Job Quality Conceptual Frameworks and Theories · 2018. 9. 24. · •OECD (2017), OECD Guidelines...
Transcript of Job Quality Conceptual Frameworks and Theories · 2018. 9. 24. · •OECD (2017), OECD Guidelines...
Job Quality
Conceptual Frameworks and Theories
Paris, 4/6/2018
Francis Green, LLAKES Centre, UCL Institute of Education
Outline
•What makes a good or a bad job?
•Theoretical frameworks: economic, psychological, sociological; interdisciplinary approach
•Principles and methodologies for researching the quality of working lifeMethodologiesDomain indicesValidity, reliability and comparability
•From theory to framework: from Eurofound to ILO
What's a good job? A bad job?
• the worker's perspective
• meeting needs/ leading to personal fulfilment through work• material
• psychological
• 'Quality of work life'• 'Job quality'
• 'Employment quality'
• Labour market quality
Job quality is constituted by the features of jobs that
meet workers' needs from work
Eurofound, 2012.
Quality of employment can be defined as the entirety of
aspects of employment that may affect the well-being
of employed persons.
United Nations, 2015
Quiz: which of the following are part of job quality? Of employment quality?
1. safe working conditions
2. task discretion
3. job satisfaction
4. opportunity to take time off for family emergencies?
5. match between worker skills and job skills
6. worker efficiency
7. hourly pay
The interdisciplinary advantage
• needs from working life are interdisciplinary: job quality is multi-dimensional
• the scientific methods for testing and evaluation should be the same across disciplines;
• single-discipline work focuses work on specific problems, but ignores findings from outside the community
The 'capabilities' approach (Amartya Sen)
Wages and working
conditions
Range of these &
Freedom to choose among them
Agency goals: the
aims of the jobRange &
Freedom to choose among aims
"high quality job affords high capability: the ability and flexibility to perform a range of tasks ..., to
draw on the comradeship of others working in cooperation, to choose from and pursue a range of
agency goals, and to command an income that delivers high capability for meeting material needs"
Economics
• Utility• the narrow road
• Individual preference satisfaction and compensating differentials
• job satisfaction??
• Revealed preferences, and ‘objective’, observable data:• Primacy of pay
Sociology
• skills and fulfilment: Marx and other traditions• compared with instinctive work, the union of conception
and execution of work as the essence of human work; separation implies alienation
• emphasis on participation, control and discretion
• skills utilisation: skills matching best• over-skilling: boredom, inability to satisfy agency goals
etc.• under-skilling: stress, fear of job loss etc.
Psychology 1: Demand-control-support theory
• key variables: • decision latitude
• job demands
• demand-control-support theory• supplementary key variable: social support
Source: Mulder (2017)
Psychology 2 Effort-reward imbalance
• Effort-Reward imbalance theory• Need for social reciprocity and social justice, in context of work; possibly has
evolutionary origins
• Negative consequences of imbalance between effort and rewards:• Ischemic heart disease
• depression
• Not just job quality, since effort includes motivation, a personal characteristic
Siegrist, J. 2017. 'The Effort–Reward Imbalance Model.' In C. L. Cooper & J. C. Quick. (Eds.) The handbook of stress and health : a guide to research and practice. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Psychology 3: Demands-Resources model
• Demands: • physical, psychological, social or organisational factors that require sustained effort or skills
• Resources: physical, psychological, social or organisational factors that:• help to achieve work goals• reduce job demands and the detrimental effects of job demands• stimulate personal growth, learning, etc.
Thus:
• both positive and negative; with each incorporating its underlying psychological processes/theories
• more broad in the way it implements job demands, and resources are broader than rewards
• embraces some complexity, including in the interactions proposed
Methodological principles 1: jq compared with wb?
• JQ affects job-related wb; and employment quality affects wb.
• BUT: jq/employment quality is not the same as job-related wb. • so: we do not measure jq/eq by measuring wb
• RATHER: the relationship between jq and measures of wb –especially, job-related wb – is one means of validating measures of jq
• Imperfect, because there are multiple conceptions of wb:• job satisfaction; Depression-Enthusiasm + Anxiety-Contentment; worker
engagement; organisational commitment .....;
• hedonic well-being: happiness: pleasure attainment, pain avoidance
• eudaimonic well-being: meaning, self-realisation, 'human flourishing'
Methodological principles 2:'objective' vs 'subjective'
• Measurements of wb are often 'subjective': e.g. emotional states, feelings
• Measurements of jq are 'objective', even if they are reported by the job-holders• Balance between well-informed vs potential for social esteem bias
Advantages of a job characteristics-based framework for job quality
• level of job (contractual site; level of job design; level of many regulations)
• characteristics of jobs related to satisfying people's needs from work
• can be constructed at individual as well as aggregate societal levels
• objective, not subjective; in principle verifiable by 3rd parties, even if self-reported
• Internationally comparable (with care!)
Non-consensual issue:
• just outcomes, or outcomes & procedures?
Core elements of a job quality framework
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• Earnings
• Prospects
• Intrinsic Job Quality- Skills and Discretion
- Social environment
- Physical environment
- Work intensity
• Working Time Quality
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Work intensification
More skilled
Physical better
Worse job control
Example: Work Intensification in Britain, 1992-2012
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0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
1992 1997 2001 2006 2012
% o
f jo
bs
High pressure Hard work High speed
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Real Wage Reversal
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Improving working time quality – until recently
Related frameworks
• ETUI Job Quality
• OECD Quality of Work Environment
• EMCONET Fair employment
• UNCECE Quality of employment
• ILO Decent Work
Job Characteristics
e.g.: size, location
Job Quality: Wages, Prospects, Intrinsic JQ, Working Time Quality
EUROFOUND Job Quality
Job Characteristics
e.g.fit with hours needs
Person-job
match
e.g.: size, location
Job Quality: Wages, Prospects, Intrinsic JQ, Working Time Quality
ETUI Job Quality
Job Characteristics
Relativities.e.g. Wage inequality
External context
OECD Quality of the Work Environment
e.g.: size, location
Job Quality: Wages, Prospects, Intrinsic JQ, Working Time Quality
Job Characteristics
e.g. employabilityperson skills
e.g.fit with hours needs
Personal
Person-job
match
EU Employment Cttee (EMCO): Quality of Work
e.g.: size, location
Job Quality: Wages, Prospects, Intrinsic JQ, Working Time Quality
e.g.: size, location
Job Characteristics
Job Quality: Wages, Prospects, Intrinsic JQ, Working Time Quality
e.g. employabilityperson skills
e.g.fit with hours needs
Personal
Person-job
match
External context
Institutionale.g. social protection
UNECE Quality of Employment
e.g.: size, location
Job Characteristics
Job Quality: Wages, Prospects, Intrinsic JQ, Working Time Quality
e.g. employabilityperson skills
e.g.fit with hours needs
Personal
Person-job
match
External context
Institutionale.g. social protection
ILO Decent Work
Labour markete.g. unemployment
rate
Some readings:
Frameworks:
• Green, F (2006) Demanding Work: The Paradox of Job Quality in the Affluent Economy, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chapter 1.
• Siegrist, J. 2017. 'The Effort–Reward Imbalance Model.' In C. L. Cooper & J. C. Quick. (Eds.) The handbook of stress and health : a guide to research and practice. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Häusser, J. A., Mojzisch, A., Niesel, M., & Schulz-Hardt, S. (2010). Ten years on: A review of recent research on the Job Demand–Control (-Support) model and psychological well-being. Work & Stress, 24(1), 1-35.
• Bakker, A.B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22, 309–328
Relating theory to measurement:
• Eurofound (2012). Trends in Job Quality in Europe. Luxembourg, Publications Office of the European Union.
• OECD (2017), OECD Guidelines on Measuring the Quality of the Working Environment, OECD Publishing, Paris.
• United Nations Economic Commissions for Europe (2015). Handbook on Measuring Quality of Employment. New York and Geneva, United Nations.
Thanks for listening (if you have been!)
Earnings
•Monthly earnings (salary/ net profits)
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Prospects
• Job security•Career progression•Open-ended job contract
Challenge: Are we capturing well enough the dimensions of
insecurity?[OECD suggestion to return to]
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Intrinsic Job Quality (IJQ)
- Skills and Discretion
- skills use (problem-solving, complexity)), learning and training, discretion and influence over own work, occupation (incl. average education level in occupation)
- Good Social Environment
- good support, absence of bad social relationships
- Good Physical Environment
- inverted count of environmental and posture-related hazards
- Work Intensity
- high effort requirements (including emotional demands), multiple work pressure sources
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IJQ Challenges/Issues
• Skills and discretion.• discretion question scales remain weak; trapped by trend needs?
• training: nothing on training volume; difficult but important.
• skills utilisation
[OECD suggestion to return to]
• Social environment index[OECD suggestion to return to]
Other aspects still very good.
Working Time Quality
• length of working week• weekend, evening & night work• working time arrangements (control and change)• time flexibility (emergency time-off; working in "free time")
Challenge: identifying gig economy workers, and other new forms of quasi-or fake self-employment. • Is their WTQ enhanced or diminished
Issue: perspective on very short working hours. • per se, no different from normal working hours, but associated with low
earnings/low JQ. Hence: we use monthly earnings.• very short hrs may be less than desired (underemployment); but this is
not in the Eurofound JQ, (though would be in the ETUI JQ frame)
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