Trends in job quality in Europe

Using data from the fifth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), this study measures job quality in the 27 countries of the European Union, as well as seven additional countries in Europe that participated in the survey. The intention was to find an objective means of assessing the principle established in a number of EU directives that work should adapt to the workers. Increased understanding of the social costs of poor job quality has focused attention on physical and social environments at work. Prolonged life expectancy and the ageing of the population suggest that jobs will have to be of good quality if more workers are to be persuaded to work longer. The indices constructed for this study do not rely on subjective measurement such as preferences and attitudes, but are built on the self-reported features of jobs that are associated with workers’ well-being

A century of minimum wages in Britain

Simon Deakin and Francis Green trace the history from the trade boards first enacted in October 1909 to today's National Minimum Wage.

The Growth and Valuation of Generic Skills

Using a method for measuring job skills derived from survey data on detailed work activities, we show that between 1997 and 2001 there was a growth in Britain in the utilisation of computing skills, literacy, numeracy, technical know-how, high-level communication skills, planning skills, client communication skills, horizontal communication skills, problem-solving and checking skills. Computer skills and high-level communication skills carry positive wage premia, as shown both in cross-section hedonic wage equations and through a within-cohorts change analysis. No part of the gender pay gap can be accounted for by differences in levels of generic skills between men and women.skills, wages, computers

Decent Work and The Quality of Work and Employment

This review examines the concept of the quality of work and employment (QWE), including both ‘Decent Work’ and the narrower concept of ‘job quality’. The key axiom is that ‘quality’ relates to the extent and manner in which working conditions meet people’s needs from work. The review emphasises the multi-disciplinary nature of the topic. It discusses the concept’s objective character, its relationship with well-being, and its link with productivity. Important measurement issues are considered, including cost, international comparability, the choice of how many indices, the treatment of inequality and the problem of discipline insularity. Some theories of the antecedents of QWE imply universal trends, while others predict differentiation across countries and regions, attributable to labour market institutions and policy. The effects on well-being and health are studied in several disciplines, including a substantial research programme in psychology. Summary trends in Europe and distributions of job quality are presented for context, including gender gaps. This description shows gradual improvement in the physical environment of work and in working time quality over the decade from 2005. Yet the distribution of job quality in several domains is not at all closely related to a country’s GDP. The review concludes with a discussion of job quality policy making, and frames the ongoing research agenda

Schoolwork in lockdown: new evidence on the epidemic of educational poverty

The closure of schools, and their only-partial re-opening, constitute a potential threat to the educational development of a generation of children. Since only a few among key workers’ children have been at school during the pandemic, it is important for policy-makers to understand how much mitigating schoolwork has been taking place in homes across the country. This report uses new, high-quality data undertaken one month into lockdown, to try to answer that question, and to examine how much support was being given. It finds that the average amount of schoolwork being done at home, according to parents and family members, has been very low: • Children locked down at home in the UK spent an average of only 2.5 hours each day doing schoolwork. This figure is about half that suggested by a previous survey, suggesting that learning losses are much greater than feared. • Most homework consisted of assignments, worksheets and watching videos. On average children were given two such pieces of homework a day. • The extent of online lessons provision in state schools was minimal: 71 percent of state school children received no or less than one daily online lessons. However, as earlier surveys have found, the extent of school provision for homes varied substantially. One fifth of pupils – over two million children -- did no schoolwork at home, or less than an hour a day. Only 17 percent put in more than four hours a day . The inequality between regions and social groups was substantial. • Offline schoolwork is lowest in the Northeast of England, where the proportion receiving four or more daily pieces is just 9 percent, compared with the country-wide average of 20 percent. In the Southeast region, 28 percent of children are receiving four or more pieces of offline schoolwork per day. • The proportion of children in receipt of free school meals who spent more than four hours on schoolwork was 11 percent, as compared with 19 percent among those not eligible. • 31 percent of private schools provided four or more live online lessons daily, as compared with just 6 percent in state schools. Support from teachers checking private 3 school pupils’ work was strong, and virtually all private school children (97 percent) had access to a computer at home. • One in five of those on free school meals had no access to a computer at home. • Asian children were being given more offline schoolwork, but took the same amount of time on schoolwork as other children. • 20 percent of girls put in four or more hours on schoolwork during lockdown, as compared with 14 percent of boys. The report concludes by reinforcing calls for government to give education a much greater priority in the management of the pandemic response, and for this response to include a focus on regional disparities