The Psychosocial Value of Employment: Evidence from a Refugee Camp
American Economic Review
vol. 112,
no. 11, November 2022
(pp. 3694-3724)
Abstract
Employment may be important to well-being for reasons beyond its role as an income source. This paper presents a causal estimate of the psychosocial value of employment in refugee camps in Bangladesh. We involve 745 individuals in a field experiment with three arms: a control arm, a weekly cash arm, and an employment arm of equal value. Employment raises psychosocial well-being substantially more than cash alone, and 66 percent of the employed are willing to forgo cash payments to continue working temporarily for free. Despite material poverty, those in our context both experience and recognize a nonmonetary, psychosocial value to employment.Citation
Hussam, Reshmaan, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane, and Fatima Zahra. 2022. "The Psychosocial Value of Employment: Evidence from a Refugee Camp." American Economic Review, 112 (11): 3694-3724. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211616Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C93 Field Experiments
- D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
- I31 General Welfare; Well-Being
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration