Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall well-being of citizens. However, little is known about the causal pathways through which education shapes people’s subjective well-being (SWB). This paper explores the direct...

Very little is known about how the differential treatment of sexual minorities could influence subjective reports of overall well-being. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Data from two large surveys that provide nationally representative samples for two different countries – Australia (the...

This paper provides an empirical test of the rational addiction model, used in economics to model individuals’ consumption of addictive substances, versus the utility misprediction model, used in psychology to explain the discrepancy between people’s decision and their subsequent...

We investigate whether the intensity of emotional pain following a negative shock is different across the distribution of a person's locus of control – the extent to which individuals believe that their actions can influence future outcomes. Using panel data from Australia, we show that...

This paper uses longitudinal survey data to test the degree to which measures of job insecurity are correlated with changes in labour market status. Three major findings are reported. First, the perceived probability of job loss is only weakly related to both exogenous job separations and...

We investigate the impact of short-term weather and long-term climate on self-reported life satisfaction using panel data. We find robust evidence that day-to-day weather variation impacts life satisfaction by a similar magnitude to acquiring a mild disability. Utilizing two sources of variation...

It is widely accepted that temporary jobs tend to be associated with low pay which, in turn, will have negative consequences for household income. Evidence in support of such claims, however, is surprisingly thin. This study seeks to fill this void. In particular, it is both the first study to...

Does parental joblessness delay young adults' school-to-work transitions? If so, can a university degree moderate this relationship? We examine these questions using a representative sample of young adults under the age of 25 that lived with their parents prior to entering the labor market in...

By definition, temporary workers, such as fixed-term, casual and temporary agency workers, have jobs that are far less stable than permanent jobs. However, surprisingly few studies have investigated whether and to what extent this lesser stability translates into longer commutes to work. Using...

Empirical studies, especially in the US and UK, have consistently reported that rates of involuntary job separation, or dismissal, are significantly lower among female employees than among males. Only rarely, however, have the reasons for this differential been the subject of detailed...