| Abstract: |
Recent work in psychology and economics has investigated ways in which
individuals experience their lives. This literature includes influences on
individuals’ momentary happiness. We contribute to this literature using a new
data source, Mappiness (www.mappiness.org.uk), which permits individuals to
record their wellbeing via a smartphone. The data contain more than a million
observations on tens of thousands of individuals in the UK, collected since
August 2010. We explore the links between individuals’ wellbeing measured
momentarily at random points in time and their experiences of paid work. We
explore variation in wellbeing within-individual over time having accounted
for fixed unobservable differences across people. We quantify the effects of
working on individuals’ affect relative to other activities they perform. We
consider the effects of working on two aspects of affect: happiness and
relaxation. We find paid work is ranked lower than any of the other 39
activities individuals engage in, with the exception of being sick in bed.
Although controlling for other factors, including person fixed effects,
reduces the size of the association its rank position remains the same and the
effect is still equivalent to a 7-8% reduction in happiness relative to
circumstances in which one is not working. Paid work has a similar though
slightly larger negative impact on being relaxed. However, precisely how
unhappy or anxious one is while working depends on the circumstances.
Wellbeing at work varies significantly with where you work (at home, at work,
elsewhere); whether you are combining work with other activities; whether you
are alone or with others; and the time of day or night you are working. |