Employment status and subjective well-being: the role of the social norm to work

Kirsten Stam, Inge Sieben, Ellen Verbakel and Paul M de Graaf
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Kirsten Stam: Tilburg University, the Netherlands
Ellen Verbakel: Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Paul M de Graaf: Tilburg University, the Netherlands

Work, Employment & Society, 2016, vol. 30, issue 2, 309-333

Abstract: This article examines to what extent a social norm to work moderates the relationship between employment status and subjective well-being. It was expected that the detrimental impact of non-employment on subjective well-being would be larger in countries with a stronger social norm. Using a direct measure of the social norm to work and employing data from 45 European countries, this study assessed subjective well-being levels of five employment status groups for men and women separately. Results showed that subjective well-being of unemployed men and women is unaffected by the social norm to work. However, non-working disabled men are worse off in countries with a stronger norm. Living in such a country also decreases the well-being gap between employed and retired men, whereas retired women are worse off in these countries. This effect for retirees disappears when a country’s GDP is taken into account, suggesting that norms matter less than affluence.

Keywords: cross-national comparison; employment status; multi-level analyses; social norm to work; subjective well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:30:y:2016:i:2:p:309-333

DOI: 10.1177/0950017014564602

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