The Psychosocial Value of Employment: Evidence from a Refugee Camp

Reshmaan Hussam, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane and Fatima Zahra

American Economic Review, 2022, vol. 112, issue 11, 3694-3724

Abstract: Employment may be important to well-being for reasons beyond its role as an income source. This paper presents a causal estimate of the psychosocial value of employment in refugee camps in Bangladesh. We involve 745 individuals in a field experiment with three arms: a control arm, a weekly cash arm, and an employment arm of equal value. Employment raises psychosocial well-being substantially more than cash alone, and 66 percent of the employed are willing to forgo cash payments to continue working temporarily for free. Despite material poverty, those in our context both experience and recognize a nonmonetary, psychosocial value to employment.

JEL-codes: C93 D91 I31 J15 J22 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211616

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