Heterogeneity in the relationship between unemployment and subjective well-being: A quantile approach

Arbeitspapier

Unemployment has been robustly shown to strongly decrease subjective well-being (or "happiness"). In the present paper, we use panel quantile regression techniques in order to analyze to what extent the negative impact of unemployment varies along the subjective well-being distribution. In our analysis of British Household Panel Survey data (1996-2008) we find that, over the quantiles of our subjective well-being variable, individuals with high well-being suffer less from becoming unemployed. A similar but stronger effect of unemployment is found for a broad mental well-being variable (GHQ-12). For happy and mentally stable individuals, it seems their higher well-being acts like a safety net when they become unemployed. We explore these findings by examining the heterogeneous unemployment effects over the quantiles of satisfaction with various life domains.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 808

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; General Welfare; Well-Being ; Labor Economics: General ; Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
• Subject: Subjective Well-being ; Unemployment ; Quantile Analysis ; Heterogeneity ; British Household Panel Survey ; Domain Satisfaction

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Binder, Martin ; Coad, Alex
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
• (where): Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/109999
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET