Can Governments Boost People’s Sense of Well-Being? The Impact of Selected Labour Market and Health Policies on Life Satisfaction

Boarini, Romina; Comola, Margherita; Keulenaer, Femke de; Manchin, Robert; Smith, Conal

doi:10.1007/s11205-013-0386-8

Cited by 25 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…For example, if stable social policy traditions affect both the arrangement of different labor market policies as well as the well-being consequences of unemployment and insecure jobs, estimates for the effects of labor market policies may be biased. Moreover, concerns about the cross-national comparability of subjective measures of wellbeing and health are reduced, as comparisons are made within countries over time (e.g., Boarini et al 2013).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Global life satisfaction scales have been shown to be valid, reliable, and sensitive to change such that they are well-suited for our analyses (Diener et al 2013). Specifically, they capture the socalled cognitive component of individuals' subjective well-being, that is, people's judgments about their life as a whole (Boarini et al 2013). Moreover, Headey et al (1993) suggest that life satisfaction also represents an important dimension of mental health.…”

Section: Micro-level Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To examine the robustness of our results with respect to omitted variable bias at the country-level, we also make use of the fact that the ESS includes almost all countries repeatedly. Following two recent studies on the overall effect of different labor market policies on well-being (Boarini et al 2013; Ochsen and Welsch 2012), we estimate pooled linear regression models with country and time fixed effects. These models only use within-country changes in labor market policies over time to identify the moderating effects of welfare state institutions on the well-being and health consequences of unemployment and insecure jobs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These models only use within-country changes in labor market policies over time to identify the moderating effects of welfare state institutions on the well-being and health consequences of unemployment and insecure jobs. This not only reduces problems of spurious correlation at the country-level, but also has the advantage that cultural biases in subjective well-being or health reports are mostly ruled out (Boarini et al 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effects of Unemployment and Insecure Jobs on Well-Being and Health: The Moderating Role of Labor Market Policies

et al. 2017

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Labor market insecurities have been growing in Europe and previous research has illustrated that unemployment and insecure jobs negatively affect individuals' wellbeing and health. Although empirical evidence suggests that these effects vary substantially across different welfare states, we still know little about the moderating role of specific labor market policies. Taking a cross-national comparative perspective, this article investigates how passive and active labor market policies (PLMP, ALMP) as well as employment protection legislation (EPL) shape the experience of unemployment and insecure jobs. We complement micro data of round 1-6 (2002-2012) of the European Social Survey with time-varying macro indicators of PLMP, ALMP, and EPL. The data include about 89,000 individuals nested in 112 country-rounds and 26 countries respectively. We apply three-level random intercept models as well as pooled linear regression models including country fixed effects. The results show that labor market policies are important in shaping the experience of unemployment, but are less relevant for workers in insecure jobs. Specifically, higher unemployment benefit generosity buffers the negative effects of unemployment on well-being but not health. Moreover, we discuss different interpretations for the finding that higher ALMP expenditures are associated with more negative effects of unemployment on well-being and health. With respect to EPL it is found that in countries with high insider protection, deregulating the restrictions on the use of temporary employment increases the negative effects of unemployment on well-being and health.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Micro-level Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effects of Unemployment and Insecure Jobs on Well-Being and Health: The Moderating Role of Labor Market Policies

et al. 2017

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“…There is evidence that the generosity of unemployment benefits reduces overall insecurity and improves subjective well-being (e.g. Inanc and Kalleberg, forthcoming; Boarini et al, 2013), including that of housewives (Sjöberg, 2010). This implies that unemployment benefits and other welfare policies may have external benefits that reach beyond the immediate beneficiary 8 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unemployment, temporary work and subjective well-being

Inanc

2016

OECD Statistics Working Papers

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This paper investigates the extent to which unemployment and temporary work -two forms of labour market insecurity -affect different aspects of subjective well-being (i.e. life satisfaction, psychological well-being and satisfaction with partnership) among legally married and cohabiting couples in the United Kingdom. Drawing on matched data for couples from the British Household Panel Study, the paper shows that both forms of labour market insecurity, when experienced by the male partner, lower significantly the psychological well-being and life satisfaction of the female partner; women's temporary work also slightly lowers men's psychological well-being. The impact of spousal labour market insecurity depends, however, on the employment status of the individual: after controlling for financial strain, psychological well-being and life-satisfaction of both partners in a couple are hampered the most when men are economically dependent on their female partners. In the case of partnership satisfaction, results differ from the other two subjective well-being outcomes: while unemployment of the female partner is associated with higher satisfaction for men, partnership satisfaction is particularly low when both partners experience either form of labour market insecurity. These effects are robust after controlling for fixed individual characteristics that can influence both employment status and well-being outcomes.

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Institutions and Life Satisfaction

Berggren

Bjørnskov

2020

Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics

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Can Governments Boost People’s Sense of Well-Being? The Impact of Selected Labour Market and Health Policies on Life Satisfaction

Cited by 25 publications

References 19 publications

The Effects of Unemployment and Insecure Jobs on Well-Being and Health: The Moderating Role of Labor Market Policies

The Effects of Unemployment and Insecure Jobs on Well-Being and Health: The Moderating Role of Labor Market Policies

Unemployment, temporary work and subjective well-being

Institutions and Life Satisfaction

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