Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/102999 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2014/108
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Using survey data from rural Vietnam, this paper documents a statistically significant, positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. Wage workers are less happy than farmers across a range of different types of wage jobs. These results suggest that structural transformation is associated with a psychological cost, which may contribute to explaining earnings gaps between sectors and types of employment. We also investigate other determinants of happiness, such as income, age, gender, children, ethnicity, marital status, schooling, landlessness, migration, social networks and shocks. Our results from rural areas in a dynamic developing country context are remarkably similar to findings about subjective well-being from developed countries, with entirely different cultures and levels of economic development.
Subjects: 
happiness
self-employment
wage work
agriculture
Vietnam
JEL: 
I31
J24
J43
O17
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9230-829-2
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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