The Relationship between Work Ethic and Life Satisfaction among People in the Netherlands and Poland

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between culture and life satisfaction and investigates if and how work ethic influences this relationship. Based on the Protestants Work Ethic of Weber (1905) and research of Oishi et al. (1999), it can be assumed that work ethic has a mediating or moderating role in the relationship between culture and life satisfaction. Data from people in the Netherlands and Poland whom participated in the European Values Study (EVS) (2022) were used (N=3,690). The items of the EVS about life satisfaction and work ethic were used to analyze the relationship. Results showed that there is a relationship between culture and life satisfaction, showing that people in the Netherlands are more satisfied with life than people in Poland. Besides, results showed a partial mediation effect of work ethic in this relationship. People in Poland have a higher work ethic than people in the Netherlands and this positively influences their life satisfaction. It can be concluded that for people in Poland work is more important and it contributes to their life satisfaction, but nevertheless people in the Netherlands have a higher life satisfaction after all. This indicates that there are other influential factors for people in the Netherlands that explains the difference in life satisfaction. So, there seems to be differences across cultures in factors contributing to life satisfaction. However, due to the measurement of the concepts culture and work ethic the results should be interpreted with some caution. To further investigate this relationship it is recommended to replicate this study and improve the measurements used.