Social Contacts, Unemployment, and Experienced Well-Being. Evidence from Time-Use Data

Arbeitspapier

We use the UK Time-Use Survey 2014/15 to analyze how differences in the frequency and intensity of social contacts contribute to the gap in experienced well-being between employed and unemployed persons. We observe that people generally enjoy being with others more than being alone. The unemployed generally feel worse than the employed when engaging in the same kind of activities, partly because they are more often alone. The unemployed can replace lost work contacts only partially with private contacts. In terms of experienced well-being, however, the small increase in time spent with family and friends (which people enjoy a lot) offsets the loss of work contacts (which people generally enjoy only little). Hence, we do not find that the differences in the social-contact composition between the employed and the unemployed contribute to the difference in their experienced well-being.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 9953

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; General Welfare; Well-Being ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡ ; Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers: General ; Time Allocation and Labor Supply
• Subject: unemployment ; happiness ; experienced well-being ; time use ; social contact ; decomposition

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Hoang, Thi Truong An ; Knabe, Andreas
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/265988
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET