Employment quality in the OECD Better Life InitiativeAnne Saint-Martin

Meeting of the Group of Experts on Measuring Quality of Employment11-13 September 2013, Geneva

The two main pillars of the OECD Better life Initiatives

1. How’s Life?: a new OECD publication on well-being (published every two years)– Defines an operational framework for measuring well-being

– Three main areas: material living conditions, quality of life and sustainability

– Puts the emphasis on households and individuals– Concentrates on well-being outcomes, rather than on well-being drivers

– Looks at the distribution of well-being across individuals

– Considers both objective and subjective aspects of well-being.

 

The OECD Better Life Initiative (1)

The framework considers 11 dimensions for measuring current well-being: • Under material living conditions (3): Income and wealth; Jobs and earnings;

and Housing.

• Under quality of life (7): Health status; Work-life balance; Education and skills; Civic engagement and governance; Social connections; Environmental quality; Personal security; and Subjective well-being.

2. The OECD better life index• Cross-country comparisons on the 11 dimensions of people’s well-being

• No synthetic index of well-being

• Interactive tool on a dedicated website, where people can construct their own synthetic index by choosing the weights they want to give to each dimension, and then, can compare their country to other OECD countries

The OECD Better Life Initiative (2)

Two dimensions of the HsL? framework are directly related to employment quality:

• Material conditions: Jobs and earnings

• Quality of life: Work-life balance

 

Main criteria for selection of indicators:

• Focus on summary outcomes (such as “good health status”) that can be easily understood

• Are commonly used and accepted as well-being indicators within the statistical and academic communities

• Ensure comparability across countries

• Ensure maximum country coverage

• Are collected through a recurrent instrument, i.e. are updated on a regular basis

 

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (1)

Headline indicators (6): satisfy most selection criteria

• Jobs and earnings: employment rate; long-term unemployment; average gross annual earnings of full-time employees

• Work-life balance: long working hours; time for leisure and personal care; employment rate of mothers with children under school-age

 

Secondary indicators (5): satisfy several selection criteria but not all

• Jobs and earnings: involuntary part-time employment; employees working on temporary contracts

• Work-life balance: commuting time; satisfaction with allocation of time; work accidents.

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (2)

As compared to existing frameworks for measuring employment quality, very limited number of indicators.  

• HsL? framework is an outcome-based framework for measuring people’s well-being, not a comprehensive framework for measuring employment quality

 

• Additional aspects that could also be considered in the HsL? framework:– Material conditions: role of “employment-related” social protection– Quality of life: role of workplace relationships and work organisation

 

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (3)

Difficulties in measuring the well-being outcomes of “employment related” social protection an example with employment protection legislation (EPL)

 

• Summary outcome of EPL: job (in)security

 

• Indicators most commonly used : share of temporary workers, share of workers with long job tenure, share of workers with short job tenure

 

• Indicator retained in HsL?: share of temporary workers – Pros: obvious link with job insecurity as by definition, temporary contracts do not

provide any guarantees as regards the continuation of the employment relationship

– Cons: incomplete measure of job insecurity, notably in countries where regular employment is strongly protected

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (4)

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (5)

Incidence of temporary work and long job tenureEmployment protection and incidence of long job tenure

AUS

AUT

BEL

CAN

CZE

DNK

EST

FIN

FRADEU

GRC

HUN

ISL

IRL

ITALUX

NDL

NOR

SVK

SVN

SWE

CHEGBR

USA

MEX

POL

PRT

ESP

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

0 5 10 15 20 25Share of temporary workers, as a % of employed population

Percentage of workers with more than 10 years of job tenure

AUS

AUT

BEL

CAN

CZE

DNK

EST

FIN

FRA

DEUGRC

HUN

ISL

IRL

ITALUX

MEX

NDL

NOR

POL

PRT

SVK

SVN

ESP

SWE

CHE

GBRUSA

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

0 1 2 3 4Stringency of dismissal rules (index 0-6)

Percentage of workers with more than 10 years of job tenure

“Employment-related” social protection: driver of well-being or well-being outcome?

An example with unemployment insurance (UI) systems

 

In a context of high and increasing job instability:

• Current earnings may not adequately reflect the monetary benefits of having a job if workers are concerned about their future as well as their current material conditions

• Over people’s working life, UI benefits can be seen as a component of employment-related income, in addition to earnings.

• Therefore, UI benefits are not only a driver of well-being, but also an outcome variable

 

But what could constitute a summary outcome of UI systems?

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (6)

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (7)

Initial phase of unemployment, single person without children who previously earned the average wage, 2011

1) Gross replacement rate: gross unemployment benefits received when not working as a percentage of previous gross earnings.

2) Net replacement rate: household net income during unemployment as a percentage of household net income while in work. Therefore, net RR takes into account the amount of cash benefits received (including social assistance) as well as the amount of taxes and social security contributions paid by the household, both during unemployment and while in work.

Gross or net replacement rates?

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90Gross replacement rates (1) Net replacement rates (2)

Quality of life at work 

• “Work-life balance” dimension of the HsL? Framework mainly focuses on the balance between time spent at work and time available for personal and family life

 

• Work may interfere with personal life through many channels, above and beyond time constraints

 

• The literature on occupational health provides strong empirical evidence on the link between, on the one hand, the quality of work organisation and workplace relationships, and on the other hand, workers’ health and well-being

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (8)

Basic premise: what matters for people’s well-being at work is the balance between the demands they face, and the resources they have at their disposal to meet these demands

 

• Job demands those aspects of the job that require sustained physical and psychological efforts

 

• Job resources those job attributes that may be conductive to personal accomplishment or that are instrumental in achieving work goals.

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (9)

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (10)

Job demands Job resources Components Underlying ESWC questions Components Underlying ESWC questions

Work pressure

Work usually more than 50 hours per week Not enough time to get the job done Working hours do not fit in with family and social commitments outside work Work at very high speed Work to tight deadline

Work autonomy

Can choose or change the order of tasks Can choose or change methods of work Can choose or change speed or rate of work Able to apply own ideas in work

Emotional demand

Handle angry clients. Job involves tasks that are in conflict with personal values. Job requires hiding personal feelings.

Learning opportunities

Employer provided training or on-the-job training Job involves learning new things Job involves solving unforeseen problems

Physical health risk factors

Exposure to high noise Exposure to high temperature Exposure to low temperature Tiring and painful positions Carrying or moving heavy loads

Tasks clarity Well-defined work goals Feedbacks from manager Manager good at planning and organising work

Workplace intimidation

Verbal abuse Threats and humiliating behaviours Bullying or harassment

Management practices

Helps and supports from manager Feel respected as a person by manager Manager good at resolving conflicts Encouragement from manager to participate in important decisions

Colleagues support

Helps and supports from colleagues Feel “at home” at work Have very good friends at work

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (11)

Job demands Job resources

Proportion of workers reporting that work impairs their health

Unweighted average across 22 countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovak Republic, Sweden.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Work pressure

Emotional demand

Physical healthrisk factors

Workplace intimidation

% Workers with above average demandWorkers with below average demand

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Work autonomy

Learning opportunities

Task clarity Managementpractices

Colleaguessupport

%Workers with above average resourcesWorkers with below average resources

Pending and difficult question: how to construct a summary measure of job strain that be allow

comparisons across countries?

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (12)

Proportion of workers reporting that work impairs their health

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

High job demands

and low jobresources

High job demands

and high jobresources

Low job demands

and low jobresources

Low job demands

and high jobresources

Compensating effectof high resources

Cumulative effects: job strain

Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for measuring people’s well-being (13)

Number of days of sick leave

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

High job demands

and low jobresources

High job demands

and high jobresources

Low job demands

and low jobresources

Low job demands

and high jobresources

OECD project on “Defining, measuring and assessing job quality and its links to labour market performance and well-being (13)

Mental health index (scale 0-5 from poor to good health status)

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.9

4.0

4.1

4.2

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

High job demands

and low jobresources

High job demands

and high jobresources

Low job demands

and low jobresources

Low job demands

and high jobresources

Timeframe: 2-year project, starting in Oct. 2013

Joint project: Statistics Directorate and Directorate of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs

Key objectives of this project:• Reassess labour market performance whilst taking explicitly

account of job quality in addition to the quantity of jobs

• Provide a first attempt to examine the role of policies and institutions for the quality and quantity of job opportunities

Main issue to deal with in this kind of analysis: multi-dimensionality of employment quality

OECD project on “Defining, measuring and assessing job quality and its links to labour market performance and well-being (1)

Focus on two broad aspects of employment quality employment-related material conditions and quality of life at work

• Measuring these outcome variables Composite indicator of economic security? Composite indicators of job strain? Composite indicators or small sets of outcome variables?

• Identifying the main determinants of these outcome variables

• Understanding the relationships between these determinants Cumulative effects? Compensating effects?

OECD project on “Defining, measuring and assessing job quality and its links to labour market performance and well-being (2)

Thank you!