We use British panel data to explore the link between occupational status and life satisfaction. We find puzzling evidence for men of a U-shaped relationship in cross-section data: employees in medium-status occupations report lower life satisfaction scores than those of employees in either low- or high-status occupations. This puzzle disappears in panel data: the satisfaction of any man rises as he moves up the status ladder. The culprit seems to be immobility: the miserable middle is caused by men who have always been in medium-status occupations. There is overall little evidence of a link between occupational status and life satisfaction for women, although this relationship for higher-educated women does look more like that for men.

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1 October 2022

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Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 204, pp.509-527, 2022

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DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.10.045

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122004024

This Journal article is published under the centre's Community Wellbeing programme, Labour programme.