In Spain as in other European countries, policies on school choice have been implemented in tandem with the channelling of public resources into private education. Given the application of public money to private schooling, the primary objective of this paper is to analyse the extent to which Spanish families enjoy equality in their ability to exercise school choice. To do so, the analysis focuses on the factors that affect school choice in Spain using data from the 2003 and 2006 PISA evaluations. Specifically, the influence of personal, family, geographic, motivational and educational policy factors are all considered in the context of deciding whether to attend a public or private school. The results reveal a broad similarity across the factors driving the selection of private schools which either receive some public funding (known as 'concerted') or independent, showing a greater proportion of families from better socioeconomic, educational and cultural backgrounds in these types of schools. In addition, the geographic distribution of schools has an effect on school selection. Given that concerted schools form part of the public educational offering (because of the state funding they receive), the state has the ability to take a wide range of actions to promote greater equality of choice in the case of public and concerted schools. In this respect, a series of measures are set out regarding student selection, the distribution of information and the geographic distribution of schools.

We analyze the determinants of job satisfaction of PhD holders in Spain. Specifically, we consider overall job satisfaction as well as basic and motivational satisfaction, following Herzberg's typology (based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Using representative data for Spain's PhD population, drawn from the Spanish Survey on Human Resources in Science and Technology (2009), we report an analysis by gender and the institutional sector (university and non-university) in which employees work. We employ OLS regressions to identify the determinants of basic and motivational satisfaction in the workplace and an ordered logit model for overall job satisfaction. Results do not allow us to confirm Herzberg's factor differentiation for Spanish PhD holders, since the factors of basic motivation (including salary or working conditions-needs of 'safety') have a bearing on all types of job satisfaction (and not solely on the basic satisfaction of PhD holders). Our results do not show any significant differences by gender. However, it seems that meeting these 'basic' needs is less important for the job satisfaction of PhD holders working in universities. The results seem reasonable in a Southern European country where the monetary conditions of the labor market are worse than those in other developed countries.

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