Public Sector Employment, Quality of Government, and Well-Being: A Global Analysis

Robert Davidson, Alexander Pacek and Benjamin Radcliff
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Robert Davidson: University of Amsterdam
Alexander Pacek: Texas A&M University
Benjamin Radcliff: University of Notre Dame

International Area Studies Review, 2021, vol. 24, issue 3, 193-204

Abstract: While a growing literature within the study of subjective well-being demonstrates the impact of socio-political factors on subjective well-being, scholars have conspicuously failed to consider the role of the size and scope of government as determinants of well-being. Where such studies exist, the focus is largely on the advanced industrial democracies of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. In this study, we examine the size of the public sector as a determinant of cross-national variation in life satisfaction across a worldwide sample. Our findings strongly suggest that as the public sector grows, subjective well-being increases as well, conditional on the extent of quality of government. Using cross-sectional data on 84 countries, we show this relationship has an independent and separable impact from other economic and political factors.

Keywords: Public; employment; well-being; low income; middle income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:intare:v:24:y:2021:i:3:p:193-204

DOI: 10.1177/22338659211011747

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