The Influence of Unemployment on the Life Satisfaction of Russian Citizens

The research paper investigates the influence of unemployment and fear to lose job on life satisfaction of Russian citizens. The research is based on Russian Longitudinal Monitoring HSE Survey which tracks a sample of people of working age from 18 to 60 from 2011 till 2017. Panel regressions with fixed effects were fitted for unemployment influence on life satisfaction and fear to lose job on life satisfaction. The life satisfaction variable is estimated as ordinal qualitative regressor. The results of the research provide evidence of significantly negative influence of unemployment and fear to lose job on life satisfaction. However, by comparing AIC and BIC information criteria, the model with fear to lose job describes variations of life satisfaction of Russians better than model with unemployment status itself. The results are very specific to Russian economy paradox – having far not high unemployment rate comparing to other countries in the world, Russians have one of the most heavy fears of losing job (approximately 50% of employed are afraid to lose job in Russia). This results are extremely important for Russian economy as they provide food for thought how to decrease fear to lose job among Russians (by providing higher job security and implying effective policies) and increase life satisfaction among Russians which would be beneficial for political and economical climate.