Bitte verwenden Sie diesen Link, um diese Publikation zu zitieren, oder auf sie als Internetquelle zu verweisen: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/69461 
Erscheinungsjahr: 
2012
Schriftenreihe/Nr.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7057
Verlag: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Zusammenfassung: 
By exploiting recent advances in mixed (stochastic parameter) ordered probit estimators and a unique longitudinal dataset from Ghana, this paper examines the distribution of subjective wellbeing across sectors of employment and offers insights into the functioning of developing country labor markets. We find little evidence for the overall inferiority of the small firm informal sector: there is not a robust average satisfaction premium for formal work vis a vis self-employment or informal salaried work and, in fact, informal firm owners who employ others are on average significantly happier than formal workers. Moreover, the estimated underlying random parameter distributions unveil substantial latent heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing around the central tendency that fixed parameter models cannot detect. All job categories contain both relatively happy and disgruntled workers. Concretely, roughly 67%, 50%, 40% and 59% prefer being a small firm employer, sole proprietor, informal salaried, and civic worker respectively, to formal work. Hence, there is a high degree of overlap in the distribution of satisfaction across sectors. The results are robust to the inclusion of fixed effects, and using alternate measures of satisfaction. Job characteristics, self-perceived autonomy and experimentally elicited measures of attitudes toward risk do not appear to explain these distributional patterns.
Schlagwörter: 
subjective wellbeing
mixed ordered probit
self-employment
informality
developing country labor markets
Africa
JEL: 
C35
J2
J3
J41
L26
I32
O17
Dokumentart: 
Working Paper

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