JOB SATISFACTION AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING IN
EUROPE
Massimo Cannas, University of Cagliari, Italy E-mail: massimo.cannas@unica.it Bruno S. Sergi,
Harvard University, USA
& University of Messina, Italy E-mail: bsergi@fas.harvard.edu Emiliano Sironi,
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
E-mail: emiliano.sironi@unicatt.it Urszula Mentel,
Rzeszów University of Technology, Poland
E-mail: u.mentel@prz.edu.pl
Received: August, 2019 1st Revision: August, 2019 Accepted: October, 2019 DOI: 10.14254/2071- 789X.2019/12-4/11
ABSTRACT. This paper addresses some recent developments in the field of management science and economics of well-being, trying to prove a link between working conditions and subjective well-being. Using the fifth round of the European Social Survey, which is the most recent set of data with a module focusing on the inter-relations between work, family and well-being, this paper uses an instrumental variable approach to estimate the effect of job satisfaction on subjective Well-being.
The direction of the relationship between these two variables has always been controversial because of endogeneity. Results, also exploring the role of working contract and welfare systems, allow for isolating a considerable influence on job satisfaction in increasing people's subjective well-being. Results are robust even if the restriction condition is violated. Job satisfaction increases subjective well-being even if the instrumental variables are not uncorrelated with the error of the main equation.
JEL Classification : J28, I31 Keywords : job satisfaction, subjective wellbeing, management, instrumental variables, validity of the instruments, European Social Survey.
Introduction
The concepts of Subjective Wellbeing (SWB), Happiness and Quality of Life have become central in contemporary scientific debate. If a great stem of literature investigated differences in the abovementioned constructs for defining SWB (Medevedev & Landhuis, 2018), another stem of scientific debate was focused on the determinants of wellbeing. In this sense, the role of employment has been recognized to be fundamental in explaining wellbeing (Sironi, 2019) in multiple dimensions. This paper is concerned with the relationship between job satisfaction (JS) and subjective wellbeing (SWB). This is particularly interesting because of job satisfaction and wellbeing at the workplace increase employees' performance (Luthans
Cannas, M., Sergi, B. S., Sironi, E., & Mentel, U. (2019). Job satisfaction and subjective well-being in Europe. Economics and Sociology, 12(4), 183-196.
doi:10.14254/2071-789X.2019/12-4/11