Impact of Commuting Time on Employees’ Job Satisfaction—An Empirical Study Based on China’s Family Panel Studies (CFPS)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Very good research and interesting article. However, I have a few recommendations:
Abstract:
Line 15:
Additionally, providing a monthly commuting allowance of more than 40.00 CNY, along with ....
Please insert the information that CNY is national currency.
Introduction
Line 32-33
In the contemporary era, people no longer merely want to "seek a job" 32 but rather aspire to "find a fulfilling and satisfying career"
If quotation marks are used, they represent a citation. Therefore it is necessary to introduce the sources.
Theoretical background
Line 81: Check the punctuation
4.3. Heterogeneity analysis
Line 332 333, and 367 : Please replace [20] [28] and [16]with a proper citation for lines.
Line 387: SOE please insert the full name before acronym.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The research addresses a gap in the existing literature by investigating the impact of commuting on job satisfaction, an area often overlooked. The use of an Ordered Logistic (ologit) regression model adds to the methodological rigor of the study.
However, it would be helpful to expand on the background information on why job satisfaction in China is a major concern and how does it compare with other far east countries. This can help the wider readership to understand the relevance and importance of the study.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
The article raises an important social problem, job satisfaction is an important factor that significantly affects the quality of work and employee productivity. Many aspects raised in the research indicate the complexity of the problem. However, the authors presented the content in a very good way. All parts of the article, starting from the introduction, defining the purpose and hypotheses, selection of methods and statistical analysis, are correct. Conclusions, especially those for practice, can be valuable information for employers who want to improve working conditions. The reviewed article is a collection of interesting information for readers from different countries, which is why I recommend it for publication.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
The authors discussed an interesting topic. However, the current manuscript contains some fundamental errors.
For the relationship between commuting time and job satisfaction, there are the abundance of confounding variables include travel mode and distance, individuals’ physical and mental health (e.g. stress), life satisfaction, work area and location, and nature of job.
In light of these countless confounding variables that have yet to be addressed in this study, I believe that the current analyses and findings may not be valid for testing the hypothesis about the effect of commuting time on employees' job satisfaction.
Author Response
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Reviewer 5 Report
The issue of commuting to work is current in practically all countries of the world, it was first observed in Europe and North America. I appreciate the positively chosen topic and interesting information for a European resident with an application in China. I have no comments on the processing of the article, I positively evaluate the statistics and statistical models used. I found no problems with statistical processing. I rate the results for China as inspiring for other countries of the world. The article has a single problem in the transport specification, including mobility. The authors are not from a scientific institute for transport, therefore they do not know the specifics of transport. Research in Europe would distinguish the issue of commuting separately into purely individual transport (walking, cycling, private car, car-sharing, etc.) and public transport (urban public transport, railway, bus, high-speed rail, non-conventional transport, water transport, etc.) combined with individual transport, where individual transport represents the so-called first and last mile. Including public and individual transport for mobility research together can lead to inaccurate or misleading results, colloquially speaking "mixing apples and pears together". I recommend the authors to pay attention to the specifics of all research areas addressed in future articles. I do not require correction of the article, which I think is otherwise of good quality.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
Some literatures have already demonstrated that travel mode is a strong indicator in predicting job satisfaction (e.g. Gerber et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2023; ). The authors cannot just utilize the duration of the commute as an indicator substitute for travel mode. Travel mode and commute time are both important predicators. Therefore, I disagree with the authors that attribute all the omission of key variables to endogeneity, without any data analysis and test. I strongly suggest that the authors explain them in the Limitations.
Wang et al., 2023. Relationships of life satisfaction with commuting and built environment: A longitudinal analysis. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 114, 103513. DOI10.1016/j.trd.2022.103513
Gerber et al., 2020. Links between Attitudes, Mode Choice, and Travel Satisfaction: A Cross-Border Long-Commute Case Study. Sustainabiliy. 12 (21), 9203. DOI 10.3390/su12219203
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript can be accepted in present form.
