Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the impact of the subjective evaluation of job characteristics on voluntary mobility, the impact of voluntary mobility on changes in these job characteristics, and differential education and gender patterns. Design/methodology/approach – Ordered and multinominal logistic regression analysis and longitudinal panel analysis. Findings – Dissatisfaction with one’s wage, the match between job content and personal capacities, working hours, and the job in general cause voluntary external mobility. The latter two also increase the odds of voluntary internal mobility. Voluntary internal and external mobility in turn decreases dissatisfaction with several job characteristics. The higher the educational level, the weaker the impact of dissatisfaction with working hours on voluntary internal mobility. For women, wage dissatisfaction has a stronger impact on voluntary external mobility than for men. Moreover, dissatisfaction with the number of working hours and the job in general more often cause voluntary internal mobility for women than for men. The revenues of changing positions within or between firms, however, do not substantially differ across education and gender. Originality/value – This paper shows that subjectively evaluated job characteristics are important push factors and result in voluntary mobility, and in some cases for women to a stronger degree than for men. Even though it could be expected that returns to voluntary mobility are lower for women and lower educated individuals, they do not differ substantially from the returns that men and higher educated workers receive.