Happier with the Same: Job Satisfaction of Disadvantaged Workers

Job satisfaction evaluations depend not only on the objective circumstances that workers experience in their jobs, but also on their subjective dispositions, such as their aspirations, expectations, feelings of entitlement or personal evaluation criteria. We use matched employer–employee data from the United Kingdom to examine whether and how subjective dispositions influencing job satisfaction vary across workers with different socio‐demographic traits. We approximate jobs using detailed occupations within workplaces and find that most of the variability in job satisfaction is at the worker rather than the proximate‐job level, and that workers with disadvantaged statuses report higher satisfaction with the same jobs than those with advantaged statuses.     

Non‐Standard “Contingent” Employment and Job Satisfaction: A Panel Data Analysis

Contingent forms of employment are usually associated with low‐quality jobs and, by inference, jobs that workers find relatively unsatisfying. This assumption is tested using data from a representative household panel survey covering a country (Australia) with a high incidence of nonstandard employment. Results from the estimation of ordered logit regression models reveal that among males, both casual employees and labor‐hire (agency) workers (but not fixed‐term contract workers) report noticeably lower levels of job satisfaction, though this association diminishes with job tenure. Negative effects for women are mainly restricted to labor‐hire workers.     

Making gigs work: digital platforms,job quality and worker motivations

Technology has driven new organisations of work and employment relationships, rendering changes that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. The rise of digital platforms has not only enabled new forms of work activity but also transformed the way workers find new opportunities. This development, referred to as gig work, is distinct from traditional employment in that it is mediated through online platforms. While we can somewhat objectively designate traditional job characteristics as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, designating gig work itself as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ overlooks the fact that workers are inclined to evaluate the quality of their jobs according to their own individual needs, priorities, backgrounds and other circumstances—even if those jobs are objectively the same. Unlike previous scholarship on gig work, which has viewed job quality largely from a platform-focused perspective, this article takes a worker-centric approach and provides a typology of gig workers. The typology demarcates how gig work is used and indicates key attributes that differentiate how workers approach such jobs. Moreover, the typology reveals heterogeneity in gig workers’ motivations, characteristics and intentions. Consequently, platforms with ‘bad’ job quality characteristics can still offer work that some workers will see as ‘good’ and vice versa.     

Long‐Run Patterns of Labour Market Polarization: Evidence from German Micro Data

The past four decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the structure of employment. In particular, the rapid increase in computational power has led to large‐scale reductions in employment in jobs that can be described as intensive in routine tasks. These jobs have been shown to be concentrated in middle‐skill occupations. A large literature on labour market polarization characterizes and measures these processes at an aggregate level. However, to date, there is little information regarding the individual worker adjustment processes related to routine‐biased technological change. Using an administrative panel dataset for Germany, we follow workers over an extended period of time and provide evidence of both the short‐term adjustment process and medium‐run effects of routine task‐intensive job loss at an individual level. We initially demonstrate a marked, and steady, shift in employment away from routine, middle‐skill, occupations. In subsequent analysis, we demonstrate how exposure to jobs with higher routine task content is associated with a reduced likelihood of being in employment in both the short term (after one year) and medium term (five years). This employment penalty to routineness of work has increased over the past four decades. More generally, we demonstrate that routine task work is associated with reduced job stability and more likelihood of experiencing periods of unemployment. However, these negative effects of routine work appear to be concentrated in increased employment to employment, and employment to unemployment transitions rather than longer periods of unemployment.     

How does working-time flexibility affect workers' productivity in a routine job? Evidence from a field experiment

We conducted an experiment in which we hired workers under different types of contracts to evaluate how flexible working time affects on-the-job productivity in a routine job. Our approach breaks down the global impact on productivity into sorting and behavioural effects. We find that flexible arrangements that allow workers to decide when to start and stop working increase global productivity by as much as 50%, 40% of which is induced by sorting, and 60% represents a motivational effect, mainly driven by more effective working time, with workers reducing the length of their breaks. Our findings also suggest that part-time contracts can enhance global productivity, – though not significant at conventional levels –, and that this effect is also driven by a significant drop in the length of breaks taken. We hence contribute to the literature providing causal evidence of flexibility in routine jobs leading to higher productivity.     

Fixed‐Term Contracts: Short‐Term Blessings or Long‐Term Scars? Empirical Findings from the Netherlands 1980–2000

Using a comprehensive longitudinal dataset of prime‐age Dutch workers over the period 1980–2000, we examine how a previously held job with a fixed‐term contract influences both the likelihood and the duration of a future spell of unemployment. Analyses show that Dutch workers with fixed‐term contracts experience higher risks of future unemployment and have no shorter spells of unemployment compared to workers with regular contracts. Results also reveal that swifter employment re‐entries among men with fixed‐term contracts can be explained by their job search efforts before unemployment. Our study (partly) invalidates theoretical positions that claim that fixed‐term contracts foster employment security by shortening unemployment durations; suggesting that fixed‐term contracts are a short‐term blessing that could end, for some workers, in a recurrent unemployment trap.     

Pathways to a Good Job: Perceived Work Quality among the Machinists in North America

This paper examines the perceived quality of jobs held by a sample of members of the International Association of Machinists, a large union in North America. It is argued that useful insights can be obtained by examining the relationships between global and specific measures of job quality. We then compare two ways of linking them: the regression or correlational‐causation approach and the configurational approach that regards jobs as ‘bundles’ of various characteristics. Our results suggest that there are various pathways by which workers may consider jobs to be ‘good’ but that job quality among the machinists is related especially to satisfaction with benefits, interesting work and autonomy.     

The Impact of Suppliers’ Adoption of Voluntary Labour Codes/Certifications on Job Quality in Global Supply Chains: The Sri Lankan Case of Garments without Guilt

Codes of conduct and certifications on labour standards are designed to distinguish export manufacturing suppliers offering higher quality jobs from those offering poor quality jobs. However, previous research suggests that such codes/certifications have a limited impact on job quality. These studies do not differentiate between ‘compliance-based codes of conduct’ that retailers enforce on suppliers and ‘voluntary labour codes/certifications’ that suppliers adopt at their discretion. We examine the relationship between suppliers’ adoption of the Garments without Guilt (GwG) voluntary labour code/certification and job quality using fieldwork and longitudinal data on Sri Lankan export apparel suppliers. We find that GwG adoption is associated with higher base pay and safer work, while base pay is lower for GwG adopters that are simultaneously subject to retailers’ enforcement of compliance-based codes.     

Firm‐Size Wage Gaps along the Formal‐Informal Divide: Theory and Evidence

Observationally equivalent workers are paid higher wages in larger firms. This fact is often called the “firm‐size wage gap” and is regarded as a key empirical puzzle. Using microlevel data from Turkey, we document a new stylized fact: The firm‐size wage gap is more pronounced for informal (unregistered) jobs than for formal (registered) jobs. To explain this fact, we develop a two‐stage wage‐posting game with market imperfections and segmented markets, the solution to which produces wages as a function of firm size in a well‐defined subgame‐perfect equilibrium. The model proposes two explanations. First, taxes on formal employment generate a wedge between formal and informal size wage gaps. Thus, government policy can potentially affect the magnitude of the firm‐size wage gaps. The second explanation features a market‐based framework with strategic interactions. Relative to small firms, large firms typically post higher wages for both formal and informal jobs. A high‐wage formal job attracts a larger pool of applicants than a high‐wage informal job. The larger pool of applicants for the formal job, in turn, allows the firm to somewhat lower the initial wage offer, while this second‐round effect is negligible for informal jobs. As a result, size differentials are lower in formal jobs than informal jobs. We argue that the observed patterns in the use of social connections in job search and heterogeneity in job preferences can be used to justify the validity of this second mechanism.     

The Financial Costs of Caring in the British Labour Market: Is There a Wage Penalty for Workers in Caring Occupations?

Recent evidence from the USA suggests that people engaged in occupations involving providing care for others, such as childcare and teaching, suffer a wage penalty. After taking into account job and individual characteristics such as level of education and work experience, people in these occupations in the American study earned about 6 per cent less than their peers in other types of occupation. However, we do not yet know if people working in similar occupations in other countries also suffer the same degree of disadvantage. The issue is important because, despite the perception that people in caring jobs place a relatively low weight on the level of remuneration when making career decisions, a number of studies have shown clear evidence of an association between pay and the propensity to give up working in a caring occupation. There are implications too for social inequality as many caring jobs are done by women and associated wage penalties could contribute to the persistent gender gap in pay. This study compares and contrasts the predictions of neoclassical economics, cultural feminist theory and social closure theory. Data are taken from 17 waves of the British Household Panel Survey and include a total of 23,773 individuals, giving 110,677 person‐year observations. These data are analysed using multi‐level linear regression. The results show clear evidence of a statistically significant wage penalty associated with working in some caring occupations. Those occupations requiring lower levels of educational qualification, such as nursing assistants and auxiliaries, are particularly hard‐hit by the wage penalty. On the other hand, some occupations, such as medicine and teaching, have fared better than comparable non‐caring occupations over the same period. We discuss the implications of these results for the gender gap in pay, poverty, social inequality and the future supply of caring workers.     

Labour Adjustment Implications of Service Offshoring: Evidence from Canada

About one‐fifth of Canadian employees are in jobs that are vulnerable to service offshoring. Despite this figure, both theory and our empirical evidence (based on a variety of methodologies and datasets) suggest that the offshoring of business services is not likely to lead to large adverse employment effects. We also conclude that existing active labour market adjustment policies (e.g. increased labour market information, job search, mobility and training) developed for other adjustment pressures such as technological change and free‐trade in goods are just as appropriate (perhaps even more so) to deal with the consequences of service offshoring.     

Employment Protection,Threat and Incentive Effects on Worker Absence

This article provides new evidence on the effect of changes in employment protection on worker absence. We use novel multi‐organization data to examine changes in worker absence as workers move from temporary to permanent employment contracts. We demonstrate a robust positive effect of employment protection on sickness absence. It has also been suggested that the impact of employment protection on absence and effort is due to a fear of dismissal. We also provide evidence that suggests that temporary workers' absence is influenced by incentives to attain jobs with protection that is unrelated to threat of dismissal. This has not been considered in earlier research. This channel of employment protection effects has important policy implications.     

Performance Pay and Applicant Screening

Using German establishment data, we show that the relationship between intensity of individual‐based performance pay and intensity of applicant screening depends on the nature of production. In establishments with increased multitasking, performance pay is positively associated with applicant screening. By contrast, in establishments without increased multitasking, performance pay is negatively associated with applicant screening. We do not find a similar pattern of results for group‐based performance pay or profit‐sharing. Our findings fit the hypothesis that individual‐based performance pay induces a positive self‐sorting of employees if jobs are less multifaceted. In this case, employers with a high intensity of performance pay do not need intensive applicant screening to ensure a high quality of matches between workers and jobs. However, if jobs are more multifaceted, individual‐based performance pay can entail problems of adverse self‐sorting. In order to mitigate or overcome these problems, employers making intensive use of performance pay also screen applicants more intensively.     

Work and Volunteering: Longitudinal Relationships between Work‐Related Experiences and Volunteering Behaviour

This study examines the effect of work‐related experiences on employees’ engagement in community volunteering, using data from a British longitudinal panel of employees. Using a novel analytical approach that separates variation in volunteering due to within‐person changes in work conditions from variation due to between‐person work differences, we more robustly test existing and new hypotheses about the effects of work on volunteering. New to this literature, we find that commuting and satisfaction with job experiences are significant predictors of community volunteering, both the likelihood to volunteer and volunteering frequency. In turn, volunteering determinants previously explored with cross‐sectional data, such as managerial and professional jobs, employment sector and hourly paid contracts, are no longer statistically significant in the within‐person models. We discuss a number of important theoretical and practical consequences of these findings.     

Permanent Jobs,Employment Protection,and Job Content

Using Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data for twenty‐one countries, I study the impact of employment protection laws (EPL) on job content. I find that workers’ use of influence, reading, writing, planning, numeracy and information and computer technology skills, and their task discretion, were higher in permanent than in temporary jobs. Moreover, stricter EPL on permanent jobs raised the gap in job content for influence, reading, writing, and planning skills used in permanent jobs versus temporary jobs.     

Transitions Out of Casual Employment: The Australian Experience

This paper uses longitudinal data to examine the extent to which casual employees, who account for almost 25 percent of all Australian employees, are able to access non‐casual jobs in the future, and to contrast their experiences with that of other labor market participants. A dynamic mixed multinomial logit model of labor market states is estimated which reveals high rates of mobility from casual employment into non‐casual employment. Among men, casual employees are found to be far more likely to make the transition into non‐casual employment than otherwise comparable unemployed job seekers. For women, however, this is not the case.     

The Greek Public Sector Wage Premium before the Crisis: Size,Selection and Relative Valuation of Characteristics

We examine the Greek public–private wage differential before the debt crisis to evaluate the prospective impact of the recent public sector pay cuts. We find a large public premium which persists after controlling for individual and job characteristics. For men, much of this is accounted for by self‐selection into the sector that rewards better their characteristics, while for women it is largely driven by sectoral differences in returns. We attribute these effects to more egalitarian pay structures in the public sector and to demand problems in the private sector. The recent policy measures only partially change this situation, as wage deflation extends to the private sector, preserving public premia for the low paid.     

Flexibilization at the Core to Reduce Labour Market Dualism: Evidence from the Spanish Case

Institutionalist explanations of the high non‐standard employment rate in the Spanish labour market have pointed to the relevance of flexibilization at the margin, that is, the deregulation of non‐standard jobs. Using Spanish social security micro data, we find evidence that the liberalization reforms of 2010 and 2012 had flexibilization at their core, that is, greater instability due to open‐ended and full‐time contracts (erosion of employment protection) and a rise in turnover among periphery workers, increasing the segregation gap. We conclude that there is a high level of deregulation and simultaneous dualization due to the combination of flexibilization at the margin (until 2008) and the core (2010–2012).     

Multiple Glass Ceilings

Both vertical (between job levels) and horizontal (within job levels) mobility can be sources of wage growth. We find that the glass ceiling operates at both margins. The unexplained part of the wage gap grows across job levels (glass ceiling at the vertical margin) and across the deciles of the intra‐job‐level wage distribution (glass ceiling at the horizontal margin). This implies that women face many glass ceilings, one for each job level above the second, and that the glass ceiling is a pervasive phenomenon. In the Netherlands it affects about 88 percent of jobs, and 81 percent of Dutch women in employment work in job levels where a glass ceiling is present.