## 1 Introduction  
This study engages in a scientific endeavour through an in-depth analysis of a broad sample of data on job satisfaction behaviour. The concept of job satisfaction is defined as how an individual feels about his or her job and various aspects of it, usually in the sense of how favourable--how positive or negative--those feelings are [1]. To explain it briefly, job satisfaction is the extent to which people like their jobs [2].  
In general, the theoretical approach to study the influences on job satisfaction is based on two facets of the latter, namely the environmental factors and the personal characteristics [3]. While the dichotomy of the physical and psychological factors [4] has received little empirical confirmation [5], a much more intuitive and realistic approach is based on the theory proposed by [PERSON]. According to [PERSON] [6], the job satisfaction is a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the perception of one's job as fulfilling or allowing the fulfilment of one's important job values, providing these values are compatible with one's needs. Values refer here to what one considers beneficial, whereas needs are conditions actually required for one's well-being. Hence, if the discrepancy in this perception between real and ideal is lower, then the job satisfaction increases in the case of an employee. Moreover, it is largely accepted that between career satisfaction and life satisfaction there is a reciprocal relationship in general [7]. Usually, a lower job satisfaction has a negative consequence on physical and mental health, and on the level of grievances [6].  
In business terms, career satisfaction is worth analysing due to its impact on employee turnover and performance [8; 9], a firm's productivity, competitiveness and long-term efficiency [10; 11; 12]. It is also a fact that Romanians spend most of their time at work in comparison with other European citizens [13]. Consequently, it is important to pay attention to job satisfaction since it is also a part of life satisfaction and of subjective well-being [14]. A recent study starting from 18,247 responses of people from the Romanian business, engineering and pharmaceutical sectors [15], focused on the 100 most desirable employers from 2019, revealed interesting facts relating to job satisfaction. In this direction, the research emphasized that most of these respondents are satisfied and choose a certain employer if they are well paid, the company is big and important enough on the market, if their career will bring new professional opportunities, there are role models within the corporation they could learn from and last but not least, the job is safe enough. In other terms, it is important to note that career satisfaction is a heterogeneous phenomenon, since it may reflect a dual satisfaction based on financial and non-financial rewards. Furthermore, different people may consider it from different unknown perspectives when they evaluate their satisfaction with their job [16; 17]. Therefore, any investigation based on such a subjective variable, namely job satisfaction, seems to involve major risks, although other previous research has shown the opposite [18].  
Starting from a SHARE-ERIC's survey dataset corresponding to a sample of Romanian people aged 50 and over in 2017, the main question we seek to answer in this paper is: Which are the common and which are the particular determinants of job satisfaction, dependent on belonging to those three major historical regions of Romania?  
The paper is structured as follows: in the next section, we present the literature review related to this topic and, according to it, several hypotheses to be further tested; next, we present the data we have used and the methods, which are explained in detail, followed by the section where the main results are underlined; the paper ends with a discussion of the results and brief conclusions.