IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-10-00537.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Better an insecure job than no job at all? Unemployment, job insecurity and subjective wellbeing

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Knabe

    (Freie Universität Berlin)

  • Steffen Rätzel

    (Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg)

Abstract

We analyze the impact of a person’s current employment status and expectations about his or her future labor market status on life satisfaction, using long -run panel data for Germany. Our findings suggest that future expectations (measured by perceived job security for the employed and chances to find a new job for the unemployed) are at least as important for a person ’s subjective well-being as his or her current employment status. This implies that an unemployed person who thinks it will be easy to find a new job might be happier than if he had an insecure job. There might be circum¬stances under which having no job is less harmful for subjective well-being than being employed in an insecure one.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Knabe & Steffen Rätzel, 2010. "Better an insecure job than no job at all? Unemployment, job insecurity and subjective wellbeing," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(3), pages 2486-2494.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-10-00537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2010/Volume30/EB-10-V30-I3-P228.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Melvin Stephens, 2004. "Job Loss Expectations, Realizations, and Household Consumption Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 253-269, February.
    2. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    3. Charles F. Manski, 2004. "Measuring Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1329-1376, September.
    4. Bruno S. Frey, 2008. "Happiness: A Revolution in Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262062771, December.
    5. Dickerson, Andy & Green, Francis, 2012. "Fears and realisations of employment insecurity," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 198-210.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Green, Francis, 2011. "Unpacking the misery multiplier: How employability modifies the impacts of unemployment and job insecurity on life satisfaction and mental health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 265-276, March.
    2. Chadi, Adrian, 2015. "Concerns about the Euro and happiness in Germany during times of crisis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 126-146.
    3. Adrian Chadi & Laszlo Goerke, 2023. "Seeking shelter in times of crisis? unemployment, perceived job insecurity and trade union membership," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(359), pages 1041-1088, July.
    4. Wunder, Christoph & Zeydanli, Tugba, 2021. "The early costs of plant closures: Evidence on lead effects on workers’ subjective and objective outcomes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 489-505.
    5. Da Silva, António Dias & Rusinova, Desislava & Weißler, Marco, 2023. "Consumption effects of job loss expectations: new evidence for the euro area," Working Paper Series 2817, European Central Bank.
    6. Sonja C. Kassenboehmer & Sonja G. Schatz, 2014. "Re-employment Expectations and the Eye of Providence," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2014n11, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    7. Kassenboehmer, Sonja C. & Schatz, Sonja G., 2017. "Re-employment expectations and realisations: Prediction errors and behavioural responses," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 161-176.
    8. Julian Emmler & Bernd Fitzenberger, 2022. "Temporary overpessimism: Job loss expectations following a large negative employment shock," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 621-661, July.
    9. Emmler, Julian & Fitzenberger, Bernd, 2021. "Temporary Overpessimism: Job Loss Expectations Following a Large Negative Employment Shock," IZA Discussion Papers 14149, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. John Gathergood, 2012. "Unemployment Expectations, Credit Commitments and Psychological Health," Discussion Papers 12/03, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    11. Theresa Kuchler & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Personal Experiences and Expectations about Aggregate Outcomes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(5), pages 2491-2542, October.
    12. Bruno S. Frey & Anthony Gullo, 2021. "Does Sports Make People Happier, or Do Happy People More Sports?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(4), pages 432-458, May.
    13. Hajdu, Tamás & Hajdu, Gábor, 2011. "A hasznosság és a relatív jövedelem kapcsolatának vizsgálata magyar adatok segítségével [Examining the relation of utility and relative income using Hungarian data]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 56-73.
    14. Jan Eichhorn, 2013. "Unemployment Needs Context: How Societal Differences between Countries Moderate the Loss in Life-Satisfaction for the Unemployed," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(6), pages 1657-1680, December.
    15. Nathaniel Hendren & Camille Landais & Johannes Spinnewijn, 2021. "Choice in Insurance Markets: A Pigouvian Approach to Social Insurance Design," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 457-486, August.
    16. Adrian Chadi, 2019. "Dissatisfied with life or with being interviewed? Happiness and the motivation to participate in a survey," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(3), pages 519-553, October.
    17. Shizuki Fukuda & Michio Murakami & Keigo Noda & Taikan Oki, 2016. "How Achieving the Millennium Development Goals Increases Subjective Well-Being in Developing Nations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-19, February.
    18. Christopher Ambrey & Christopher Fleming, 2014. "Public Greenspace and Life Satisfaction in Urban Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(6), pages 1290-1321, May.
    19. Berlemann, Michael, 2015. "Hurricane Risk, Happiness and Life Satisfaction. Some Empirical Evidence on the Indirect Effects of Natural Disasters," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113073, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Chadi, Adrian & Hetschko, Clemens, 2013. "Flexibilisation without hesitation? Temporary contracts and workers' satisfaction," Discussion Papers 2013/3, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Development;

    JEL classification:

    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-10-00537. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.