やり甲斐(がい)

やり甲斐(がい) is the sense that an effort is worth making — the reward one gets back from doing something demanding. It is a property of the activity as experienced, so it takes ある (this job has it) rather than a verb of doing.

Common expressions

• やり甲斐(がい)がある (to be rewarding/worth doing)
• やり甲斐(がい)を感(かん)じる (to feel a sense of fulfillment)
• やり甲斐(がい)のある仕事(しごと) (a rewarding job)

PRODUCTIVE PATTERN 〜甲斐(がい):
甲斐(かい) attaches to a verb's masu-stem — voiced to -がい in this position — to mean 'worth doing [verb]'. The base here is やる:

• 生(い)き甲斐(がい) (reason for living, purpose in life)
• 読(よ)む → 読(よ)み甲斐(がい) (worth reading)
• 見(み)る → 見(み)甲斐(がい) (worth seeing)
• 食(た)べる → 食(た)べ甲斐(がい) (worth eating, filling)

Work culture

やり甲斐(がい) comes up constantly in Japanese workplace talk, and employee surveys treat it as a headline metric. Note the critical coinage やり甲斐(がい)搾取(さくしゅ) ('fulfillment exploitation') — using an appeal to meaningful work to justify poor pay.

Writing

Usually written all in hiragana as やりがい outside formal writing.