Happiness of primary school teacher in Malaysia: its economic, non-economic determinants and impact on job performance

Despite various policies and efforts by the government to improve the happiness of teachers, it appears that there are still a lot of dissatisfaction or unhappiness as have been raised by primary school teachers. This highlights that a need of a thorough understanding of factors influencing the happiness of teachers and their influence on teacher’s job performance. There are extensive studies that examine determinants of happiness. However, the role of aspiration effect, job performance and the income-happiness relationship among the primary school teachers are yet to be explored. Thus, this study aims to estimate the determinants of happiness and how this happiness influences job performance among the primary school teachers in Malaysia, including the interacting effects of aspiration. Using a survey data of 1510 teachers, the descriptive statistics and ordered logit model are employed. The hypothesis of interacting effect of aspiration is tested by its interacting effect with religiousness. Results of descriptive statistics analysis reveal that around 5% of them are found to be unhappy and not satisfied with their job and work life. The unhappiness and dissatisfaction on promotion have been expressed by the teachers. The estimated ordered logit model suggests that the determinants of happiness among the primary school teachers are aspiration, religious perceptions, interaction between aspiration and religion, achievement of life goal, school environment, ethnicity, marital status, family size, and teachers’ health status. The aspiration is found to have a negative and significant effect on the relationship between religion and happiness. In particular, the school environment has high significant influences on teacher’s happiness. Happiness has found to have a positive impact on job performance. This indicated that teachers who have higher level of happiness are more likely to show excellent job performance. Based on these findings, the theoretical and policy implications are discussed.