Flexicurity, Happiness, and Satisfaction
Many policy analysts and researchers endorse a "flexicurity" approach to labor market protections—a package of policies that simultaneously offers workers security and firms flexibility. Definitions of flexicurity are often vague and analysts focus on studying the unintended effects of policy on unemployment or labor market participation rates rather than the policies' goals, such as improving workers' security and satisfaction. This article examines the success of flexicurity on these alternative outcomes, while tightly defining flexicurity as the substitution of a safety net for employment protections. We review the development of the two policy indexes measuring safety nets and employment protections, and the validation of the indexes looking at unemployment outcomes. The indexes are then used to examine policy's impact on life satisfaction and happiness. The analysis of satisfaction finds flexicurity generally has better outcomes than a free market approach or labor protections based exclusively on em...