Policymakers frequently discuss poverty, but rarely mention the link between poverty and poor employment. If so, the focus is typically on low-income groups. Not yet Kirsten Senbruch, Mauricio Apablazza and james foster Explain that there are many terms and conditions of employment beyond wages that can have a negative impact on workers’ well-being and can often exacerbate each other. Drawing on recent research, they explain how multidimensional measures of low-quality employment can be applied to better understand labor market poverty.
In public policy and economics, ‘bad’ jobs tend to mean low-income jobs. However, employment conditions such as unstable jobs, short-term contracts, unpredictable working hours and associated pay can also have a significant negative impact on workers’ well-being. Moreover, these employment conditions tend to complicate each other.
For this reason, it is difficult to fully capture poor employment with simple measures such as low wages or unstable contracts. These measures one-dimensional And it does not reflect the fact that many workers are deprived of one or more aspects of their employment conditions. Instead, you should take the following actions: multidimensional An approach that considers the overall terms and conditions of employment.
poor employment measures;
If wages alone should not be used as an indicator of poor employment quality, how should we conceptualize and define appropriate measures? In a new study, we address this issue by constructing a multidimensional and comprehensive measure of poor employment using the Alkire and Foster (AF) method.
Following the OECD, we select three dimensions that are generally considered important in the literature on job quality. These dimensions are “income,” “stability and security,” and “working conditions.” Figure 1 provides a visual representation of how these dimensions overlap.
Figure 1: Dimensions of poor employment
Note: Please refer to the author’s accompanying paper for further details.
Each of these dimensions can be populated with any available variable. For example, in countries with excessively high levels of job rotation, variables in the ‘stability and security dimension’ might include ‘job tenure’ or ‘short-term contracts’. Alternatively, in countries where temperatures are high and working outdoors is not desirable, the ‘working conditions’ dimension could include ‘where you work’ as a variable.
To select appropriate variables and determine which employment conditions are acceptable, the literature on multidimensional poverty can be based on descriptive analysis and expert opinion, as in the case of the UNDP or World Bank’s Multidimensional Poverty Index (measure), or on the basis of individual country estimates. A committee of experts and stakeholders is formed to decide on the composition of the index. A similar approach could be adopted where the quality of employment is low.
Once the dimensions and variables that make up the poor employment measure are selected, the AF method uses a double blocking strategy that ensures that the measure focuses on workers experiencing overlapping deprivation. The first cutoff identifies which employment conditions are considered “poor” by dividing each indicator of the achievement vector by its individual deprivation. The weighted sum of deprivations then provides a computational vector that captures the cumulative distribution of detrimental states.
Poor employment quality in Europe
Most recent applications have applied this approach to Latin America, but similar measures could work in Europe. In practice, the availability of comparable data on the most essential employment conditions in Europe makes it possible to establish more complex measures of poor employment. Table 1 presents suggestions for variables that could be included in these measures, along with their weights and cutoffs.
Table 1: Dimensions, variables, weights and cutoffs for the European Employment Deprivation Scale.
Note: Please refer to the author’s accompanying paper for further details.
This approach allows us to calculate the level of poor employment across Europe. The overall threshold for this measure is one-third (33%). This means that for employment quality to be considered poor, workers must be deprived of at least 33% of their total bill. For example, workers are considered to be of poor quality if they fall below the wage thresholds defined in the bill or are engaged in fixed-term contracts of less than three years combined with involuntary part-time workers. It has a low level of autonomy.
The key to this method is that workers who are more deprived in terms of employment appear to be more “severely deprived” than workers who are less deprived. Figure 2 shows the level and intensity of deprivation across the European countries included in the European Survey of Working Conditions.
Figure 2: Deprivation and intensity of deprivation in Europe
Note: Author’s calculations using data from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey. This is the last data available from this survey, as subsequent waves in 2020 were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For more details, please refer to the author’s attached paper.
As Figure 2 shows, levels of poor employment vary widely across countries, from 7.7% in Denmark to 31.7% in Greece, with Turkey and Albania representing outliers at around 40%. Some southern European countries, such as Spain and Cyprus, also have higher levels of poor employment (closer to 30%). It is interesting to note that several Eastern European countries (e.g. Slovenia and the Czech Republic) show low levels of deprivation and intensity. Overall, we found that most workers are deprived of more than one dimension or variable of measurement. This shows that looking at poor employment from a one-dimensional perspective is not enough.
Implications for policy makers
Several conclusions of relevance to policymakers emerge from our study. First, our study highlights the importance of looking at employment. multidimensional perspective, highlighting that workers are typically deprived in more than one dimension, which can increase their vulnerability. Focusing policy attention solely on the poor, informal workers and low-skilled workers is not enough. All of these measures used in isolation may miss important characteristics of employment that affect the well-being of employed workers.
Second, the literature on which our work is based shows that measures of multidimensional employment deprivation are useful when: Identify the most vulnerable individual workers or groups of workers. In the labor market. These measures would give policymakers a more precise tool to focus financial resources not only on providing income support, but also on helping workers overcome poverty through targeted investments in job training or adult education.
Third, it is clear that policymakers are systematically ignoring some aspects of employment that are important to workers, such as job security. This signals the need for regulatory reform that provides a level playing field for workers with different types of contracts and employment terms, preventing employers from using flexible or insecure forms of employment where this is not appropriate.
Fourth, governments and international organizations must invest more. Generate better, more comparable data About employment conditions and job characteristics. Labor force and household surveys of large samples across Europe should include broader and more comprehensive questions about employment conditions. European working conditions surveys are conducted too infrequently and sample sizes are too small to conduct meaningful analyzes that can inform policy makers.
Finally, our study highlights: Social and labor policies cannot be viewed or framed separately.. For example, if the main reason workers receive low pensions is because they worked informally or did not consistently contribute to the system, reforming pension systems (e.g. increasing pension age or contribution levels) may be an ineffective solution. Or you’ve never had a steady job.
For more information, see the author’s accompanying paper in LSE Public Policy Review.
Note: This article gives the views of the author and not the position of EUROPP (European Politics and Policy) or the London School of Economics. Featured image source: Metamorworks / Shutterstock.com
