scholarly journals Subjective Well-Being Scarring through Unemployment: New Methods, New Results?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Eberl ◽  
Matthias Collischon ◽  
Tobias Wolbring

Scarring effects of unemployment on subjective well-being (SWB), i.e., negative effects that remain even after workers reenter employment, are well documented in the literature. Nevertheless, the theoretical mechanisms by which unemployment leads to long-lasting negative consequences for SWB are still under debate. Thus, we theorize that unemployment can have an enduring impact mainly through (i) the experience of unemployment as an incisive life event that, for example, affects health and (ii) unemployment as a driver of future unemployment. Using advanced longitudinal modeling that controls for group-specific trends, we estimate SWB scarring through unemployment using German panel data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Our results consistently show a large negative effect of unemployment on SWB as well as significant lasting scarring effects (for both men and women as well as for short- and long-term unemployment spells). Further analyses reveal that repeated periods of unemployment drive these effects, implying that there are hardly any adaptations to unemployment that buffer its effect on SWB. We conclude that scarring effects through unemployment mainly work through unemployment increasing the probability of future unemployment. Regarding policy implications, our findings suggest that preventing unemployment, regardless of its duration, is beneficial for individual well-being.

Social Forces ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamkinat Rauf

Abstract Previous research finds that unemployment leaves permanent “scars” on subjective well-being (SWB) that remain even after reemployment. However, this research systematically overweighs long-term unemployment, inaccurately measures employment transitions, often does not track individuals long enough to substantiate scarring, and does not always account for age-related changes in well-being. This paper uses event history calendars from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to track complete monthly employment histories of prime working age Americans over a 17-year period, and accounts for the temporal relationships between SWB, age, and employment transitions using a novel fixed-effects formulation. The results suggest that there is some variation in patterns of recovery by employment stability after job loss, but no significant differences were observed by the duration of unemployment spells. Within 2 years of reemployment, average SWB levels reverted toward baseline trajectories across all groups, showing no evidence of scarring. This study brings unemployment literature into better alignment with research on resilience and adaptation. The findings also highlight some limitations of the construct of SWB for assessing the long-term costs of unemployment.


Wild Capital ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 12-37
Author(s):  
Barbara K. Jones

By failing to assign nature value in our current Anthropocene, the opportunity costs of diminishing biodiversity are not recognized in the marketplace, leading to significant negative consequences for both nature and humanity. Polluting water, destroying habitats, or exterminating species should each lessen nature’s value, but if nature has never been assigned a value, that loss is not recognized and development becomes the default. The words “wild capital” remind us that nature should be viewed as an asset like any other, and that in doing so we are better equipped to appreciate its long-term worth. Since the ecosystem services model (ES) ties together the ecological, social, and economic needs of human well-being, it is well situated to assign nature value and from that make a case for nature as natural capital. To assist in policy decisions, ES has offered a path based on the language of economics, making it appealing to economists, while to conservationists, it has turned an argument about the negative effects of development on wildlife into a more fruitful dialogue about how beneficial conservation is for human well-being. ES is also compatible with efforts at sustainability and the goals of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.


2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byongook Moon ◽  
Merry Morash ◽  
June Oh Jang ◽  
SeokJin Jeong

Empirical studies indicate that violence against teachers is a globally prevalent phenomenon and has damaging negative effects on victimized teachers’ physical and emotional well-being and teaching effectiveness. Nevertheless, limited empirical research has been conducted to identify factors affecting emotional distress among victimized teachers. This research contributes to the literature by exploring negative consequence of victimization and factors associated with victimized teachers’ emotional distress in a South Korean context. The results indicate that students’ verbal and noncontact physical aggression are highly correlated with teachers’ emotional distress. Teachers’ gender, student-oriented approach, and several incident characteristics (number of offending students, direct settlement with offending students) are significant predictors of emotional distress caused by either students’ verbal threat or noncontact aggressive behaviors. Directions for future research and policy implications are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (37) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Havíř

Purpose of the article: The purpose of this article is to identify the role the customer experience plays in the transformation of the customer and to develop a theory that brings together related concepts in order to position the phenomenon of customer experience in the macromarketing context.Methodology/methods: The grounded theory development approach is based upon the sequential search and content analysis of the research papers acquired primarily from Scopus and Web of Science databases and by the process of citation chaining.Scientific aim: The aim of this article is to identify customer experience related concepts and relationships between them to lay the foundation for empirical research in the area of customer experience and transformation management.Findings: The research points out to the significant role of the customer experience in the transformation of the customer and therefore to the necessity to approach marketing initiatives to customer experience management thoroughly to achieve the desired marketing results, but also responsibly and ethically to promote growth not the degradation of the society.Conclusions: The cycle of the customer transformation as outlined through the conceptual model contains weak spots which can provide free space for negative effects of the company’s outputs on the customer. The trend of digitisation and digital products can significantly amplify this possibility and increase the overall negative effect. From another standpoint, several problematic spots can cause difficulties for companies intentionally trying to transform the customer through their outputs, namely intent-result gap, reality-perception gap, single-part gap, and experience-memory gap.Scientific research in this area might support the effectiveness of marketing initiatives, increase transparency in the field of customer experience and transformation, and lead to increased customers’ well-being, long-term happiness, life satisfaction, and quality of life.


2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avron Spiro ◽  
Richard A. Settersten ◽  
Carolyn M. Aldwin

Abstract Most research on military service focuses on its short-term negative consequences, especially the mental and physical injuries of those deployed in warzones. However, studies of long-term outcomes reveal surprisingly positive effects of military service—both those early in adulthood that grow over time and others that can emerge later in life. These multidomain effects have been found in veterans of World War II and the Korean War and are now being seen in veterans of the Vietnam War. Although some are directly attributable to public policies such as the GI Bill, which facilitate educational and economic gains, there are personal developmental gains as well, including autonomy, emotional maturity and resilience, mastery, and leadership skills, that lead to better health and well-being in later life. These long-term effects vary across persons, change over time within persons, and often reflect processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage. We propose a life-span model of the effects of military service that provides a perspective for probing both long-term positive and negative outcomes for aging veterans. We further explicate the model by focusing on both sociocultural dynamics and individual processes. We identify public-use data that can be examined to evaluate this model, and offer a set of questions that can be used to assess military service. Finally, we outline an agenda for dedicated inquiry into such effects and consider policy implications for the health and well-being of aging veterans in later life.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0193841X2092723
Author(s):  
Marco Caliendo ◽  
Stefan Tübbicke

Background: The literature on start-up subsidies (SUS) for the unemployed finds positive effects on objective outcome measures such as employment or income. However, little is known about effects on subjective well-being of participants. Knowledge about this is especially important because subsidizing the transition into self-employment may have unintended adverse effects on participants’ well-being due to its risky nature and lower social security protection, especially in the long run. Objective: We study the long-term effects of SUS on subjective outcome indicators of well-being, as measured by the participants’ satisfaction in different domains. This extends previous analyses of the current German SUS program (“Gründungszuschuss”) that focused on objective outcomes—such as employment and income—and allows us to make a more complete judgment about the overall effects of SUS at the individual level. Research design: Having access to linked administrative-survey data providing us with rich information on pretreatment characteristics, we base our analysis on the conditional independence assumption and use propensity score matching to estimate causal effects within the potential outcomes framework. We perform several sensitivity analyses to inspect the robustness of our findings. Results: We find long-term positive effects on job satisfaction but negative effects on individuals’ satisfaction with their social security situation. Supplementary findings suggest that the negative effect on satisfaction with social security may be driven by negative effects on unemployment and retirement insurance coverage. Our heterogeneity analysis reveals substantial variation in effects across gender, age groups, and skill levels. Estimates are highly robust.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 760-769
Author(s):  
O. N. Antipina ◽  
◽  
A. D. Krivitskaya ◽  

This paper studies the effects of objective macroeconomic indicators on measures of subjective well-being. This issue is central to the economics of happiness as a modern academic research discipline. The article provides an econometric approach to identifying the impact of changes in macroeconomic indicators on the reported level of happiness. We used models on panel data for 163 countries for the period from 2005 to 2019. The results of modeling showed that GDP per capita has a significant positive effect while unemployment and inflation, a significant negative effect on happiness. Our quantitative results show that unemployment depresses the reported level of happiness more than inflation does. Our research complements a number of macroeconomic studies in the field of public and subjective well-being: it focuses on links between the reported level of happiness and GDP per capita and determines social and economic costs of unemployment and inflation. These studies are of particular importance in the context of digitalization of the economy and the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.


Author(s):  
Anthony Pak-Hin Kong

Purpose Enhancing social participation and reducing emotional distress in persons with aphasia (PWA) are a critical rehabilitation goal. Social relationships and meaningful activities performed by PWA are also crucial to promote positive psychosocial well-being. As a precautionary measure specific to the COVID-19 pandemic, most PWA worldwide have generally followed the guidelines of going out less, restricting when and where to gather with friends and peers, reducing social activities, and maintaining appropriate social distance; these acts are contrary to the traditional principles of managing aphasia. This article aims to (a) highlight and add to our understanding of issues related to the impact of the currently evolving COVID-19 pandemic on PWA, (b) direct readers to relevant reports in the literature of telerehabilitation for aphasia to look for useful information regarding remote assessment and therapy to be considered during the pandemic, (c) summarize support initiatives developed and resources compiled thus far as well as provide links for caregivers and PWA to find more information about COVID-19 in their communities, and (d) offer recommendations to potentially move the field of aphasia research and clinical PWA services forward in a positive way to endure the pandemic and in the forthcoming post-COVID world. Conclusions At present, there are significant knowledge gaps regarding the short and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on PWA and their caregivers. It is crucial that different stakeholders be sensitive and flexible when addressing the psychosocial and rehabilitation needs of PWA to mitigate the negative effects during and after the COVID-19 era.


Author(s):  
Pan Zhang ◽  
Zhiguo Wang

Although haze pollution with PM2.5 as the chief pollutant has become a critical threat worldwide, little research has examined the effects of PM2.5 concentrations on subjective well-being. Based on a longitudinal aggregated panel dataset from Chinese provinces, this study investigates the effects of PM2.5 concentrations on levels of happiness and the inequality of happiness. The results showed that high ground-level PM2.5 concentrations decreased the average level of happiness and high PM2.5 concentrations had stronger negative effects on the happiness of persons with high income than those with low income. In addition, PM2.5 concentrations were also significantly negatively related to inequality of happiness in Chinese provinces. Further empirical tests showed that the negative effects of PM2.5 concentrations on the inequality of happiness could be explained by the stronger influence of PM2.5 concentrations on the subjective well-being of individuals with a higher initial level of happiness than those with a lower initial level of happiness. This confirms that PM2.5 pollution can do harm to subjective well-being and reduce variations in the subjective well-being of individuals. The policy implications of controlling haze pollution and improving well-being are discussed.


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