weekly working time and work income were examined as two potential compensatory indirect pathways. A longer commuting time was associated with shorter weekly working time and higher work income, and the resulting indirect associations partially offset the negative association between commuting time and job satisfaction. Moreover, the negative association between commuting time and job satisfaction was weaker among formally employed workers than among informally employed workers.

These findings highlight the relevance of considering the time required to access employment alongside workplace conditions when assessing employees’ work experience. This study was funded by Anhui Province Federation of Social Sciences [2023CX051] for the project “Study on the Labor Supply Effects of Women’s Access to Childcare Services in Anhui Province and Policy Support”. School of Management, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu, 610225, China School of Finance, Taxation and Public Administration, Tongling University, Tongling, 244061, China The authors declare no competing interests.

The China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) was reviewed and approved by the Peking University Biomedical Institutional Review Board (IRB00001052-14010). Informed consent was obtained from participants before each wave of data collection. The present study is a secondary analysis of de-identified CFPS data and involved no new recruitment of participants or collection of primary human-subject data.

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