Influence of Demographic Factors and Pay Satisfaction on Career Satisfaction among Selected Employees in Redeemer’s University

This study explores the influence of demographic factors and pay satisfaction and on career satisfaction among selected employees of Redeemer’s University, Osun State, Nigeria. The study adopted a cross sectional survey research design and simple random sampling technique were used to select two hundred and twelve (212) participants (M=97 males; F= 115 females) among both academic and non-academic staffs. The Biodata form, Pay Satisfaction Scale (PSS) and Career Satisfaction Scale (CSS) were used to collect data which were further analyzed through independent t-test. The results hence revealed that there were significant differences in career satisfaction of participants among the variables of marital status (t = 1.96 p<0.05), designation (t = 2.64 p<0.05) and pay satisfaction (t = 6.41 p<0.05). While there were no significant differences in the variables of gender (t = 0.78 p>0.05) and age (t = 1.74 p>0.05). The implication of these findings substantiates the importance of creating a conducive working environment and an equity reward system in order to improve employees' career satisfaction.


INTRODUCTION
Career satisfaction is a complex phenomenon. It describes a person's total affective reaction to the set of work and work-related factors [1,2]. And, this include feelings and attitudes that a person has towards his/her various aspects of work and career [3,4]. Career satisfaction is an important concept in all areas of industry and workplace. According to [5] career satisfaction reflects employees' vitality, that is, the overall satisfied workers' tendency to be more productive than their dissatisfied counterparts with less proneness to shirking and inefficiency. Thus, businesses and corporations strive to enhance their employees' satisfaction.
Career satisfaction can also be described as an emotional state that can easily be evaluated by one's experiences on the job. In other words, it is a state where an employee feels perfection of value and worth in his or her work [6]. Answer [7] defines career satisfaction as a general perception of worker's sense of achievement and success that is directly linked to productivity and personal wellbeing. Social analysts have also reported that employees who exhibit joy and happiness in various aspects of their jobs tend to have better performance, productivity and effectiveness in that organization [8,9].
Career satisfaction is therefore the sense of favourableness with which the employee disposes toward his or her work. It conveys the amount of agreement between one's expectation of the job and the rewards that the career provides; it is a part of life satisfaction. Thus, career satisfaction is the affective, behavioural and cognitive variable (as a professional attitude) that has a relationship with a wide and considerable range of individual and organizational variables [10].
Studies have shown that various factors in workplace can either strengthen or weaken career satisfaction. Some of the most important variables that have the capacity of reinforcing career satisfaction include: adequate salary, training and development opportunities, promotion, good human relations, healthy work and the likes [11,12], while debilitating factors of career satisfaction include job stress, poor management and supervision, injustice, imprecise promotion and burnout [10].
The aim of this study therefore is to establish the contributory influence that demographic factors and pay satisfaction have on career satisfaction among employees in Redeemer's University, Ede, Nigeria.

LITERATURE REVIEW
According to [13], career satisfaction is a key indicator of the overall life satisfaction amongst employees because it climaxes when careers meet employees' expectations. Numerous studies have pointed to a gap in career satisfaction between men and women in academia, with men generally happier with working conditions than their female counterparts [10,14,15].
Age has been found to have a direct relationship to level career satisfaction of employees [16]. According to [16], some employees experience career satisfaction with increasing age. Thus, the older they grow, the higher their career satisfaction increases. Marital status is another influential biographic variable that has bearing on career satisfaction of the employee. However, there are not enough studies to draw valid conclusion about the effect of marital status on career satisfaction. The few studies conducted in this area consistently indicates that married employees are more satisfied with their jobs than their unmarried co-workers [3,17]. The reason for this may be that marriage imposes increased responsibilities that may make a steady job more valuable and important.
Furthermore, [18,19] report another powerful determinant of career satisfaction as the nature of relationship that exists among colleagues and within the workplace. Thus, working together with people of same personality type, background and experience tend to promote career satisfaction [20].
Robbins [21] emphasizes that equitable rewards, which are the compensation systems that are perceived as fair and in line with employee expectations, act as a strong determinant in career satisfaction. [22] found that there is a significant positive relationship between career satisfaction and remuneration which demonstrates that when employees perceive that their remuneration is fair, they are most likely to experience a feeling of satisfaction. [23] in their study posit that reward is the centre piece of the employment contract -after all it is the main reason why people work. This include all types of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that are received because of employment by the organization. [24] assert that pay is an important reward used in motivating the behaviour of employees. Although, other behavioural factors or work conditions are important for enhancing satisfaction at a workplace, but the satisfaction derived from pay is most important and cannot be over-emphasized.
Pay satisfaction is a much narrower construct than career satisfaction, however, it is also an important variable that is linked to some rather significant organisational outcomes. For example, some evidence suggests that dissatisfaction with pay may lead to decreased career satisfaction, decreased motivation and performance, increased absenteeism and turnover intensions, and more pay related grievances and lawsuits. Pay satisfaction has been shown to influence overall career satisfaction, motivation and performance [25]. The impact of pay satisfaction on career satisfaction permeates every sphere of life; money not only helps people fulfil their basic needs but also is instrumental in providing upperlevel needs satisfaction [3].
However, the present study seeks to establish the influence of demographic factors and pay satisfaction on career satisfaction taking Redeemer's University, Osun State, Nigeria as case study.
H 1 : Demographic factors and pay satisfaction will significantly influence career satisfaction.

Participants and Procedures
The study adopts a cross sectional survey research design and a simple random sampling technique which were used to select two hundred and twelve (212) participants (M=97; F= 115 females), both academic and non-academic staffs. The Bio-data form, Career Satisfaction Scale (CSS) and Pay Satisfaction Scale (PSS) were used to collect data. The demographic details of the participants are shown in Table 1.
All the ethical requirements for conducting research were observed: a permission was obtained from the Human Resource Department of the institution, participation in the study was voluntary and participants were neither compelled nor compensated for completing the psychological tests. The tests were completed in the familiar atmosphere of their offices after telling them the purpose of the study.

Measures
The Career Satisfaction Scale (CSS) was developed by [26] to measure satisfaction with career success and the extent to which an employee has made satisfactory progress towards goals for income level, advancement and development of skills. The reliability and validity of the scale were established by [26][27][28], with coefficient alphas ranging from .83 to .89 and confirmatory factor analyses showing that general perceptions of career satisfaction are empirically distinct from financial success and hierarchical success in an organization.
Pay Satisfaction Scale (PSS) uses four subscales to measure satisfaction with pay level, amount of last raise, benefits and pay structure/administration. The subscales can also be combined into a composite measure for overall pay satisfaction. The responses format is a Likert -type scale ranging from 1-5. The psychometric properties were provided by [29] with a reliability coefficient alpha ranged from 0.77 to 0.88 and 0.73 to 0.96 respectively.

Data Analyses
Responses to the psychological tests were entered accordingly into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 on a personal computer. The Data were coded were analysed by percentages and independent t-test. The independent t-test was used in order to determine whether there is significant difference in the sample means of the two groups.   Table 1 above shows the demographic attributes of the participants. In terms of gender, 46% were male participants while 54% were females. The marital status of participants shows that 31% of the participants were single while 69% were married. In terms of the designation of the participants, 30% of the participants were academic staffs while 70% were from a nonacademic. Finally, the age range shows that 66% of the participants were within ages 21-40 while 34% were within the ages 40 and above. Table 2 above shows that there are significant differences in career satisfaction of participants among the variables of marital status (t = 1.96p<0.05), designation (t = 2.64 p<0.05) and pay satisfaction (t = 6.41 p<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in the variables of the gender (t = 0.78 p>0.05) and age (t = 1.74 p>0.05). Thus, the hypothesis which states that demographic factors and pay satisfaction will significantly influence career satisfaction was not accepted at two tailed level of significant.

DISCUSSION
The aim of the study is to examine the influence of demographic variables and pay satisfaction on the career satisfaction among staffs at Redeemer's University, Ede, Nigeria (RUN).
Although the hypothesis was rejected, the findings of the study show among other things that married employees experience career satisfaction than their single counterparts. Despite a dearth in literature surrounding marital status and career satisfaction, [22] found that there is a robust correlation between marital status and career satisfaction. He reported that married people generally possess higher job-satisfaction than their single counterparts.
Furthermore, the study revealed that academic staff members experience higher career satisfaction than their non-academic colleagues. This finding can be alluded to the possible fact that the path to academic promotion is well laid out and can be easily understood and followed up, much more than the path for non-academic promotions. A few scholars [30,31] suggest that there is a direct and positive association between promotional opportunities and career satisfaction. When employees perceive that there are high chances for promotion, they feel motivated to work harder to achieve organizational goals with a view to attaining elevated career designations and higher ranks [31]. Academic staff tends to perceive higher chances of promotion, much more than non-academic staff and hence the higher career satisfaction averages.
Finally, the study shows employees classified as having higher pay satisfaction experience significantly higher career satisfaction compared to their counterpart classified as having lower pay satisfaction. This finding was supported by [21] who emphasized that equitable reward, in line with employee expectations is a strong determinant of career satisfaction. In this same vein [32] reported that public employees attributed the dissatisfaction with their careers to low benefits and salaries. Also, [22] found significant positive relationships between career satisfaction and remuneration amongst civil servants in the Republic of Maldives. This demonstrates that when employees perceive that their remuneration is fair, they are most likely to experience a feeling of satisfaction. This is because income helps individuals to meet certain universal needs and, therefore, income, at least at lower levels, is an antecedent to career satisfaction and subjective well-being. Salary is one important determinant of job satisfaction as identified by [17]. According to [17] salary is a forecaster of work satisfaction and workers who were adequately rewarded show better career satisfaction. Thus, salary is a major priority of employees and they should not only be rewarded only with exceptional salaries but be recognized with rewards as per job done, such as cash bonuses and verbal rewards [11].

CONCLUSION
In concussion, the study recommends that organizations and institutions should put into consideration variables such as pay satisfaction, marital status and job designation in promoting employees' career satisfaction. In other words, the place of adequate compensation system and marital satisfaction cannot be overemphasized in enhancing career satisfaction in the university system.
Although, this study has a major limitation in that the scope of coverage is limited to only one university, thus making it difficult to generalize the finding to other higher institutions of learning, the findings cannot be over looked.
In view of this limitation, the researchers suggest that future indigenous studies in this area should take into consideration more higher institutions of learning.