A configurational approach to job quality analysis: forms of inequalities at work in Europe

Abstract

ABSTRACT While job quality is often described in a binary way, this article proposes a configurational approach to account for the interactions between the subjective and objective dimensions and to combine the relations between the micro-, meso- and macro-level variables in a single frame. Based on data from the EWCS (2015) in 29 European countries, this article uses a cluster analysis to identify five configurations of job quality in Europe. This approach renews the study of job quality and reveals differentiated registers of relationships to work, which are dependent on micro-level variables as well as meso-level variables (the context of the respondent’s company) and macro-level variables. The perception of job quality differs markedly between high-skilled occupations and low-skilled occupations, but there is also a segmentation of jobs at both the middle and the bottom of the European social space. Belonging to the public sector is a determining factor in the existence of critical relationships to jobs.