This paper provides some of the first empirical evidence on the psychological impact of past unemployment. Using eleven waves of the German socio-economic panel (GSOEP) data set, we show, as is now standard, that those currently unemployed have far lower life satisfaction scores than do the...

We look for evidence of adaptation in well-being to major life events using eighteen waves of British panel data. Adaptation to marriage, divorce, birth of a child and widowhood appears to be rapid and complete, whereas this is not the case for unemployment. These findings are remarkably similar...

We look for evidence of habituation in twenty waves of German panel data: do individuals, after life and labour market events, tend to return to some baseline level of wellbeing? Although the strongest life satisfaction effect is often at the time of the event, we find significant lag and lead...

We use British panel data to explore the link between occupational status and life satisfaction. We find puzzling evidence for men of a U-shaped relationship in cross-section data: employees in medium-status occupations report lower life satisfaction scores than that of employees in either low-...

This paper uses data from ten waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel to examine the effect of wages and job satisfaction on workers' future quit behavior. Our results show that workers who report dissatisfaction with their jobs are statistically more likely to quit than those with higher...

This paper considers the psychological impact of past unemployment. Using eleven waves of German panel data, we show that life satisfaction is lower not only for the current unemployed (relative to the employed), but also for those with higher levels of past unemployment. However, the negative...

We use British panel data to explore the link between occupational status and life satisfaction. We find puzzling evidence, for men, of a U-shaped relationship in cross-section data: employees in medium-status occupations report lower life satisfaction scores than that of employees in either...