While a large body of evidence suggests that unemployment and self-reported happiness are negatively correlated, it is not clear whether this reflects a causal effect of unemployment on happiness and whether subsidized employment can increase the happiness of the unemployed. To close this gap,...

To examine the influence of working hours on employees' satisfaction, this article uses a large, representative set of panel data from German households (GSOEP). The results show that high working hours and overtime in general do not lead to decreased satisfaction. Rather, increasing working...

The role of money in producing sustained subjective well-being seems to be seriously compromised by social comparisons and habituation. But does that necessarily mean that we would be better off doing something else instead? This paper suggests that the phenomena of comparison and habituation...

German Abstract: Ziel dieser Analyse ist die Identifikation von Auswirkungen unterschiedlicher flexibler Arbeitszeitformen und Abgeltungsarten von Überstunden auf die subjektive Arbeitszufriedenheit. Dazu wird zunächst die Verbreitung flexibler Arbeitszeitformen in Deutschland im Zeitverlauf...

In this paper, we run regression analyses to explain voluntary turnover intentions with data from more than 5,000 employees and with about 250 explanatory variables. The findings of our multi-factor approach highlight the fact that previous empirical research might have over-estimated the impact...

German Abstract: Auf Basis von Daten des Deutschen Sozio-Ökonomischen Panels der Jahre 2001 bis 2012 untersuchen wir Determinanten einer Zeitarbeitsbeschäftigung sowie möglicher Erklärungsansätze für Unterschiede in der Arbeits- und Lebenszufriedenheit zwischen Arbeitnehmern in Zeitarbeit...

We estimate the relationship between changes in the body mass index (bmi) and wages or satisfaction, respectively, in a panel of German employees. In contrast to previous literature, the dynamic models indicate that there is an inverse u-shaped association between bmi and wages among young...

For representative German panel data, we document that voluntary job switching is associated with higher levels of life satisfaction, though only for some time, whereas forced job changes do not affect life satisfaction clearly. Using plant closures as an exogenous trigger of switching to a new...

Previous research has found that agency workers are less satisfied with their job than regular workers on a permanent contract. All these studies have in common that they treat agency workers as a homogeneous group; that is, they did not consider the contract type agency workers hold. This paper...

Despite lower incomes the self-employed often report higher job satisfaction. But this increased job satisfaction only sometimes translates into higher life satisfaction, likely due to the heterogeneous nature of self-employment. By distinguishing different types of self-employment, this paper...