On the surface, both male and female lawyers seem well-satisfied with their chosen profession. Dig deeper, however, and there are rumbles of discontent that clearly separate the sexes.

These findings emerged from a recent study of Chicago lawyers by John P. Heinz (IPR-Law), Robert L. Nelson (IPR-Sociology) and their colleagues. A survey of 675 practicing attorneys found that most (84%) were satisfied with their careers, with no statistically significant gender difference. In fact, 42% of women and 46% of men reported that they were very satisfied with their jobs and only 2% of women and 1% of men were very dissatisfied.

“To suggest that lawyers are a bunch of burned-out, grumpy, discouraged people is simply wrong,” said Heinz, co-author of a new IPR working paper, “Lawyers and Their Discontents: Findings from a Survey of the Chicago Bar.”

These levels of satisfaction, however, fly in the face of conventional wisdom. And when Heinz and co-investigators Kathleen Hull and Ava Harter probed further, they found the genders diverged significantly, particularly around issues of pay and promotion.

Perhaps the most striking disparity was in salary. The percentage of men who earned $100,000 or more in the year preceding the survey was 47.8%, compared to 16.1% for women. And women were significantly more likely to express dissatisfaction with their salaries than men.

The study also found women were significantly less satisfied than men in their level of responsibility, recognition for their work, chances for advancement, organizational policies and administration, and control over the amount and manner of their work. In fact, only in their relationships with colleagues were they were more satisfied than men.

There were also striking differences in the way male and female lawyers with children perceived conflicts between their personal and professional lives. “The burden of childcare continues to fall more heavily on women and balancing it with a job is much more of a problem,” said Heinz. “Men don’t see it as a problem because, for them, it isn’t.”

Indeed, significantly more women than men said the need to accommodate personal or family priorities had limited their career choices, and that career considerations had influenced their decisions about whether to marry or have children.

If female lawyers suffer in comparison to men, especially in salary and advancement, why do they express such a high degree of overall job satisfaction? Heinz offers three possible—and perhaps intertwining—explanations:

- women do not compare themselves to men but to other women; or

- women are taking into account the progress women have made in the working world; or

- women simply don’t value the same things as men.

There is evidence in the study that men care more about money and position, while women place more value on interpersonal relations. Another possible explanation is self-selection—that unhappy lawyers may have left the field. However, Heinz says the evidence for this is meager and mixed.

Rather than self-selecting out of the field, perhaps the answer is that fewer people are opting into it. “Judging by the decline in applications to law schools in recent years, many potential lawyers are pursuing their other options—perhaps MBAs,” the report concludes. “But the people who consider the options and then choose to practice law appear, in most cases, to find the work rewarding.”