Job Quality in the 21st Century

Research on job quality dates back hundreds of years, but by the start of this century the idea of aspiring for 'more and better jobs' had gained currency, not just among social science scholars but in the highest circles of some national governments and international organisations. The International Labour Organisation put forth its objective of 'Decent Work', while the European Union and then the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) initiated programmes to measure job quality, with the eventual aim of persuading policy-makers to include it in their aspirations. In 2015 'decent work' entered, at least nominally, into the foreground of the United Nation's priorities, built into its Sustainable Development Goal 8 for 2030. In 2017 the UK government published its report, 'The Taylor review of modern working practices'.

'Job quality' refers to much more than just the wages paid, including several domains that research has found to contribute to satisfying people's needs from paid work. These include security and future prospects, the quality of the working time, and several intrinsic aspects of the work itself and the workplace environment. However, despite progress over the last two decades, there remain conceptual confusions and huge gaps and inconsistencies in our understanding of job quality, both in Britain and across the world. There is confusion, for example, about whether to treat job quality as an objective or subjective concept, and whether it should include the ability for workers to participate in influencing the work that they are required to do Despite its empirically-established importance for our well-being, we know very much less about whether job quality is improving or declining than we do about economic growth or trends in the Human Development Index.

This project is premised on the observation that there is, nevertheless, considerable if incomplete information about job quality in many existing data series around the world. The research, which is to be based on secondary data analysis, will produce new knowledge about trends in job quality, and I will use it to provide vital input to a major new book on job quality. Its provisional subtitle is The Nascent Science of Job Quality, and it is conceived as a sequel to my earlier book from 2006 (Demanding Work, Princeton University Press). This book will be an important outcome of the project and, it is hoped, influence and enhance the study of job quality for some years to come.

The specific objectives of the research are: a) to produce clarity and consistency in the discussion of job quality, both among scholars of diverse disciplines and among policy-makers; b) to describe and account where possible for trends in available indicators of job quality in various domains; c) to devise and operationalise a consistent definition of 'bad jobs' across countries, and undertake an analysis of the determinants of bad jobs in different countries; d) to estimate how important job quality is for workers' life satisfaction; and d) to compare changes across countries, and consider whether trends conform to expected patterns given the institutional similarities and differences between countries. The reservoir of data series to be analysed covers approximately 50 countries, the majority from the developed world.

The outcomes and findings of this research will feed into the book, as well as into scientific papers. I will also communicate the findings to policy-makers and the policy research community. I will engage with relevant UK bodies, including government departments, the TUC, CBI and especially the CIPD which has a special interest in job quality in this country; and with my contacts from the International Labour Organisation, the European Union and the OECD employment department.