Transcript Employment quality in the OECD Better Life Initiative Anne Saint-Martin Meeting of the Group of Experts on Measuring Quality of Employment 11-13 September 2013, Geneva.

Employment quality in the OECD
Better Life Initiative
Anne Saint-Martin
Meeting of the Group of Experts on Measuring Quality of
Employment
11-13 September 2013, Geneva
The OECD Better Life Initiative (1)
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 (2)
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
Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for
measuring people’s well-being (1)
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 (2)
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 (3)
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 (4)
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 (5)
Employment protection and incidence of long job tenure
Percentage of workers with more than 10 years of job tenure
60
Percentage of workers with more than 10 years of job tenure
60
FRA
55
50
GRC
FIN
IRL
45
LUX
POL
40
USA
HUN
ISL
CAN
35
DNK
SWE
PRT
AUT
SVK
45
EST
40
NOR
MEX
EST
IRL
CHE
NDL
SWE
POL
FIN
35
DNK
ESP
HUN
MEX
CAN
GBR
USA
ISL
AUS
30
25
GRC
NOR
AUS
30
LUX
CZE
CZE
PRT
ITA
50
SVK
ESP
SVN
DEU
55
DEU
NDL
AUT
CHE
GBR
FRA
BEL
SVN
BEL ITA
Incidence of temporary work and long job tenure
25
0
1
2
3
4
Stringency of dismissal rules (index 0-6)
0
5
10
15
20
Share of temporary workers, as a % of employed population
25
Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for
measuring people’s well-being (6)
“Employment-related” social protection: driver of well-being or wellbeing 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 (7)
Gross or net replacement rates?
Initial phase of unemployment, single person without children who previously earned the average wage, 2011
Gross replacement rates (1)
Net replacement rates (2)
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
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.
Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for
measuring people’s well-being (8)
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 (9)
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 (10)
Job demands
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
Emotional
demand
Handle angry clients.
Job involves tasks that are in conflict with personal
values.
Job requires hiding personal feelings.
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
Workplace
intimidation
Verbal abuse
Threats and humiliating behaviours
Bullying or harassment
Job resources
Components
Underlying ESWC questions
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
Learning
opportunities
Employer provided training or on-the-job
training
Job involves learning new things
Job involves solving unforeseen problems
Tasks clarity
Well-defined work goals
Feedbacks from manager
Manager good at planning and organising work
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)
Proportion of workers reporting that work impairs their health
Job resources
Job demands
Workers with above average demand
Workers with below average demand
%
50
Workers with above average resources
Workers with below average resources
%
50
45
45
40
40
35
35
30
30
25
25
20
20
15
15
10
10
5
5
0
0
Work
pressure
Emotional
demand
Physical health
risk factors
Workplace
intimidation
Work
autonomy
Learning
opportunities
Task clarity
Management
practices
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.
Colleagues
support
Employment quality in the How’s life? Framework for
measuring people’s well-being (12)
Proportion of workers reporting that work impairs their health
60
50
Cumulative effects:
job strain
Compensating effect
of high resources
40
30
20
10
0
High job
demands
and low job
resources
High job
demands
and high job
resources
Low job
demands
and low job
resources
Low job
demands
and high job
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 (13)
Number of days of sick leave
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
High job
demands
and low job
resources
High job
demands
and high job
resources
Low job
demands
and low job
resources
Low job
demands
and high job
resources
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)
4.6
4.5
4.4
4.3
4.2
4.1
4.0
3.9
3.8
3.7
3.6
High job
demands
and low job
resources
High job
demands
and high job
resources
Low job
demands
and low job
resources
Low job
demands
and high job
resources
OECD project on “Defining, measuring and assessing job quality
and its links to labour market performance and well-being (1)
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 (2)
Focus on two broad aspects of employment quality  employmentrelated 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?
Thank you!