Introduction. Research has demonstrated that unemployment
associates with decreases in individuals' well-being over time, due to the
loss of crucial functions of work, both manifest (i.e., pay) and latent
(e.g., social contacts, identity). Individuals' well-being is found to restore
upon finding employment that again fulfills the manifest and latent
functions. Yet, limited attention has been paid to the group of
economically inactive, those individuals who are not working neither
looking for employment. This is surprising, given that this is a relatively
large group, and given the increasing interest in this group in view of
their labor market potential, from a policy perspective.
Purpose. We address this gap by investigating the dynamics of
subjective well-being in economic inactivity. A specific contribution is
that we take the heterogeneity of the group in economic inactivity into
account, rather than considering them to be a homogeneous group: It
can be expected that those who replaced the function of work with
other activities (e.g., volunteer work, care tasks) are experiencing less
decreases in their well-being than those who would have preferred to
work. Hence, we aim to examine whether these contextual differences
(i.e., type of economic inactivity and employment status) and personal
differences (i.e., commitment to work) associate with dynamics in
subjective well-being.Methods. We achieve these aims by means of multiple group latent
change score models. Using the LISS panel, we model the change
trajectory in subjective well-being (general well-being and life
satisfaction) in a group of individuals who entered economic inactivity.
Subsequently,we investigate whether the dynamics (i.e., changes over
time) of subjective well-being are different for groups of individuals with
contextual differences (differences between those who remain
economically inactiveversus those who reentered the labor market,and
differences between types ofeconomicallyinactive individuals) and by
looking at commitment to work as a personal difference.
Results andconclusion.Dataanalysisisongoingduring2025andwillbe
readyforpresentationattimeofthecongress.