Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984-2009, we follow persons from their working life into their retirement years and find that, on average, employed people maintain their life satisfaction upon retirement, while long-term unemployed people report a substantial increase in...

Using specific panel data of German welfare benefit recipients, we investigate the non-pecuniary life satisfaction effects of in-work benefits. Our empirical strategy combines difference-in-difference designs with synthetic control groups to analyze transitions of workers between unemployment,...

For representative German panel data, we show that voluntary job switching leads to relatively high levels of life satisfaction, though only for some time, whereas the impact of exogenously triggered job changes is ambiguous. Risk aversion interacts negatively with this effect in life...