Wellbeing Consequences of Unemployment and Working with a Job Dissatisfaction in Turkey

Zeynep B. Uður ()
Additional contact information
Zeynep B. Uður: Social Sciences University of Ankara, Hukumet Meydaný No:3, C421 Ulus/Ankara, Turkiye.

International Econometric Review (IER), 2022, vol. 14, issue 4, 124-141

Abstract: This study aims to shed light on the well-being of unemployed individuals in Turkey by posing two questions. First, are the unemployed unhappier compared to the employed? Second, are the unemployed even unhappier than people unsatisfied with their job? We utilize the Life Satisfaction Survey's individual-level data between the 2004-2020 period. The LSS survey is a nationally representative survey with more than 324,000 observations in 17 years. Firstly, after controlling for household income, the unemployed have considerably lower well-being than the employed. However, compared to employed people who are dissatisfied with their job, the unemployed's well-being is statistically significantly higher. Thus, it appears that unemployment is a negative life event in Turkey as elsewhere, but so is working in a toxic job. Moreover, we find strong gender effects as males and particularly married males suffer more from unemployment. Also, a quarter of the unemployed report that they feel social pressure due to unemployment. These findings suggest that social approval plays some role in the impact of unemployment. Our findings imply that societies similar to Turkey in terms of the labor market would be better off with some unemployment insurance program as it signals to potential quitters that some unemployment is tolerated by society.

Keywords: unemployment; job dissatisfaction; happiness; well-being; Turkey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I31 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.era.org.tr/makaleler/1201608.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:erh:journl:v:14:y:2022:i:4:p:124-141

Access Statistics for this article

International Econometric Review (IER) is currently edited by Asad Zaman

More articles in International Econometric Review (IER) from Econometric Research Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by M. F. Cosar ().