Wellbeing at work and the Great Recession: The effect of others' unemployment

Cristina Borra and Francisco Gómez-García
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Francisco Gómez-García: Dpto. Economía e Historia Económica

Working Papers. Serie EC from Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie)

Abstract: The recent recession has generated a tremendous increase in unemployment rates in Spain. In this paper we use a very rich repeated cross-section dataset on workers’ job conditions, together with regional unemployment rates, to investigate whether peers’ unemployment affects individuals’ job satisfaction. We find that, once perceived job stability is controlled for, peers’ unemployment shows a positive effect on individuals’ wellbeing at work, larger and more precisely estimated for men and private-sector workers. The impact is highly non-linear and the largest effect is found for unemployment rates exceeding 10%. Interestingly, the results are robust to controlling for workforce selection. La recesión reciente ha generado un gran incremento de las tasas de desempleo en España. En este artículo se utiliza una fusión de cortes transversales sobre las condiciones de trabajo, lo que junto a las tasas de desempleo regionales nos permite investigar si el desempleo de los pares afecta a la satisfacción laboral de los individuos. Llegamos a que, una vez controlada la estabilidad en el empleo, el desempleo de los pares muestra un efecto positivo sobre la satisfacción laboral. Este efecto es mayor para los hombres y los trabajadores del sector privado. Además, el impacto es no lineal y el efecto mayor se encuentra para una tasa de desempleo mayor al 10%. Los resultados son robustos y no hay problemas de selección muestral.

Keywords: Satisfacción laboral; tasa de desempleo; posición relativa; inseguridad laboral; España; Gran Recesión Job satisfaction; unemployment rate; relative position; job insequrity; Spain; Great Recession (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 I31 J28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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http://www.ivie.es/downloads/docs/wpasec/wpasec-2014-04.pdf Fisrt version / Primera version, 2014 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Wellbeing at Work and the Great Recession: The Effect of Others’ Unemployment (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ivi:wpasec:2014-04

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