Dimensions Of Job Quality Research Articles

Parental Exposure to Work Schedule Instability and Child Sleep Quality

Recent scholarship has documented the effects of unstable scheduling practices on worker health and well-being, but there has been less research examining the intergenerational consequences of work schedule instability. This study investigates the relationship between parental exposure to unstable and unpredictable work schedules and child sleep quality. We find evidence of significant and large associations between parental exposure to each of five different types of unstable and unpredictable work scheduling practices and child sleep quality, including sleep duration, variability and daytime sleepiness. We are also able to mediate 35–50% of this relationship with measures of work–life conflict, parental stress and well-being, material hardship, and child behaviour. These findings suggest that the effects of the temporal dimensions of job quality extend beyond workers to their children, with implications for the mechanisms by which social inequality is reproduced and for social policies intended to regulate precarious and unequal employment conditions.

Job quality in the Saudi Arabian banking sector: Implications for employee performance and organizational outcomes

Within the Saudi Arabian banking sector, the quality of work life emerges as a crucial determinant shaping employee performance. This research delves into the nuanced impacts of diverse job quality facets on employee efficacy within this domain. Employing a stratified random sampling methodology, 500 institutions were selected, yielding a 49.6% response rate, or 248 completed surveys, with the active engagement of senior management. Utilizing a quantitative paradigm, the study harnessed descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM) to elucidate the interplay between job quality dimensions and performance outcomes. The analysis revealed that elements like compensation structures, work-life equilibrium, and growth opportunities substantially influenced employee productivity. In contrast, most job quality facets garnered positive evaluations, and aspects related to wage and compensation exhibited room for enhancement. The research accentuates the imperative of elevating job quality benchmarks within the banking sector to augment employee contentment and performance metrics. This study’s insights advocate for stakeholders and policymakers to champion job quality as a pivotal driver for optimizing organizational effectiveness.

Quantity over quality? How economic factors and welfare state interventions affected job insecurity and job quality before, during and after the economic crises

AbstractThis article uses multilevel analysis of 24 European countries to examine the effects of macroeconomic variables (GDP and unemployment) and welfare state interventions (active and passive labour market policies) on job insecurity and job quality in Europe from the mid‐1990s until the last 2021 COVID crisis. The paper makes a distinction between the crisis of the welfare state and the reaction of welfare states to crises and connects the job quality literature with that on the transformation of the welfare state. The article introduces several innovations to the literature by looking at the impact of welfare state interventions on multidimensional job quality, distinguishing between different types of active labour market policy spending and considering the generosity of benefits. The findings show that active labour market policies (ALMPs) and passive labour market policies (PLMPs) have a positive effect in reducing job insecurity across skill groups. ALMPs and PLMPs also improved several dimensions of job quality, but mostly among manual/low‐skilled workers, while they have a negative effect on work pressure which mostly affects medium‐ and high‐skilled workers. The article concludes by discussing how, due to the reach of ALMP and PLMP interventions, the positive effects of the welfare state on job quality are concentrated among lower‐skilled workers, thereby limiting the ambition of contemporary welfare states to generate positive spillover effects on the quality of work for all workers.

The Impact of Welfare Conditionality on Experiences of Job Quality

This article contributes to emerging debates about how behavioural conditionality within welfare systems influences job quality. Drawing upon analysis of unique data from three waves of qualitative longitudinal interviews with 46 UK social security recipients (133 interviews), we establish that the impact of welfare conditionality is so substantial that it is no longer adequate to discuss job quality without reference to its interconnections to the welfare system. More specifically, we identify how conditionality drives welfare recipients’ experience of four core dimensions of job quality: disempowering and propelling claimants towards inadequate pay, insecurity and poor employment terms, undermining multiple intrinsic characteristics of work and creating what we term a new ‘Work–Life–Welfare balance’. Instead of acting as a neutral arbitrator between jobseekers and employers, the welfare system is exposed as complicit in reinforcing one-sided flexibility through one-sided conditionality, by emphasising intensive job-seeking, while leaving poor-quality work provided by employers unchecked.

Job quality and precarious employment among lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers: A national study

BackgroundEmployment outcomes among sexual minority (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual) workers are poorly understood, and previous research on this topic has focused almost exclusively on inequities in earnings, neglecting other important dimensions of job quality. We address this gap by describing and comparing the job quality of straight and sexual minority workers in Canada. MethodsData are from the 2016 General Social Survey: Canadians at Work and Home, the only national survey providing both a measure of sexual orientation and a multidimensional view of job quality in Canada. We identified 25 unique job quality indicators (e.g., temporary employment; job insecurity; health benefits; low income; job satisfaction; job control; discrimination). Latent class cluster analysis was used to establish a typology of job quality describing standard, flexible, and precarious employment types. We used multivariable regression methods to examine the association between sexual orientation and job quality. ResultsSexual minorities reported lower job quality than their straight counterparts along many dimensions, with bisexual people reporting the lowest job quality. While inequities were generally observed among both sexual minority men and women, they sometimes differed in magnitude by gender. The prevalence of precarious employment was nearly three times higher among lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers (PR: 2.94, CI: 1.89–4.58 among all sexual minorities; PR: 3.04, CI: 1.71–5.43 among gay/lesbian workers; and PR: 2.81, CI: 1.45–5.47 among bisexual workers) compared to their straight counterparts. ConclusionInequities in job quality among sexual minorities persist despite comprehensive human rights protections in Canada. These inequities are pervasive, extending well beyond conventional indicators such as dollars earned and hours worked. Multi-pronged interventions are needed that move beyond simply ensuring that sexual minority workers are employed. Sexual minority workers deserve access to secure, well-paid work with benefits where they can foster connection and be free from discrimination.

The Impact of the Different Dimensions of Job Quality on Job Satisfaction in the Public and Private sector. What is Wrong with the Social Environment?

This work considers the impact of the different job quality dimensions on Eurozone job satisfaction through the European Working Conditions Survey-2015. The econometric analysis, using a probit model (marginal effects), reveals that dimensions associated with Social environment, Skills and discretion, Prospects, and Earnings have a positive and significant impact on job satisfaction. The impact of Work intensity is negative and those related to Physical environment and Working time quality do not have a significant impact on job satisfaction. Regarding the differential impact of the different dimensions on the public and private sectors, both Prospects and Social environment are notably higher in the private sector. The greater impact of the first index is not justified, as is the case with the Social environment, by a lower index but, probably, by the greater variability of the index in the private sector. Our work emphasizes the relevance of studying variables associated to job quality when identifying the causes of job satisfaction. Greater understanding of these dimensions in the private sector would improve the situation in the public sector (and vice versa) and, therefore, workers’ job satisfaction. Of special interest are the possible improvements in the field of Social environment in the public sector, specifically in relationships between workers and their immediate bosses and in the distribution of work tasks.

Impacts on manufacturing workers as part of a whole-system energy transition

Providing access to good employment opportunities has become a key area of focus to ensure a just energy transition and to ensure that there is sufficient support for the technology transitions necessary for deep decarbonization. However, a societal transition to a decarbonized energy system will impact workers beyond those involved in energy resource extraction and energy production. Workers involved in manufacturing, especially those working in manufacturing industries that are energy- and emissions-intensive may face additional changes as those industries undergo technological changes. While discussions of the quality of jobs have focused on things like compensation, employment terms, and representation, other job dimensions, like the intrinsic characteristics of the work, health and safety, and work–life balance, stand to be directly impacted by technology change and are largely excluded from consideration. As these new technologies are developed and new energy sources are introduced to support manufacturing, we should also consider sociotechnical solutions that balance worker quality of life among other considerations like the utilization of new capital resources. Incorporating considerations across a wider definition of job quality dimensions will help to ensure that there is a sufficient workforce available to meet the demands of a decarbonization transition.

Does employment status matter for job quality? A cross-national perspective.

Dual labour market theory raises questions about the relationship between non-standard employment and job quality. While scattered empirical evidence exists, there is a paucity of systematic evidence on the relationship between workers' employment status and job quality. The authors investigated the relation between workers' employment status (e.g., open-ended, long- and short-term fixed contracts, economically dependent and independent solo self-employment, and self-employment with employees) and important dimensions of job quality (JQ) (e.g., employment prospects, physical work environment, skills and discretion, and working times quality). Cross-national variation in that relation and causes of that variation (e.g., country-level unemployment rate and labour market efficiency) were also investigated. Hierarchical regression modelling was applied using a sample of 34,094 workers from the European Working Conditions Survey 2015. The study highlighted a negative association between fixed-term contracts and JQ. For self-employed workers (except economically dependent self-employed workers) a generally positive association was observed. In this study, also positive associations were found between labour market efficiency at the country-level and some JQ indicators. National unemployment rates were negatively associated to most JQ indicators. Non-standard employment contracts exhibited poorer job quality than open-ended contracts. Stronger labour market organization centred around indicators of both flexibility and equity related to more beneficial job quality for all employment statuses, thereby promoting more labour market inclusivity.

Gender Gaps in Working Conditions

The evolution of the gender pay gap has received a great deal of attention from academia and public opinion alike, yet our understanding of the differences in non-monetary working conditions is much scarcer. Through the use of the European Working Conditions Survey and six composite indicators of job quality, this research aims to expand our knowledge on the gender gaps in job attributes across the European Union over the period 2005–2015 in three ways: firstly, we explore gender differences in working conditions, revealing the distinct patterns identified by the dimensions of job quality and country; secondly, we find that, on average, women’s relative position deteriorates in terms of the physical environment and working time quality; a result that again reflects considerable heterogeneity across the countries in the sample. Lastly, we find clear evidence of a catch-up process in job quality in all the non-monetary dimensions of working conditions across the European Union.

Workers' Health under Algorithmic Management: Emerging Findings and Urgent Research Questions.

Algorithms are increasingly used instead of humans to perform core management functions, yet public health research on the implications of this phenomenon for worker health and well-being has not kept pace with these changing work arrangements. Algorithmic management has the potential to influence several dimensions of job quality with known links to worker health, including workload, income security, task significance, schedule stability, socioemotional rewards, interpersonal relations, decision authority, and organizational trust. To describe the ways algorithmic management may influence workers' health, this review summarizes available literature from public health, sociology, management science, and human-computer interaction studies, highlighting the dimensions of job quality associated with work stress and occupational safety. We focus on the example of work for platform-based food and grocery delivery companies; these businesses are growing rapidly worldwide and their effects on workers and policies to address those effects have received significant attention. We conclude with a discussion of research challenges and needs, with the goal of understanding and addressing the effects of this increasingly used technology on worker health and health equity.

A Multilevel Grounded Theory of Quantitative Job Quality Among Mothers, Fathers and Childless Women and Men in a Gendered, Classed and Aged "Growth-Driven" Organisation.

Poor quality jobs, incorporating job demands, resources and rewards, can impact employees' health and wellbeing inside and outside work. However, jobs' changing nature and employees' increasingly diverse backgrounds mean existing job quality models may not adequately explain individuals' job quality experiences within their individual, organisational and societal contexts. The paper aimed to understand mothers, fathers and childless women and men's gendered, classed and aged experiences of quantitative job demands (including work amount, speed, effort, length and timing) and their resources and rewards, within multilevel contexts. We conducted a qualitative case-study of an Australian organisation, employing a critical feminist grounded theory design. We collected and analysed data from open-ended questionnaire responses from 47 employees and iterative in-depth interviews with 10 employees. Participants' experiences of excessive quantitative demands, whether they could meet such demands, and whether they felt extrinsically or intrinsically resourced and rewarded for doing so, were embedded within ComCo's masculine-neoliberal-capitalist growth imperative, cultures, policies and practices reinforcing growth, and quantitatively extreme and qualitatively conformant ideal worker discourses, as well as participants' organisationally and societally-embedded individual, family and community-level contexts; producing nuanced gendered, classed and aged experiences among mothers, fathers and childless women and men. Although confirming well-established objective job quality dimensions, our research suggests individuals' nuanced and subjective job quality experiences are embedded within individual, family, community, organisational and societal contexts.

The Effects of Job Quality on the Health of Wage Workers: Congruence between the Hard and Soft Job Quality

BackgroundThis study analyzes the linear and non-linear effects of the hard and soft dimensions of job quality on the overall health of wage workers. It also examines the congruence or fit between the hard and soft job quality on the overall health of wage workers. MethodsThis study measured thirty indicators that constitute job quality and reduced the indicators into twelve sub-dimensions of job quality using reflective factor analysis. In addition, this study derived two dimensions of job quality from the twelve subdimensions, namely the hard and soft job quality using formative factor analysis. This paper applied the response surface analysis to analyze the congruence effect between the two dimensions of job quality. ResultsA logarithmic relationship was found between the dimension of hard job quality and the worker’s overall health. This study also verified that the congruence effect between the two dimensions of job quality does not exist, and the combined effect of job quality is lower when the two dimensions of job quality are at the same level than the effect when either level of job quality is high or low. ConclusionsAlthough hard and soft job quality has independent positive effects on the overall health of wage workers, the two dimensions of job quality are not congruent or not in harmony with each other. This incongruence between hard and soft job quality, together with a higher impact of hard job quality, suggests that the role of soft job quality on overall health is relatively limited.

The impact of job quality on organizational commitment and job satisfaction: The moderating role of socioeconomic status

This study analyzes the effects of each of three dimensions of job quality on organizational commitment and job satisfaction. The interactions between job quality and socioeconomic status also are examined to understand the relationship between job quality and organizational commitment and job satisfaction. This study found that all three dimensions of job quality – quality of income, job security, and working environment – have linear effects on organizational commitment and job satisfaction. In addition, the relationship between job quality as a whole and organizational commitment and job satisfaction varies depending on socioeconomic status. This study showed the dual role of socioeconomic status in that the relationship between job quality and organizational commitment and job satisfaction is more accelerated for workers with high socioeconomic status, while the effects of job quality and socioeconomic status on organizational commitment and job satisfaction offset each other where job quality is lower than average.

Working Conditions and Work Engagement by Gender and Digital Work Intensity

Telework and other flexible working arrangements, which have exponentially expanded with new advancements in digitalization and the impact of COVID-19, are modifying working conditions and workers’ engagement. Using the ‘job demands-resources’ model, we applied multivariate techniques to examine the different ways in which telework intensity impacts working conditions by gender. Increased intensity of remote working was positively associated with better skills and discretion and work engagement, while it was negatively associated with the other dimensions of job quality (particularly with working time quality). Even though women usually score higher than men in work intensity or working time quality, high intense female teleworkers experience a downturn with respect to these two items. Low and medium intensities of teleworking were positively associated with skills and discretion, working time quality, improved physical environment, and especially with better prospects and earnings. In conclusion, the intensity of teleworking and gender affect job quality and work engagement in different degrees, highlighting the importance of including these multiple effects on the design of flexible working arrangements.

Temporal Dimensions of Job Quality and Gender: Exploring Differences in the Associations of Working Time and Health between Women and Men.

Research shows strong links between working time organization and workers’ health outcomes. Working time is also known to be highly gendered, with men and women working to different schedules. This article merges these two strands of research and takes a gender-based approach to investigating the relationship between temporal job quality and self-reported health in Europe. First, the sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) is used to establish the relationship between temporal dimensions of job quality and health and well-being outcomes for employed women and men. This is then corroborated using larger samples and more restricted measures of job quality drawn from micro-data from the 2019–2020 EU Labor Force Survey (LFS). The analyses show that good temporal job quality is positively associated with health and subjective well-being for both women and men, but this effect is significantly stronger for women, who are also at a greater risk of exposure to low control over working time and time under-employment. The findings highlight the importance of studying the impact of working and employment conditions on health from gender perspective, and the need for further exploration of job quality due to changes in the spatio-temporal organization of work during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Decent work in global food value chains: Evidence from Senegal

The rapid growth and transformation of global food value chains has stimulated the development of rural labour markets and has important consequences for rural poverty reduction. While this transformation can be associated with substantial rural employment creation, there is still debate on the inclusiveness and quality of these jobs. We provide quantitative evidence on the inclusiveness of wage employment in the horticultural sector in Senegal and on the quality of this employment and disparities among vulnerable groups of workers. Using survey data from 525 workers, 392 hired workers in agro-industrial companies and 133 workers on small-scale farms, we assess the inclusiveness of employment towards female, young and migrant workers, and compare the quality of employment between these different groups of workers. The quality of employment is assessed through wages and a decent work index that captures multiple wage and non-wage dimensions of job quality. We use bivariate and multivariate analyses to examine the quality of employment and a decomposition analysis to explain wage gaps. Results suggest that job quality is better in the agro-industry than on small-scale farms. We find that the agro-industry is inclusive towards migrant, female and young workers, but that disparities in job quality exist within and across companies. Results illustrate substantial gender wage gaps across companies, but not within companies, and a lower likelihood of having decent employment among migrant and young workers. Our results suggest that wage gaps can be explained by differences in job characteristics, and are not directly based on workers’ gender, age or migrant background.

Is Innovation Good for European Workers? Beyond the Employment Destruction/Creation Effects, Technology Adoption Affects the Working Conditions of European Workers

This article contributes to better understanding the relations between innovation and the evolution of working conditions and employment quality. Most studies on employment and innovation focus on the impacts of innovation on employment variation and turnover. However, few empirical works explicitly study the transformative role of new technology adoption in the qualitative dimensions of jobs. This article investigates the effect of new technology adoption on job quality and working conditions. Based on the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) (2010), econometrics models identify at employee-level the combined influence of innovation with work organization practises on several job quality dimensions. We observe that new technology adoption is generally associated with better employment quality for workers in some ways, but, simultaneously, it leads to higher physical constraints and work-time intensity. Furthermore, our study highlights the heterogeneity of innovation diffusion effects according to work organization’s practices. Our results suggest that more consideration should be given to the impact of technology diffusion on job quality. The increasing constraints on working conditions from innovation and information and communication technology use call for regulation setting. This article is an original contribution in answering the claims for more in-depth research on the links between employment variation and work transformations due to technological change.

THE JOB QUALITY DIMENSIONS AND EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE DURING COVID-19: A CASE STUDY OF THE SAUDI'S FEMALE EMPLOYEES

The aim of the present study is to examine the impact of job quality dimensions on the employees' performance during Covid-19 situation. Our study is an empirical study. It uses a quantitative survey research design. The data collected by a questionnaire developed by CIPD, 2018 to measure job quality through six main dimensions including the compensation and benefits, work conditions, health and safety, well-being and work-life balance, job design, and job performance. The female that participated in this research is 216 who work at King Faisal University. The primary data collected by a self-developed questionnaire that uses the model of CIPD, 2018 for the job quality dimensions. Our study finds positive correlations between the main dimensions of job quality and employee performance. © 2021, Czestochowa University of Technology. All rights reserved.

Job quality and work engagement in the cruise industry

ABSTRACT This study reviews the working conditions in the emerging cruise industry by using a holistic and systematic approach, as well as the effects on work engagement of two groups of clearly differentiated employees, namely, officers and nonofficer employees. Our sample comprised 353 cruise workers. Regression analysis confirmed the research purposes of this study, that is, seafarers work under poor conditions (especially among nonofficer employees) and that this precarity determines the engagement of both groups. This study contributes to identifying the job quality dimensions that needs an improvement by human resource managers of cruise lines.

Job Quality and Work-Life Balance of Teleworkers.

As telework and mobile work arrangements become more widespread with new advancements in digitalization, these flexible models of work are rapidly expanding to new categories of employees and completely modifying working conditions and job quality. The aim of this study was to assess how particular types of telework affect different dimensions of job quality. We applied multivariable techniques to a sample of 35,765 workers from the Sixth European Working Conditions Survey. Our findings show that gender and types of telework by workplace and ICT-use intensity are crucial factors affecting working conditions and job quality. Occasional teleworkers are the group with the best job quality, while highly mobile teleworkers are those with the worst job quality and work–life balance. Home-based teleworkers, especially women, present better results than highly mobile workers in terms of working time quality and intensity, though in exchange for lower skills and discretion, income, and career prospects. This study contributes to deepening our knowledge on the impacts of flexible arrangements of work, providing an analysis of current data on different dimensions of job quality and work–life balance and including gender as a crucial axis of analysis.