Clemens Hetschko

• Dr. (PhD equivalent) & Diplom (Master equivalent)
• Professor (Associate) at University of Leeds

Welfare measurement using multiple indicators requires knowledge about how individuals weight different aspects of wellbeing. The better life index provides a way of resolving this individual level weighting issue. It invites people to weight 11 dimensions, embedding measurable indicators. Ideally, the specific embedding of the same indicators shou...

Work and family life are crucial sources of human well-being, which, however, often interfere. Our analysis focuses on the specific case of couples that work in the same industry and occupation. Based on the economic theory of assortative matching, we argue that such a work link may foster career success and therefore well-being. Our study examines...

Combining survey data with biological information allows examining complex interrelationships between a person’s physiological status and behavioral or health-related outcomes. Given the increasing importance of online surveys and smartphone-based research, a crucial question is whether biomarker collection can be embedded in online surveys without...

This study examined whether the six trait-like dimensions of psychological well-being (e.g., autonomy and environmental mastery) moderate the effects of unemployment on various facets of subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, satisfaction with life domains, and experienced mood). Further, re-employment expectations during unemployment were...

We estimate the dynamic impact of two waves of the COVID‐19 pandemic on an exceptionally broad range of indicators of worker well‐being. Our analyses are based on high‐frequency panel data from an app‐based survey of German workers and employ an event‐study design with individual‐specific fixed effects. We find that workers' mental health decreased...

Unemployment is widely considered an important chronic stressor. Using longitudinal data of initially employed German jobseekers, the present study examines whether unemployment is related to changes in hair cortisol concentration (HCC), a reliable biomarker for chronic stress. The results indicate that HCC is the highest initially when individuals...

Individuals differ in how they react to unemployment. Yet, research on sources of interindividual differences in unemployment-related well-being changes is still in its infancy. Using monthly panel data of initially employed German jobseekers, this study examined whether the six trait-like dimensions of psychological well-being (PWB, e.g., autonomy...

Smartphone apps are increasingly being used for population-based survey research. Recruiting people to sign up for an app-based survey is, however, less straightforward compared to traditional surveys, which risks inflating nonresponse as well as the potential for nonresponse bias. By means of an experiment with over 44,000 recently registered job...

Reports an error in "The impact of unemployment on cognitive, affective, and eudaimonic well-being facets: Investigating immediate effects and short-term adaptation" by Mario Lawes, Clemens Hetschko, Ronnie Schöb, Gesine Stephan and Michael Eid (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Advanced Online Publication, Apr 04, 2022, np). In the ori...

While long-lasting declines in life satisfaction following unemployment have been well documented, evidence on the impact of unemployment on affective and eudaimonic well-being is scarce. Moreover, most existing studies relied on yearly panel data and were unable to separate the immediate effects of entering unemployment from prospective effects oc...

While long-lasting declines in life satisfaction following unemployment have been well documented, evidence on the impact of unemployment on affective and eudaimonic well-being is scarce. Moreover, most existing studies relied on yearly panel data and were unable to separate the immediate effects of entering unemployment from prospective effects oc...

Work as well as family life are crucial sources of human wellbeing, which however often interfere. This is especially so if partners work in the same occupation or industry. At the same time, being work-linked may benefit their career success. Still, surprisingly little is known about the wellbeing of work-linked couples. Our study fills this gap b...

Using specific panel data of German welfare benefit recipients, we investigate the non-pecuniary life satisfaction effects of in-work benefits. Our empirical strategy combines difference-in-difference designs with synthetic control groups to analyse transitions of workers between unemployment, regular employment and employment accompanied by welfar...

Starting a new job is able to boost people's careers, but might come at the expense of other areas of life. To investigate individual implications of job mobility, we analyse the effects of job changes on time‐use and indicators of subjective well‐being using rich data from a representative German panel survey. We find that job switchers report rel...

This report introduces the German Job Search Panel, a longitudinal survey that follows people who register as job seeking over the course of up to two years. The focus of the survey is on job seekers’ well-being and health. An innovative survey app is used to allow for frequent measurement every month and for conducting the experience sampling meth...

Identifying the determinants of risk-taking is crucial for our understanding of a variety of choices. Using German panel data, we find that people become more risk-averse when losing work. The immediate income loss does not mediate this effect. It seems also unrelated to the loss of non-monetary benefits of work and to changes of worker’s emotional...

Unemployment affects future working conditions and job security negatively, thus reducing life satisfaction after reemployment. These employment-related scars of unemployment should not matter anymore when a person has retired. Using German panel data, we analyze unemployed persons’ transition into retirement to test whether unemployment leaves sca...

We investigate a crucial event for job satisfaction: changing one's workplace. For representative German panel data, we show that the reason why the previous employment ended is strongly linked to satisfaction with the new job. Workers initiating a change of employer experience extraordinarily high job satisfaction, though in the short term only. T...

We study the usually assumed trade-off between income and leisure in labor supply decisions using comprehensive German panel data. We compare non-employed individuals after plant closures with employed people regarding both income and time use as well as their subjective perceptions of these two factors. We find that the gain of non-working time tr...

Using German panel data, this study compares responses of self-employed workers’ well-being and paid employees’ well-being to the loss of work. The empirical analyses show that life satisfaction decreases substantially more in the probability of losing work when self-employed than when paid-employed. It also turns out that becoming unemployed yield...

Using German panel data, we assess the causal effect of job loss, and thus of an extensive income shock, on risk attitude. In line with predictions of expected utility reasoning about absolute risk aversion, losing one´s job reduces the willingness to take risks. This effect strengthens in previous hourly wage, begins to manifest itself as soon as...

We use German panel data to examine how fixed-term employment affects utility derived from working. In contrast to previous research, we present evidence that working on a temporary contract lowers current job satisfaction. We discover that the honeymoon effect of a new job must be considered to reveal this result. Job insecurity appears to be the...

German panel data is used to show that the decrease in life satisfaction caused by an increase in the probability of losing work is higher when self-employed than when paid employed. Further estimations reveal that becoming unemployed reduces self-employed workers’ satisfaction considerably more than salaried workers’ satisfaction. These results in...

Previous studies find that past unemployment reduces life satisfaction even after reemployment for non-monetary reasons (unemployment scarring). It is not clear, however, whether this scarring is only caused by employment-related factors, such as worsened working conditions, or increased future uncertainty as regards income and employment. Using Ge...

Using German panel data, we show that unemployed people are, on average, less satisfied with their life than employed people, but they report a substantial increase in their life satisfaction upon retirement. We interpret this finding using identity theory. Retirement raises the identity utility of the unemployed because it changes the social norms...

Using German panel data, this study compares responses of self-employed workers’ well-being and paid employees’ well-being to the loss of work. The empirical analyses show that life satisfaction decreases substantially more in the probability of losing work when self-employed than when paid-employed. It also turns out that becoming unemployed yield...

Fixed-term contracts are often considered a key policy tool for increasing employment. As we show that contract limitation lowers job satisfaction using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study, we detect a drawback of promoting temporary employment that has not been identified so far. We find that the “honeymoon-hangover” effect of a new jo...

A ngesichts der Krise der öffentli-chen Haushalte in vielen EU-Staaten haben sich am 2. März dieses Jahres 25 Mitglieder der EU auf einen " Vertrag über Sta-bilität, Koordinierung und Steuerung in der Währungsunion " geeinigt. Dieser soge-nannte Fiskalpakt schreibt unter anderem vor, dass sich die Vertragsstaaten für die Zu-kunft Regeln auferlegen,...

http://www.gbv.de/dms/buls/696798654.pdf

Zu den Verpflichtungen der Mitglieder im Europäischen Fiskalpakt gehört unter anderem, eine nationale Schuldenbremse einzuführen - eine Regel zur Begrenzung der jährlichen Neuverschuldung. Deutschland ist diesen Schritt bereits gegangen. Im vorliegenden Beitrag überprüfen wir, inwieweit das deutsche Modell als Vorbild für andere Staaten des Eurorau...