An Improved Empirical Method for Evaluating Job Quality of the Working Poor: Results from Northeast China

Abstract

This study identifies the job quality among the working poor in Harbin from five aspects: physical working environment, psychological working environment, job security and flexibility, job satisfaction and income. Three hundred and seventy-seven working poor people are recruited using convenience sampling strategies. Factor analysis and cluster analysis results indicate that there are three types of job quality groups among the respondents. Low job quality group shows the characteristics of adverse working environment, informal employment, middle ranking on relationship with co-workers, and low satisfaction on job quality. On the contrary, high job quality group presented the characteristics of comfortable working environment, formal employment, high ranking on relationship with co-workers, and high satisfaction. Multiple regression results indicate that gender, hukou system and educational background are closely associated with job quality. Female’s job quality is higher than male’s. People with nonagricultural hukou keep a higher job quality than people with agricultural ones. People who graduate from university keep a higher job quality than others.