Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn

We empirically explore how key dimensions of work hours and schedules (i.e., volatility, short advance notice, and irregular shift times) affect workers’ self-reported subjective wellbeing (SWB). Our analysis controls for the number of weekly hours, occupation, demographics, family income, and health. We use data from the 2016 U.S. General Social Survey, containing the Work Orientations IV module of the International Social Survey Program. The findings indicate that greater instability in work hours and unpredictability of work schedules are associated with lower levels of SWB. The effect size is as large as, and up to twice that of family income. These results suggest that public policies and organizational practices intended to improve aggregate or employee well-being should consider promoting work hours and scheduling practices that foster greater stability and predictability of daily work hours, schedules, and shifts.

We use the World Values Survey data to study the relationship between subjective well-being and sector of employment in Arab countries. Our findings demonstrate a significant subjective well-being differential between public and private sector workers in the Arab World. Public sector workers are both more happy and more satisfied with their lives when compared to their private sector counterparts. Our study shows how public sector employment, which has historically been one of the main pillars of authoritarian Arab welfare states, not only shapes people’s preferences but also affect important social outcomes such as subjective well-being.

Despite its importance for the social sciences, human agency remains an ambiguous and underoperationalized construct. After engaging prior research to articulate clear criteria for defining agency and synthesize a multidimensional conceptual framework for human agency, this study develops and validates preliminary General Human Agency Indicators (GHAIs) to measure subconstructs within that framework. Utilizing the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) dataset, we aggregated a list of 30 survey items previously used in agency research and conducted an iterative process of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and item elimination to reduce that list to a set of 9–13 items with a strong, consistent factorial structure. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), we identified two bifactor models that demonstrated good fit: a nine-item General Personal Agency scale (GPAS) and a nine-item GHAIs tool combining six items from the GPAS with three measuring agency achievement. Initial evidence for the construct validity of the tools was produced through tests of internal consistency and correlational analysis, indicating that the proposed GPAS and GHAIs effectively measure personal agency, intrinsic agency, instrumental agency, and agency achievement.

We use the 2018 round of the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS) to investigate the public-private job satisfaction differential in the case of Egypt. Descriptive statistics show that public sector employees report higher job satisfaction levels compared to their private sector counterparts. For instance, the mean reported overall job satisfaction is 4.57, on a scale from 1 to 5, for public sector employees compared to 3.92 for private sector workers. We find that the difference persists, even after controlling for confounding factors in our regression models. We discuss the possible explanations of this public-private job satisfaction differential.