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Unemployment Needs Context: How Societal Differences between Countries Moderate the Loss in Life-Satisfaction for the Unemployed

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Abstract

The notion of voluntary unemployment held by orthodox economic theory could be refuted by happiness research, showing that those unemployed experience a persistent loss in life-satisfaction. However, most current research addressing this question is conducted at the individual level or takes into account only simple economic aggregate indicators, such as unemployment rates or inflation. The effects of unemployment on life-satisfaction however are likely to vary between societies depending on factors beyond the economic realm. This paper demonstrates the need to consider a wider set of country-level characteristics, including economic, demographic and attitudinal indicators, if the relationship between unemployment and life-satisfaction is to be understood adequately. Using data from the World Values Survey multi-level models are computed for up to 40 European and Anglo-Saxon societies. While economic indicators such as GDP per capita and income inequality appear to be relevant, unemployment rates seem to not affect the relationship greatly, contrary to results from several previous studies. Other factors however do, either mitigating the loss in life-satisfaction when becoming unemployed (such as the mean level of the perception of autonomy in a society), or further depressing life-satisfaction (such as the mean emphasis of work in a society, the age-dependency ratio or the proportion of women in the labour force). Possible explanations are discussed and suggestions for improved further research made.

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Notes

  1. Please see the data and methods section for the description and operationalisation of the concept.

  2. A survey question relating to orientations towards the role of work was only available for 38 of these countries (but missing for Austria and Bosnia). Analyses incorporating this measure are therefore based on only 38 societies.

  3. All computations were done using HLM 6.06.

  4. Including total government expenditure, government revenue per capita, subsidies and transfer as well as tax revenue and social contributions (in total or as percentage of GDP) did not alter the results of the analyses presented here. The indicators themselves were not significant or substantial.

  5. Persons on maternity or paternity leave were considered employed.

  6. For a detailed operationalisation of these indicators, please see Table 1.

  7. A list of all indicators attempted with initial results can be obtained from the author upon request.

  8. The results are not presented here due to the very limited changes observable.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank John MacInnes for his advice in editing this article and Paul Norris for his suggestions regarding the analyses presented.

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  1. School of Social and Political Science (Sociology), University of Edinburgh, 15A George Square, EH8 9LD, Edinburgh, UK

    Jan Eichhorn

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Correspondence to Jan Eichhorn.

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Eichhorn, J. Unemployment Needs Context: How Societal Differences between Countries Moderate the Loss in Life-Satisfaction for the Unemployed. J Happiness Stud 14, 1657–1680 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9402-y

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