“…Do it with joy!” – Subjective well-being outcomes of working in non-profit organizations

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWorking in non-profit organizations has been shown to be good for individuals' satisfaction with their jobs despite lower incomes. This paper explores the impact of nonprofit work on life satisfaction more general for the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and finds a significant positive impact the size about more than a fourth of that of getting widowed. This effect is quite uniform across the subjective well-being distribution, and thus exists also for those who are already happy. Shadow prices peg this effect at around 22.000 GBP p.a., nearly the average amount of equivalent net household income in the sample analyzed (which is roughly 27.000 GBP p.a.). The positive effect can be explained by third sector workers enjoying their day-to-day activities more, being more happy (affectively) and feeling that they are playing a useful role in their lives.

The subjective well-being of homeworkers across life domains

“…It was hypothesised that homeworking does not have an effect on overall life satisfaction following existing findings for employees (Binder, 2016;Wheatley, 2017). Modelling results in Table 6 confirm Hypothesis 5.…”

“…Among employees, homeworking was found to be related to greater job satisfaction (Binder, 2016; Felstead and Henseke, 2017; Fonner and Roloff, 2015; Redman et al., 2009; Wheatley, 2017). However, while Wheatley’s (2017) longitudinal study confirmed a positive association between homeworking and job satisfaction of men and women who are employees, Binder (2016), who used the same longitudinal dataset, found a large homeworking effect, but this effect was significant only among men, not women. Wheatley (2017) further found a positive relation between homeworking and leisure time satisfaction, again for both men and women.…”

Public–Private Sector Wage Differentials in Australia

“…3 This method has been successfully applied more widely in the economics literature. It was used to examine the impact of the Teach for America Program on the distribution of student achievement by Antecol et al (2013), the heterogeneous effects on subjective well-being of unemployment by Binder and Coad (2015), crime victimisation by Mahuteau and Zhu (2016), and working in non-profit organisations by Binder (2016). 4 Full regression results are available upon request.…”

“…It was used to examine the impact of the Teach for America Program on the distribution of student achievement by Antecol et al. (), the heterogeneous effects on subjective well‐being of unemployment by Binder and Coad (), crime victimisation by Mahuteau and Zhu (), and working in non‐profit organisations by Binder ().…”

What makes work meaningful and why economists should care about it

“…as an unpleasant activity that must be endured as a means to earn an income and finance consumption. Nevertheless, studies relying on self-reported and experimental data have challenged the assumption that only monetary motivations matter in the labour market (Binder, 2016;Bradler et al, 2016;Hamermesh, 2018;Hamilton, 2000;Kosfeld et al, 2017;Preston, 1989;Stern, 2004). In fact, one convincing piece of evidence for the intrinsic value of work is the enormous psychological cost of becoming unemployed, which by far exceeds income losses (Clark, 2001;Kassenboehmer and Haisken-DeNew, 2009; Knabe and Rätzel, 2011a,b;Nikolova and Ayhan, 2019;Winkelmann and Winkelmann, 1998).…”