IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijmpps/ijm-07-2019-0323.html

Life satisfaction of employees, labour market tightness and matching efficiency

Author

Listed:
  • Pablo de Pedraza
  • Martin Guzi
  • Kea Tijdens

Abstract

Purpose - Di Tellaet al.(2001) show that temporary fluctuations in life satisfaction (LS) are correlated with macroeconomic circumstances such as gross domestic product, unemployment and inflation. In this paper, we bring attention to labour market measures from search and matching models (Pissarides 2000). Design/methodology/approach - Our analysis follows the two-stage estimation strategy used in Di Tellaet al.(2001) to explore sectoral unemployment levels, labour market tightness and matching efficiency as LS determinants. In the first stage, we use a large sample of individual data collected from a continuous web survey during the 2007–2014 period in the Netherlands to obtain regression-adjusted measures of LS by quarter and economic sector. In the second-stage, we regress LS measures against the unemployment level, labour market tightness and matching efficiency. Findings - Our results are threefold. First, the negative link between unemployment and an employee's LS is confirmed at the sectoral level. Second, labour market tightness, measured as the number of vacancies per job-seeker rather than the number of vacancies per unemployed, is shown to be relevant to the LS of workers. Third, labour market matching efficiency affects the LS of workers differently when they are less satisfied with their job and in temporary employment. Originality/value - No evidence of this relationship has been documented before. Our results give support to government interventions aimed at activating demand for labour, improving the matching of job-seekers to vacant jobs and reducing information frictions by supporting match-making technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Pablo de Pedraza & Martin Guzi & Kea Tijdens, 2020. "Life satisfaction of employees, labour market tightness and matching efficiency," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(3), pages 341-355, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-07-2019-0323
    DOI: 10.1108/IJM-07-2019-0323
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJM-07-2019-0323/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJM-07-2019-0323/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/IJM-07-2019-0323?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ana Suárez-Álvarez & María Rosalía Vicente, 2025. "Internet use and the Well-Being of the Elders. A Quantitative Study in an Aged Country," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 1121-1135, February.
    2. Pablo de Pedraza & María Rosalía Vicente, 2021. "Are Spaniards Happier When the Bars Are Open? Using Life Satisfaction to Evaluate COVID-19 Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-13, September.
    3. Jakub Prochazka & Shubham Pandey & Ondrej Castek & Mojtaba Firouzjaeiangalougah, 2024. "Replication of Changing Hearts and Minds? Why Media Messages Designed to Foster Empathy Often Fail (Gubler et al., 2022)," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2024-02, Masaryk University, revised Aug 2024.
    4. Adamus, Magdalena & Guzi, Martin & Ballová Mikušková, Eva, 2025. "Evaluators’ masculine gender identity may drive gender biases in peer evaluation of business plans," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    5. Ana Suárez Álvarez & María R. Vicente, 2023. "Going “beyond the GDP” in the digital economy: exploring the relationship between internet use and well-being in Spain," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Pablo de Pedraza & Martin Guzi & Kea Tijdens, 2020. "Life Dissatisfaction and Anxiety in COVID-19 pandemic," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2020-03, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    7. Benjamin Harrell & Luca Fumarco & Patrick Button & David J. Schwegman & Kyla Denwood, 2023. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Access to Mental Health Care Services," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 420-422, May.
    8. Tim Friedhoff & Cam-Duc Au & Philippe Krahnhof, 2023. "Analysis of the Impact of Orthogonalized Brent Oil Price Shocks on the Returns of Dependent Industries in Times of the Russian War," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2023-04, Masaryk University.
    9. Robson Morgan & Kelsey J. O’Connor, 2022. "Labor Market Policy and Subjective Well-Being During the Great Recession," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 391-422, February.
    10. Luca Fumarco & Benjamin Harrell & Patrick Button & David Schwegman & E Dils, 2020. "Gender Identity, Race, and Ethnicity-based Discrimination in Access to Mental Health Care: Evidence from an Audit Correspondence Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 28164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    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:eme:ijmpps:ijm-07-2019-0323. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Emerald Support (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.