Thursday, July 13, 2017
Gilbert Scott Building - Room 356 (University of Glasgow)
Despite the importance of job quality for the discourse of Europe 2020 Agenda, very few studies have considered how European member states are performing in this objective. The paper examines the trends in job quality across Europe considering both EU15 and EU28 countries between 1995 and 2010. Job quality is defined here following a ‘worker-centred’ approach (Green, 2006), capturing dimensions that constitute a fulfilling and meaningful working experience that satisfies human needs (Felstead et al., 2015; Spencer, 2015). Such dimensions include: skill use and development; task discretion/autonomy; physical environment; work intensity; working time quality (see also Gallie, 2013). The comparator countries are countries from different employment regimes in Europe (Holman, 2013). Quantitative data for the empirical analysis are sourced from the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) series (1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010). This survey includes relevant job-related variables for a detailed investigation of job quality and has consistently been used in the related literature (Clark, 2005; Green, 2006; Green and Mostafa, 2012; Gallie, 2013). The paper concludes by providing an assessment of the EU efforts towards job quality and an explanation of the trends across European member states.
