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Employment Types and Subjective Wellbeing: Evidence from the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing

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Measuring, Understanding and Improving Wellbeing Among Older People

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Abstract

Using seven waves of the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing (ELSA), this chapter examines the impact of labour market attachments on subjective wellbeing (SWB) and quality of life (QoL), during employment and retirement. The authors show that that permanent employees (as opposed to temporary employees) and self-employed (as opposed to paid employees) report higher levels of SWB and QoL throughout their working lives. They argue that this is because permanent employees and the self-employed become more attached to their jobs due to a perceived stronger job-identity fit. However, in retirement, withdrawal from the labour market represents a loss of this identity. Thus, a significant drop in SWB and QoL is observed for permanent employees and self-employed during retirement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Samuelson Appau, Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Lisa Farrell

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  1. Samuelson Appau
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  2. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill
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  3. Lisa Farrell
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Correspondence to Samuelson Appau .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Sefa Awaworyi Churchill

  2. School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Lisa Farrell

  3. School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Samuelson Appau

Appendix

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Table 5 Description and summary statistics of variables
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Appau, S., Awaworyi Churchill, S., Farrell, L. (2020). Employment Types and Subjective Wellbeing: Evidence from the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing. In: Awaworyi Churchill, S., Farrell, L., Appau, S. (eds) Measuring, Understanding and Improving Wellbeing Among Older People. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2353-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2353-3_6

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