The Role of Social Work Norms in Job Searching and Subjective Well-Being

Arbeitspapier

Social norms are usually neglected in economics, because they are to a large extent enforced through non-market interactions and difficult to isolate empirically. In this paper, we offer a direct measure of the social norm to work and we show that this norm has important economic effects. The stronger the norm, the more quickly unemployed people find a new job. This behavior can be explained by utility differences, probably due to social pressure. Unemployed people are significantly less happy than employed people and their reduction in life satisfaction is the larger, the stronger the norm is.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 300

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; International Migration ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
• Subject: job searching ; social norms ; subjective well-being ; unemployment ; duration of unemployment ; Arbeitsuche ; Lebensqualität ; Arbeitsethik ; Soziale Werte ; Arbeitslosigkeit ; Dauer ; Schätzung ; Schweiz ; Lebenszufriedenheit

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Stutzer, Alois ; Lalive, Rafael
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2001

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/21154
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET