Nurse job satisfaction is a hot topic in China because Chinese hospitals are suffering from lower nurse job satisfaction nowadays. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the nurses’ perception of job satisfaction attributes and how it varies with age and educational level.

A questionnaire was developed to collect necessary data both from China and Sweden. Samples consisted of three regional hospitals in Ningbo China and one in Sweden, 150 and 46 respondents respectively to present Chinese nurses and Swedish nurses.

Results show that both age and educational level are related to nurse job satisfaction. However, age and nurse job satisfaction are U-shaped related, and educational level and nurse job satisfaction are inverted U-shaped related. Second, intrinsic job characteristics are as important as extrinsic job conditions on nurse job satisfaction. Third, age and intrinsic job characteristics are negatively correlated, while age and extrinsic job conditions are not linear related. In addition, intrinsic job characteristics and extrinsic job conditions show the same importance level among different age groups except for the age group over 50. Fourth, educational level does not affect nurse perception of the importance level of both intrinsic job characteristics and extrinsic job conditions. Finally, although Chinese nurses place the same importance level of job satisfaction factors as Swedish nurses do, the level of job satisfaction are quite different between those two groups.

Key words: nurse job satisfaction, intrinsic job characteristics, extrinsic job conditions, China, Sweden