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Work meaning and labor supply

Author

Listed:
  • Iris Kesternich
  • Heiner Schumacher
  • Bettina Siflinger
  • Stefan Schwarz
Abstract
We analyze to what extent work meaning – the significance of a job for others or for society – increases the willingness of employed and unemployed individuals to accept a job. To this end, we elicit reservation wages for a one-hour job and randomly vary its description as having either “high” or “low” meaning. Our subjects participate in the “Panel Study of Labour Market and Social Security” (PASS), which comprises a random draw from the German population and a random draw of unemployed individuals from the unemployment register. We can thus link subjects’ experimental behavior to rich survey data and control for selection into the experiment. For subjects who consider work meaning as very important (around one third of PASS respondents), high-meaning reduces the reservation wage by around 18 percent. By contrast, among unemployed individuals, work meaning increases the reservation wage by around 14 percent. We discuss how work meaning can have both positive and negative effects on labor supply when it interacts with fairness concerns or work norms.

Suggested Citation

  • Iris Kesternich & Heiner Schumacher & Bettina Siflinger & Stefan Schwarz, 2020. "Work meaning and labor supply," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven 654512, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    • Handle: RePEc:ete:ceswps:654512
    Note: paper number DPS20.08
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    Keywords

    Work Meaning; Labor Supply; Unemployment;
    All these keywords.

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