The name is absent

CESifo Working Paper No. 2604

Dissatisfied with Life, but Having a Good Day:
Time-Use and Well-Being of the Unemployed

Abstract

We apply the Day Reconstruction Method to compare unemployed and employed people with
respect to their subjective assessment of emotional affects, differences in the composition and
duration of activities during the course of a day, and their self-reported life satisfaction.
Employed persons are more satisfied with their life than the unemployed and report more
positive feelings when engaged in similar activities. Weighting these activities with their
duration shows, however, that average experienced utility does not differ between the two
groups. Although the unemployed feel sadder when engaged in similar activities, they can
compensate this by using the time the employed are at work in more enjoyable ways. Our
finding that unemployment affects life satisfaction and experienced utility differently may be
explained by the fact that people do not adjust their aspirations when becoming unemployed
but face hedonic adaptation to changing life circumstances, triggered by the opportunity to
use the time in a way that yields higher levels of satisfaction than working.

JEL Code: I31, J60, J22.

Keywords: unemployment, happiness, life satisfaction, Day Reconstruction Method,
experienced utility.

March 2009

We would like to thank Andy Zuchandke for organizing the survey and, in particular, the
Fritz Thyssen Foundation for financial support (Research project No. 10.07.1.086).

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