Last week, the UN published their World Happiness Report to coincide with International Day of Happiness. According to this year’s edition, Norway is the world’s happiest country, followed by Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden. This year’s report includes a chapter focusing on happiness at work. It finds that unemployment causes a major fall in happiness, while for those in employment, quality of work can cause major variations in happiness.

Jo Ritzen writes in his article Happiness as a guide to labor market policy, “Active labor market policies that create more job opportunities increase happiness, which in turn increases productivity. Measures of individual happiness should therefore guide labor market policy more explicitly.”

Writing on unemployment and happiness, Rainer Winkelmann says “There is overwhelming evidence that unemployment takes a heavy toll on life satisfaction. The nonpecuniary cost of unemployment exceeds the pecuniary cost, and not conforming to the social work norm is one of the main drivers of loss of life satisfaction."

For further analysis on happiness and labor market policy, read:

• Are happy workers more productive? by Eugenio Proto
• Happiness as a guide to labor market policy by Jo Ritzen
• Unemployment and happiness by Rainer Winkelmann

• How does grandparent childcare affect labor supply? by Giulio Zanella
• Does broadband infrastructure boost employment? by Oliver Falck
• For long-term economic development, only skills matter? by Eric A. Hanushek
• How is new technology changing job design? by Michael Gibbs
• Do payroll tax cuts boost formal jobs in developing countries? by Carmen Pagés
• Identifying and measuring economic discrimination by Sergio Pinheiro Firpo
• Female poverty and intrahousehold inequality in transition economies by Luca Piccoli
• Does religiosity explain economic outcomes? by Olga Popova
• Using linear regression to establish empirical relationships, by Marno Verbeek
• Upgrading technology in Central and Eastern European economies by Slavo Radosevic
• Skills or jobs: Which comes first? by Jesko Hentschel
• How effective is compulsory schooling as a policy instrument? by Colm P. Harmon

Visit the IZA World of Labor site for more concise, informative, evidence-based articles across the spectrum of labor economics.

• Leeds Festival of Economics, Democracy and the Workplace, May 4-5. Organized by the WPART project and Leeds University Business School, the Festival will bring together leading academic scholars, researchers, practitioners, and members of the general public interested in different forms of workplace democracy.
• Society of Labor Economists Twenty-Second Annual Conference, May 5-6. The annual conference will this year be held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Deadline for early registration is April 15.
• ILO: International Conference on Jobs and Skills Mismatch, May 11-12. This conference, held in Geneva, aims to deepen understanding of the labor market effects of various types of skill mismatch and how they can be best measured in different country contexts. It will include ILO research and also present the work of other partner international organizations.
• Joint briq/IZA Workshop on Recent Developments in the Economics of Socio-emotional Skills, May 18-19. The aim of the workshop is to bring together a number of junior and senior researchers to discuss their recent empirical research related to the economics of socio-emotional skills. 
• Second World Congress of Comparative Economics, June 15-17. The Congress, held at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in St Petersburg, will include plenary sessions, workshops, as well as the editors’ panel and special events. There will also be a small exhibition area which will give participants the opportunity to meet with vendors who specialize in providing e-resources.
• IZA Labor Statistics Workshop on the Changing Structure of Work, June 29-30. The aim of the 2017 workshop of IZA’s "Labor Statistics" program area is to bring together senior and junior researchers to discuss their recent empirical research related to changes in the structure of work. 
• Call for abstracts: Work and Pensions Labour Economics study group, July 27-28. The annual WPEG conference will take place at the University of Sheffield. The Programme Committee invites submissions of abstracts from academic, government, and business economists in any field of labor economics and related research areas which are aligned with DWP strategic objectives. Abstract submission deadline: April 28.
• Call for papers: 5th IZA Workshop on Environment and Labor Markets, August 31-September 1. The aim of the 2017 workshop of the program area is to bring together researchers analyzing wider labor market impacts of environmental quality and environmental policies. Submission deadline: May 28.
• Call for papers: AIEL XXXII National Conference of Labour Economics, September 14-15. We are pleased to invite you to attend the 32nd annual Conference of the Italian Association of Labour Economists to be hosted by the Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance “Giovanni Anania” at the University of Calabria in the Arcavacata Campus in Rende (Cosenza), on September 14-15, 2017. Submission deadline: June 15.