Decreased well-being after job loss : testing omitted causes

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serval:BIB_485DA33131B9
Type
Report: a report published by a school or other institution, usually numbered within a series.
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Working paper: Working papers contain results presented by the author. Working papers aim to stimulate discussions between scientists with interested parties, they can also be the basis to publish articles in specialized journals
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Publications
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Title
Decreased well-being after job loss : testing omitted causes
Author(s)
Baumann I.
Institution details
Université de Lausanne
ISBN
2296-1658
Issued date
2015
Language
english
Abstract
Job loss is widely known to lead to a substantial decrease in workers' subjective well-being. Functionalist theories explain this fact by arguing that the fundamental needs that work fulfills are absent during unemployment. Recent evidence from longitudinal studies however contradicts this approach, showing that workers who find a new job do not fully regain their former level of well-being upon reemployment. Therefore other mechanisms must be at work. We suggest that changes in social or economic domains of workers' lives - triggered by job displacement - lead to the observed changes in well-being. Drawing on a unique data set from a survey of workers displaced by plant closure in Switzerland after the financial crisis of 2008, our analysis confirms the previous result that finding a job after displacement does not completely restore workers' pre-displacement level of well-being. The factors that best explain this outcome are changes in social domains, notably changes in workers' job - related social status and their relationships to friends. This result provides valuable insights about the long lasting scars job displacement leaves on workers' lives.
Keywords
sbjective well - being, job displacement, social status, social relationships
Create date
28/01/2015 13:40
Last modification date
20/08/2019 13:55
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