Job quality in the European Union: reflections from secondary analyses of EWCS Greet Vermeylen, Eurofound Quality of Employment, UNECE/ILO/Eurostat meeting Geneva, Sept

European Working Conditions Survey European wide survey – 5 waves already: 1991, 1995, 2000 (+01/02), 2005 and 2010 currently preparing questionnaire / translated in all the languages  2010: 25 languages and 16 variants Country coverage: EU + neighbour countries  5 th EWCS (2010) : 34 countries covered : EU27 + NO + ACC3 + IPA3  interviews in total (1000/4000 interview per country) Workers survey: employees and self-employed (15+) (LFS def) Face to face interviews  2010: 40 min Revision of  Questionnaire: with support of a questionnaire development group + Governing Board  Quality process: strict quality assurance mechanisms & documentation

EWCS: questionnaire Covers many different aspects of the conditions of work and employment of European workers (more than 100 questions)  Demographics, structure of workforce, job characteristics, household info (incl work at home)  Working time : duration, organisation  Physical and psychosocial work factors  Nature of work / place of work / work organisation  Job content and training  Work-life balance  Information and consultation  Outcomes : health, job satisfaction  Earnings Trends in EU working conditions in the last 20 years; Complementary to LFS Covers all European countries in a completely homogeneous way  detailed comparisons between countries, different groups of workers, … Gender mainstreaming : central in reflection on questionnaire

Multilevel and Multiactor perspective Level of analysisExamples of topic and roles The workerFit, able to combine work with care, equipped with marketable skills skills, motivated to work, preferences The jobWhat quality ? The companyHR and other policies and practices, work organisation practices, trade Union role, collaboration between workers The labour marketUnemployment and participation rates, transitions etc The legal and regulatory framework Rights and duties, financial incentives, promoting good practice, collective agreements The welfare stateSafety net, developing capacities, supporting social infrastructure

Criteria for selecting job quality features ? - Well being of workers ? - Considers dimensions with potential causal positive or detrimental effects on well-being + limit the capacity of workers to take up up a specific job; propsective studies; dir ‘89 - Performance of companies ? - Direct and indirect effects between well-being and performance - Gender equality ? - Calls at minimum for gender mainstreaming and providing gender disaggregated data. - European social model ? - Voice ? Workers participation ? - Other ?

Trends in job quality (Green, Mostafa): the indices : 69 questions Builds on Eurofound (2002): - “career and employment security”, “health and well-being”, “reconciliation of working and non-working life” and “skills development” Earnings: monthly earnings Prospects : Job security, career progression, contract Intrinsic Job Quality -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 Working Time Quality : length of working week, weekend, evening & night work, time discretion, time flexibility

Average Job Quality by Establishment Size

ClustersEarningsWTQIJQProspectsPercent High-Paid Good Jobs Well-Balanced Good Jobs Poorly-Balanced Jobs At risk Jobs Total Clusters of job quality

proportion of workers with ‘at risk' jobs by country and gender

Other secondary analyses/work in the pipeline Working time and work-life balance over the life course (Kummerling, Anxo, Franz) Gender and work (Smith, Burchell, Rubery, Rafferty) Ageing workforce and sustainable work (Volkoff, Vendramin, Valenduc, Molinie, Leonard, Ajzen) Work and health (Leombruni, Pacelli, Ardito, d’Errico) Employee participation and work organisation (Gallie and Zhou) Sectoral profiles (in-house, van Houten) Occupational profiles (in-house, Wetzels) Convergence and divergence over the life course (Holman): work in progress Policy lessons of the 5 th EWCS (Morley): work in progress Preparation of the 6 th EWCS (incl questionnaire) Sustainable and inclusive quality of work: a conceptual framework (in-house)

Some gender concerns - Gender and work (Smith et al, forthcoming) -working time and work-lifebalance over the life course (Kummerling) Gender segregation of labour markets : in short, lifecourse profiles, glass ceiling and occupational gender segregation, unpaid work mostly borne by women; the value of work  Different job quality compromises for men and women  In a dynamic approach : closing gender gaps ? by decreasing men’s situation or increasing women’s position ? The second phase of recession : public sector Work-life balance matters and needs to be supported at individual, household, company and collective levels  Life course perspective

Number of hours spent on paid and unpaid work per week, by gender and working time (EU27) EWCS, 2010

Unpaid working time (care and household activities) over the life course  Union formation  increases unpaid working time for women  decreases for men  During parenting phase employed women spend twice as much hours on these activities as men  When entering parenting phase  women reduce paid work by 4 hrs but increase unpaid work by 25 hrs  men‘s unpaid work increases by 12 hrs  The decision of men to engage in care work is more circumstance dependent than it is for women  working time organisation, atypical working hours

Working hours preferences, by gender, age and employment status, 2010, EU27 (%)

Working time preferences for men and women over the life course On average a desire for fewer hours, for men and women  Particularly marked among counties with very long hours (TK,AL, GR) but also SE  A few counties with a preference for more hours for women and men (LV, LT), for men (EE, MT) and for women (NL, IT, IE) Longer hours desired among part-timers  particularly in high part-time use countries Life course variations are important - presence of children and for older workers - Women in the parenting phase show a higher likelihood to prefer an reduction of working time - Men with children (aged 7-12) are less likely to opt for a reduction of working time or do not want to change it - Both, older women and men, do not wish to increase working time Public sector male employees report smaller differences between usual and preferred hours  Women in private sector tend to report smaller preference gap

Fit between working hours and private commitments Which elements contribute? 18% of workers have problems with work-life balance  Men > women  esp. men yrs old  Dissatisfaction for women more evenly spread over career Individual and household characteristics  Children make a big difference Working time features  Likely to have balance: part-time work, flexibility in working time arrangements, working the same hours every day, having fixed starting and finishing times, not difficult to take time off during working hours  Not likely to have balance: working long hours, night work, evening work and weekend work

From ageing workforce Age polarisation Commitment to increasing working lives (Will) require :  Avoid demanding working conditions : more demanding working conditions are being transferred to older workers -> ergonomics, OSH, work organisation  Facilitating reconciliation of professional and private life (HR) policy should encourage employee led working time flexibility  Meeting aspirations for integration through work, developing one’s capacities older workers : reflection on how to contribute as much as they would want  Facilitating socio-economic participation into work risks for a sub-group of older workers of low pay and insecure employment situations

To sustainable work Changes in work organisation and demographic evolution seem to have reduced protective mechanisms that allowed older workers to be less exposed to painful working conditions  challenges in work organisation : prevent wearing out / avoid transferring the burden from the older to the younger Key factors in explaining work unsustainability when ageing : painful positions, poor work life fit and bad career prospects  challenges in health and safety, human ressources management, company organisation and the management of flexibility Work sustainability differ strongly per occupations.  Variety in occupational situations would need differentiated policy approaches Comparisons between countries show that working conditions for older workers vary from one country to another: country effect is a key factor for determining working conditions

Work Organisation and Employee Involvement in Europe Different company practices:  Employee involvement : autonomy, team work and participation in the improvement of products and processes Patterns of Employee Involvement  38% of EU 27 employees are in low involvement organizations  27% are in high involvement organizations.  35% are in intermediate levels of involvement;  marked differences between countries Determinants of Employee Involvement  Low involvement more common : routine machine production;  higher involvement in knowledge work (client and ict)  Clear relationship between opportunities for involvement and occupations : 50% of managers are in high involvement; the non-skilled are predominantly in low involvement systems (57%).  Involvement works better when embedded in a wider organizational culture concerned with employee development.  Where collective consultation existed, employees were more likely to be in a high involvement than in a low involvement organisation (36% compared with 27%).

Consequences of Employee Involvement  Employee involvement and HR practices 60% of employees in high involvement organizations had training in the previous year, compared to 40% of those in low involvement organizations ->Important for innovation  ‘My organisation motivates me to give best performance’ 47% for low involvement and 76% for high involvement organisations -> important for productivity  Being in an high involvement organization : associated with a significant reduction in general physical risks  High involvement organizations provides greater flexibility with respect to working time control of start and finish times, ability to take time off during work.  Greater opportunities for involvement in decision making was also associated with higher levels of psychological well-being among employees and less absence

More to come Bringing this to policy agenda:  high costs associated with the exhaustion of labour for all of society  benefits for developing capabilities of individuals and organisations An alternative to the exhaustion of labour is possible (and happening now)  Job quality is one way.  Changes in work organisation and hrm pratices may be necessary Understanding pre conditions for promoting these win-win arrangements is important  Watch out for the 3rd European Company Survey (2013) Good job quality is key to contributing to smart, inclusive and sustainable growth Coherence of actions matter Many solutions may be local / national  role for the European level/international level mostly in monitoring, organizing learning That is why it is also important to continue with measurement of quality of employment

Thank you More on - Dataset available through Essex data archive

Level of job segregation at the workplace by gender, 2010, EU27 (%): are workers with same job title men or women? Job segregation at the workplace

Occupational gender segregation, by gender (EU27) EWCS, 2010

Long and short hours working among the largest occupations by sex

Job sustainability and working conditions MaleFemaleMaleFemale Autonomy Low4846 Posture related index Low7769 High7267High3935 Work intensity Low6461 Career development possibilities Low49 High5150High6664 Worker participation Low4647 Work life balance unfit4742 High7065fit62 Work well done Never4344 Learning new things Low49 Always6360High6360

Average Job Quality by Sex

Index Brief description of contentItems Used In Construction * Earnings Hourly earningsEF10, EF11, Q18 Prospects Job security, career progression, contract qualityQ77A, Q77C, Q6, Q7 Intrinsic Job Quality Skill Use and Discretion (0.25)  skills and autonomy Q61A, Q61C, Q49C, Q49E, Q49F, Q50A, Q50B, Q50C, Q51C, Q51E, Q51I, Q51O, Q24H, ef1_isced, isco_08_2 Good Social Environment (0.25)  social support, absence of abuse Q51A, Q51B, Q58A, Q58B, Q58C, Q58D, Q58E, Q77E, Q70A, Q70B, Q70C, Q71A, Q71B Q71C Good Physical Environmental (0.25)  low level of physical & posture-related hazards Q23A to Q23I, Q24A to Q24E [100 - Work Intensity] (0.25)  pace of work, work pressures, & emotional/value conflict demands Q45A, Q45B, Q46A to Q46E, Q51G, Q51L, Q51P & Q24G Working Time Quality Duration, scheduling, discretion, and short-term flexibility over working time Q18, Q32, Q33, Q34, Q35, Q39, Q40, Q43

Proportion of women in the largest occupations, by employment status / white & blue collar

Employment in the public sector & occupational segregation by gender/occupations