Using data for West Germany from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyse the impact of transitions from unemployment to full-time employment on life satisfaction, with special focus on the influence of job quality. We apply various indicators of job quality (self-reported job satisfaction, wages, type of contract, and indicators of the fit between the worker and job requirements). We control for the influence of income changes and other factors affecting life satisfaction, using a conditional logit estimator. Results suggest that job quality only matters to some extent, and often people in bad jobs are still better off than those who remain unemployed. This effect is statistically significant for most indicators of job quality, except for workers with low job satisfaction and for those whose new job is much worse than their pre-unemployment job.We would like to thank Gesine Stephan, conference participants at the ISQOLS conference 2007 in San Diego, USA and the 2008 meeting of the IARIW in Portoroz, Slovenia, as well as seminar participants in Nuremberg, Göttingen and Vienna and three anonymous referees for valuable comments and suggestions on earlier versions. All remaining errors are ours.

The article contains sections titled: 1. Introduction 2. Properties 3. Raw Materials 4. Production Processes 4.1. Bulk Polymerization 4.1.1. Casting of Acrylic Glass 4.1.2. Continuous Production of Cast Acrylic Glass 4.1.3. Tube Polymerization 4.2. Suspension Polymerization 4.3. Continuous Polymerization of Molding Compounds 4.4. Batchwise Solution Polymerization 4.5. Emulsion Polymerization 5. Uses 5.1. Molding Compounds 5.1.1. Standard Molding Compounds 5.1.2. Heat‐Resistant Molding Compounds 5.1.3. Impact‐Resistant Molding Compounds 5.1.4. Molding Compounds for Special Optical Uses 5.2. Semifinished Products 5.2.1. Extruded Acrylic Glass 5.2.2. Cast Acrylic Glass 5.3. Binders and Paints 5.4. Additives for the Petroleum Industry 5.5. Miscellaneous Uses 6. Toxicology 7. Environmental Aspects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the gender specific private returns on education (RE) in Europe in a comparative perspective. The authors extend the model of de la Fuente (2003) by estimating the parameters by gender and introducing maternity leaves and benefits. The paper analyses the impact of the public policy variables evaluating the elasticities with respect to unemployment benefits, marginal and average tax rates, maternity leave and childcare benefits. Design/methodology/approach – The authors estimate the Mincerian coefficients, with the Heckman’ selection model, for 12 West European countries using the EU-SILC data. The authors then use them as input to calibrate the decision model. Findings – The RE of females tend to be higher than those of males in all the Europeans countries but Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The gender gap can be explained mainly by the wage premia and labour income taxes which more than compensate the negative effects on females’ returns triggered by higher unemployment rates and maternity-related benefits. Practical implications – The tax system has the most pronounced effect on RE. An increase in the marginal tax rates has a negative impact. An increase in the average tax rates can have a negative or positive impact, depending on the progressivity of the tax system. An increase in unemployment benefits and maternity or child-care benefits has a negative but fairly small impact. Social implications – The analysis considers just one dimension of maternity related policies: the effect on RE and differences across gender. These policies may have aims which are beyond the scope of this paper, for instance to increase fertility. From this viewpoint, the small values of the elasticities presented are reassuring in that they suggest that they can be implemented at a fairly small cost in terms of investment in human capital. Originality/value – The authors compute the RE using a model which allows us to take into account and assess the significance of relevant variables: wage premium, income tax, some public transfers and benefits, costs of the investments. Moreover, the authors estimate the wage premia using relatively recent EU-SILC data. Finally, the paper compares 12 EU countries spanning quite different labour market conditions and institutions.

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