Impact of financial pressure on unemployed job search, job find success and job quality

Ruud Gerards and Riccardo Welters ()

No 8, ROA Research Memorandum from Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA)

Abstract: Research shows that financial pressure – implied as a consequence of benefit sanctions or exhaustion – prompts the unemployed to intensify their job search. However, there is less agreement about whether that intensified job search produces better quality job outcomes. Building on Self-Determination Theory we posit that financial pressure is a controlled motivator to search for work. Controlled motivators are conducive to goal pursuit (job search activity), yet unfavorable to goal achievement (job search success and job quality). Using the HILDA longitudinal data for Australia, we are able to include direct measures of both financial pressure (cash flow problems and hardship), objective job quality (hourly pay and hours worked) as well as subjective job quality (satisfaction with pay and hours). We find that financial pressure intensifies job search without improving the job find rate and job quality outcomes if a job is secured. Interestingly, if a job is secured the unemployed who searched under financial pressure perceive the job to be of lower quality (in terms of satisfaction with pay and hours worked) even though objectively (in terms of actual pay and hours worked) it is similar to the jobs found by the unemployed who searched without financial pressure. Policy implications are discussed.

JEL-codes: J08 J28 J32 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-net
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/2976285/ROA_RM_2016_8.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Impact of financial pressure on unemployed job search, job find success and job quality (2016)
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:unm:umaror:2016008

DOI: 10.26481/umaror.2016008

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ROA Research Memorandum from Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Andrea Willems () and Leonne Portz ().