Type of Employment as a Determinant of Subjective Well-Being: Problems of Comparability of Research Results

Abstract

The review of empirical studies of the relationship between subjective well-being and the employment type reveals: unlike workers under an open-ended contract, workers with temporary or informal employment show a lower or the same level of subjective well-being, self-employed ones – higher or the same. The results vary depending on the considered indicators of subjective well-being, the criteria for identifying groups of workers, the controlled variables, etc. The use of different models for studying the relationship between subjective well-being and the employment type gives rise to problems of results comparability. Possible sources of contradictions are highlighted in the article. Some of them relate to the measurement of subjective well-being: its indicators vary and are interconnected in different ways with the employment type, have different significance for workers, which may differ not only in the level of subjective well-being, but in the nature of interconnection of its indicators. Another block of methodological difficulties is associated with the classification of workers and their differentiation. Even with the same contract type they are heterogeneous not only in terms of employment conditions, but also in motives and in the nature of subjective well-being. The study of the relationship between the employment type and the subjective well-being of workers requires the development of methodological solutions, including the selection of an informative indicators of subjective well-being, taking into account the structure of the relationship between them, as well as the study of the differentiation of workers and the reconstruction of social types among them.