What's the Difference Between a Job and a Calling?

In a series of psychology studies, people read about an artist whose boss asks her to work the weekend unpaid, or to clean the bathrooms, which isn’t in her job description. Then the researchers changed one detail: she loves her work.

When the artist was described as passionate, people rated the unpaid weekend as more acceptable.

The researchers (Kim, Campbell, Shepherd and Kay, 2020) found two reasons. People assume a passionate worker “would have volunteered” anyway, and that for them the work is “its own reward.”

That’s the uncomfortable half of a question people usually ask more gently: what’s the difference between a job and work?

Mr A, Mr B and Mr C

The research answer doesn’t split job from work. It splits how people relate to the same work.

In a 1997 study, Amy Wrzesniewski and colleagues gave American workers three short descriptions:

• Mr A works to pay for his life outside work. He “often wishes the time would pass more quickly” and is “very eager to retire.” A job.
• Mr B “can’t wait to get a promotion.” A career.
• Mr C’s work is “one of the first things he tells people about himself.” He thinks it “makes the world a better place.” A calling.

Of the 135 people who could be classified, 44 were Mr A, 43 Mr B and 48 Mr C — almost an even split. The Mr Cs were more satisfied with their jobs and their lives, and missed fewer days of work.

Among 24 administrative assistants doing much the same role, the split was 9, 7 and 8, and the satisfaction pattern looked the same. That group was too small to test, so it’s a pattern rather than a finding. But it makes the point: the job doesn’t decide which one you are.

The pay twist

The same study found the people with callings were also better educated, in more prestigious jobs and better paid.

Read one way, meaning pays. Read the other way, money buys meaning — it’s easier to feel called when you’re secure. A single snapshot can’t tell the two apart. And because the callings were also sitting in the better jobs, the pay gap may say more about which jobs than about feeling called.

The first nationally representative US estimate (White et al., 2021) points away from money. Forty-three percent of American adults said it was “mostly” or “totally” true that they have a calling to a particular kind of work. Who was actually living their calling didn’t vary by income. The only significant difference was how important God or spirituality was to them.

That’s US data from a survey built to study religion. New Zealand is far more secular, so don’t carry it across the Pacific.

The price

If a calling isn’t bought with money, it may still cost money.

• Zookeepers. Bunderson and Thompson (2009) surveyed keepers from 157 zoos in the US and Canada. Those with a calling found deep meaning in the work — and were “more likely to see their work as a moral duty, to sacrifice pay, personal time, and comfort.” The authors call it “a double-edged sword.”
• Stated pay. In Hu and Hirsh (2017), online US participants named the lowest salary they’d accept: about US$33,000 for a meaningful job against about US$52,500 for a meaningless one. On average, they said they’d give up nearly a third of their pay.
• Effort. In a 2024 study of 2,839 online gig workers, people with stronger callings did more of a dull task and enjoyed it more. The calling made the biggest difference when the pay was fixed — when the extra work earned nothing.

You’ll pay for a calling. Other people will charge you for it. And you’ll tell a researcher you’re fine with the price.

None of this is anyone’s actual pay slip. The zookeepers reported what they’d give up; the artist is a scenario; the salaries are hypothetical. Our checks turned up no replication of the passion study, and no test of it in a real workplace.

The case for the calling anyway

A calling is also what gets people through the years when nothing pays. Dobrow and Tosti-Kharas (2012) followed 450 amateur musicians over seven years: the stronger the calling, the more willing they were to ignore mentors who advised against a music career. That can look like deafness to good advice. Some of that advice may well have been wrong. The study measured who listened, not who was right.

Who can absorb the cost

Sociologist Erin Cech has studied this most directly. In a 2022 survey of college-educated US workers eight months into the pandemic, 46% of those laid off or furloughed still put passion first for their next job, against 20% for salary and 13% for job security. The pattern held across class background. Wanting a calling isn’t a rich-kid thing.

In her book The Trouble with Passion, Cech reports that working-class and first-generation graduates who follow their passion are more likely to end up in low-paid jobs than wealthier peers with a safety net, and that employers prefer passionate applicants because they expect more unpaid work. Those findings are in the book rather than a journal paper, and the open question is the comparison: did the graduates who didn’t follow their passion do better?

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Anyone can have a calling. Following one costs something — and whether you can absorb that cost is where money comes back in. Before telling someone to follow their passion, it’s worth asking whether that’s advice, or a description of the people who could afford to.

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Jurisdiction: all the studies are from the US, and the money figures are US dollars. The religion finding comes from a US survey built to study religion; New Zealand is far more secular.

Sourcing note: the zookeeper study (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009) is quoted from its abstract; the full paper is paywalled. The passion study’s artist scenario and sample size are from Duke’s summary of the research. Cech’s class and employer findings are from her book and are not quantified here. No replication of the passion study turned up in our checks.

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Sources: Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin & Schwartz, “Jobs, Careers, and Callings: People’s Relations to Their Work,” Journal of Research in Personality, 1997 · White, Marsh, Dik & Beseler, “Prevalence and Demographic Differences in Work as a Calling in the United States,” Journal of Career Assessment, 2021 · Bunderson & Thompson, “The Call of the Wild,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 2009 · Kim, Campbell, Shepherd & Kay, “Understanding contemporary forms of exploitation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2020 · Hu & Hirsh, “Accepting Lower Salaries for Meaningful Work,” Frontiers in Psychology, 2017 · Tosti-Kharas, Dobrow & Kappes, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life?,” Journal of Management Scientific Reports, 2024 · Dobrow & Tosti-Kharas, “Listen to Your Heart? Calling and Receptivity to Career Advice,” Journal of Career Assessment, 2012 · Cech & Hiltner, “Unsettled Employment, Reshuffled Priorities?,” Socius, 2022 · Cech, The Trouble with Passion, University of California Press, 2021.