nep-hap New Economics Papers
on Economics of Happiness
Issue of 2025–10–13
one paper chosen by
Viviana Di Giovinazzo, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca


  1. Performance Pay and Happiness: Work vs. Home? By Mehrzad B. Baktash; John S. Heywood; Uwe Jirjahn

  1. By: Mehrzad B. Baktash; John S. Heywood; Uwe Jirjahn
    Abstract: Using German survey data, we show conflicting influences of performance pay on overall life satisfaction. The overall influence reflects a strong positive influence through domains of life satisfaction associated with the job (job satisfaction, individual earnings satisfaction and household earning satisfaction) and a strong negative influence through domains away from the job (health satisfaction, sleep satisfaction and family life satisfaction). This trade-off between work and home generalizes and helps explain many previous studies examining much more specific consequences of performance pay. Finally, controlling for the mediating role of the domains, the direct influence on life satisfaction is positive for women and insignificantly different from zero for men.
    Keywords: Performance Pay, Life Satisfaction, Well-Being, Satisfaction Domains, Gender
    JEL: D10 J22 J33 M52
    Date: 2025
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trr:wpaper:202509

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