Economic Crises and Wellbeing: Social Norms and Home Production

Abstract

Why does work appear more important to the life satisfaction of some population groups than others? Household data from Russia in 1992 allows plausible identication of the causal impact of being workless on time spent in home production and life satisfaction. We present a model of home production in which men face stigma in some non-market activities, so that their ability to substitute into work at home is circumscribed. Consistent with our model, we nd that worklessness causes men's time in productive activities to decrease much more than women's. Impacts of worklessness on life satisfaction are much larger for men.

Keywords: social norms, stigma, home production, life satisfaction, subjective wellbeing, economic rank, worklessness, Russia, economic crisis

JEL Classification: H4, J1