The Labour Market Tradeoffs of Pet Ownership

Abstract

Pets are an important part of many peoples’ lives, and provide mental, physical and emotional benefits. However, the costs of pet ownership have received little attention. We investigate the association between pet ownership and wage income using data from the 2018 General Social Survey. We hypothesise that pet ownership may negatively influence income by lowering labour mobility and positively influence income by garnering valuable psychosocial attributes. We analyse interactions between pet ownership and education, pet ownership and housing tenure, and pet ownership and race to further investigate the potential labour mobility channel. Overall, we find that pet ownership decreases wage income and that these negative effects are larger for groups where mobility effects are likely higher.

Publication
Economics and Business Letters
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Robbie Maris
Robbie Maris
Education Economics PhD Student and Research Assistant

Robbie is a PhD student in education economics at UCL. His current research focuses on evaluating the effects of T levels (a new high school qualification) on student achievement and social mobility, with a particular focus on students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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