A Study Based on the 4th European Survey of Working Conditions

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DOI: 10.1177/10242589090150031801

2009 15: 527Transfer: European Review of Labour and ResearchAndranik Tangian

Decent work: indexing European working conditions and imposing workplace tax

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* Prof., Dr., Dr., Institute for Economic and Social Sciences (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation, D-40476 Düsseldorf, Germany, and University of Karlsruhe, D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany

E-mail: [email protected]

SummaryThis article indexes working conditions using data from the Fourth European Working Conditions Survey 2005 for three purposes. (1) Benchmarking countries and social groups. This reveals poor qualification and career opportunities, and modest incomes. Atypical workers have less advantageous working conditions than those in permanent full-time jobs. This shows that Europe is still far from creating ‘better jobs’ as advocated in the Lisbon agenda. (2) Analysing the flexicurity concept as proposed by the European Commission. Our study disproves the assertion that European workers are less interested in remaining with the same employer but need more flexibility combined with ‘upward mobility’ and lifelong learning. Moreover, Europe has a shortage of training possibilities and workers demonstrate latent resistance to learning. The basis for the Commission’s promotion of flexicurity would thus seem questionable. (3) Proposal of a workplace tax for bad working conditions. As with ‘green taxes’, the workplace tax would encourage employers to improve working conditions. Indexing individual working conditions with reference to a checklist, as developed in the article, could be a prototype for measuring ‘social pollution’ to determine the amount of workplace tax.

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SommaireCet article répertorie les conditions de travail sur la base des données de la quatrième enquête européenne sur les conditions de travail (2005) selon trois axes. (1) Comparaison des pays et des groupes sociaux. Cette analyse fait apparaître des qualifications et des perspectives de carrière médiocres, de même que des revenus faibles. Les travailleurs atypiques jouissent de conditions de travail moins favorables que les salariés permanents à plein temps. Cela montre que l’Europe est encore loin de créer les “emplois de meilleure qualité” préconisés par l’agenda de Lisbonne. (2) Analyse du concept de flexicurité tel que proposé par la Commission européenne.


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Notre étude réfute l’affirmation selon laquelle les travailleurs européens sont moins désireux de rester auprès d’un même employeur pendant toute leur vie active et ont besoin d’une plus forte flexibilité associée à une “mobilité ascensionnelle” et un apprentissage tout au long de la vie. De plus, l’Europe offre peu de possibilités de formation et les travailleurs affichent une résistance latente à la formation. Le fondement sur lequel s’appuie la promotion de la flexicurité orchestrée par la Commission semblerait donc contestable. (3) Proposition d’une taxe sur le lieu de travail en cas de mauvaises conditions de travail. À l’instar des “taxes vertes”, la taxe sur le lieu de travail aurait pour but d’encourager les employeurs à améliorer les conditions de travail. L’indexation des conditions de travail individuelles en référence à une check-list, comme expliqué dans cet article, pourrait constituer un prototype de la mesure de la “pollution sociale” qui servirait à fixer le montant de la taxe sur le lieu de travail.

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ZusammenfassungIn diesem Beitrag wird auf der Grundlage der Daten der vierten Europäischen Erhebung über Arbeitsbedingungen (2005) eine Reihe von Indizes für Arbeitsbedin-gungen erstellt, die zu dreierlei Zwecken dienen: Erstens wird ein Benchmarking der Länder und sozialen Gruppen vorgenommen. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die Qualifizierungs- und beruflichen Aufstiegsmöglichkeiten gering und die Einkommen bescheiden sind. Für Arbeitnehmer in atypischen Beschäftigungs verhältnissen sind die Arbeitsbedingungen weniger gut als für diejenigen, die eine unbefristete Vollzeitbeschäftigung haben. Dies zeigt, dass Europa noch weit entfernt ist von der Schaffung „besserer Arbeitsplätze“, die von der Lissabon-Agenda unterstützt wird. Zweitens wird das von der Europäischen Kommission vorgeschlagene Flexicurity-Konzept analysiert. Unsere Studie widerlegt die Behauptung, dass die europäischen Arbeitnehmer weniger interessiert seien, bei dem gleichen Arbeitgeber zu bleiben, aber mehr Flexibilität benötigen, die mit einer „Mobilität nach oben“ und lebenslangem Lernen kombiniert werden sollte. Darüber hinaus mangelt es in Europa an Ausbildungsmöglichkeiten, und die Arbeitnehmer sind unterschwellig eher widerwillig, zu lernen. Die Grundlage für die Förderung der Flexicurity, wie sie von der Kommission befürwortet wird, erscheint somit fraglich. Drittens wird eine „Arbeitsplatzsteuer“ für schlechte Arbeitsbedingungen vorgeschlagen. Ebenso wie „grüne Steuern“ würde die Arbeitsplatzsteuer die Arbeitgeber ermutigen, die Arbeitsbedingungen zu verbessern. Die Indexierung individueller Arbeitsbedingungen unter Bezugnahme auf eine Checkliste, wie in diesem Beitrag beschrieben, könnte als Prototyp für die Messung der „sozialen Belastung“ dienen, um den Betrag der Arbeitsplatzsteuer zu bestimmen.

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Keywords: quality of work, workplace tax, European Union, European Working Conditions Survey, composite indicators

Introduction: policy background

‘Decent work and fair wages are a fundamental objective for trade unions in Europe and the key to the European Social Model. Decent work makes a vital contribution to reducing poverty, both in Europe and beyond, and to achieving sustainable development and a just and inclusive society.’

Decent Work, European Trade Union Confederation, 26 November 2007 (ETUC 2007)

Working conditions are a permanent focus of attention of the European Commission, national governments and trade unions. More specifically, they were one of the issues of the European Employment Strategy (EES) launched in Luxembourg in 1997, which was followed by the ILO’s Decent Work programme (1999), and by the EU Lisbon Summit (2000) which called for ‘more and better jobs and greater social cohesion by 2010’. The European Council subsequently emphasised (in 2004) the urgent need to ‘take effective action in creating more and better jobs’, and ‘more and better jobs’ has since become a slogan quoted in almost all EU documents on employment.

The European Trade Union Confederation has supported these initiatives and has specified five basic principles of decent work (ETUC 2007): 1. An end to precarious jobs, which are not only bad for workers but also damage

the labour market and the economy. They undermine working conditions and health and safety, generate poverty wages and damage social cohesion;

2. Better work organisation, to create environments where workers are fully informed and consulted, able to balance the demands of work and home life, and have opportunities for lifelong learning to boost skills and qualifications;

3. Strong employment protection legislation, which, far from being an obstacle to a dynamic labour market, can foster investment in human capital and innovation;

4. Social welfare systems that offer security to the 14 million Europeans who change jobs each year;

5. Social dialogue and collective bargaining, and the full involvement of the social partners in decisions on labour market reform.

Monitoring working conditions through statistics

To monitor the policy, the Laeken European Council in December 2001 adopted a list of job quality indicators recommended in an earlier communication of the European



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Commission (2001). These indicators were then included in Employment Guidelines (European Commission 2002).

The ILO’s Decent Work programme was also intended to be monitored by indicators, and Anker et al. (2003) suggested several statistical variables for that purpose. Five years later this work was revitalised (ILO 2008) and a contract was signed with the Statistical Office of Canada (2008) for further development of the indicators, but no results are as yet available.

The European Working Conditions Surveys (EWCSs) which the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has been conducting every five years since 1990 are the main instruments for monitoring decent work in Europe. These surveys cover numerous aspects of working conditions. Although the surveys avoid evaluating them in ‘worse/better’ terms, in several cases this type of assessment can obviously be deduced from the replies to the questions, such as those on nuisance fac-tors (noise, vibration, etc); but in other cases the results are quite ambiguous. One can learn almost everything about the variability of working hours, for instance, whereas nothing is said about whether time flexibility is desirable or evening work is voluntary, or whether overtime is fairly rewarded.

Since the EU is aiming to create ‘better jobs’ and policy-makers operate with general concepts, it is urgently necessary to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of working conditions in ‘worse/better’ terms. The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions already emphasised the need for synthetic indices for working conditions in a report back in 1997 (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 1997), in which a heuristic approach to constructing synthetic indices was mentioned, although no mathematical model or specific examples were given.

The European Commission and the ILO have not as yet classified countries or branches of industry in terms of the general quality of work or of any partial composite factor such as working time, physical strain, or social climate. It is therefore difficult to judge which countries offer better working conditions or which social groups are privileged. If a young European is wondering in which country s/he would like to work, the surveys will be of little help. Even an expert can have difficulty finding the countries with the most favourable or most disadvantageous working conditions.

Approaches to indexing working conditions

When we speak of indexing working conditions we are referring to an overall evalua-tion, as opposed to a specific evaluation of statistics such as earnings or the number of accidents at the workplace in a given year. The Laeken indicators or the indicators



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listed by ILO (2008) are examples of comprehensive lists of such statistics and the EWCS reports provide an even more elaborate array of partial indicators; we believe these indicators should be aggregated in one composite indicator with a view to index-ing working conditions.

As regards the aggregation procedure, we make a distinction between micro and macro approaches. With the micro approach, working conditions are evaluated for each indi-vidual, and the national figures are then derived from the individual records; with the macro approach, the national totals are derived from the partial national indicators.

The advantage of the micro approach is flexibility of analysis. The micro data make it possible, inter alia, to trace correlations between certain partial indicators of working conditions, to study how they are interrelated within countries, etc. This approach requires special surveys, however; what is more, access to individual records can be restricted by their anonymity, as is the case with the Eurostat Labour Force Surveys. The European Working Conditions Surveys, on the other hand, make source data available.

The advantage of the macro approach is easy data processing and easy access to national statistics, which are generally available. This approach is not restricted to a single data source; figures from several data sources can be aggregated into one indicator. Moreover, with the macro approach indicators obtained through the micro approach can also be integrated. The disadvantage of the macro approach is that it is impossible to analyse statistical correlations between partial indicators other than at the country level (there are too few countries and they are too different to con-struct rigorously a statistical model). Benchmarking is thus the only application of the macro approach.

Indexing working conditions using the micro approach

The term precariousness as used in this article is defined as an aspect of work with three dimensions of precariousness: of income (insufficient income), of employment stability (low employment stability) and of employability (low employability).

Having first indexed working conditions in 15 European countries with composite indi-cators derived from the 3rd EWCS 2000 (Tangian 2004, 2007a), the Hans Böckler Foundation (HBS) then published reports indexing the precariousness of work in 31 European counties using figures from the EWCS 2005 (Tangian 2007b; Seifert and Tangian 2008) and proposing a tentative policy analysis. The indicators made it possible to establish a statistically significant correlation between flexibility and precariousness of work as well as a negative impact of flexibilisation on employability, thus calling in question the implementation of flexicurity policy in the form advocated by the European Commission.



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The German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) presented the German composite indicator Gute Arbeit (Good Work) in September 2007 and updated it in 2008. It was based on a dedicated survey in which some 6 000 persons were interviewed (DGB-Index Gute Arbeit 2007/2008). The first major finding was a surprisingly mediocre evaluation of German working conditions with only 58 points out of 100.

By the end of 2007 the Hans Böckler Foundation had published a report on a compos-ite decent work indicator for 31 European countries based on the 4th EWCS 2005 (Tangian 2007c; see also Tangian 2008).

Indexing working conditions using the macro approach

Leschke and Watt (2008) and Leschke et al. (2008) constructed a synthetic indicator for Europe in 2008 based on the macro approach. Despite the fact that a different meth-odology was used, this work resulted in country benchmarking similar to that obtained by the author using the micro approach (Tangian 2007b and c, 2008a and b).

The European Commission (2008, ch. 4) recently finally indexed the quality of work on the basis of the Laeken job quality indicators. It will be recalled that the Laeken indica-tors are national statistics with which specific aspects of working conditions in European countries are traced over the last decade. Aggregate indices of job quality are con-structed by quite a formal procedure, which is closely linked to the status quo instead of reflecting policy targets (improving job quality).1 Moreover, the authors of the report acknowledge that the data are not sufficiently exhaustive to draw far-reaching conclu-sions and restrict themselves to rather self-evident observations such as high wages and high work intensity in the north of Europe, the UK and the Netherlands, unfavourable working conditions in the new Member States or a wide gender employment gap in the south of Europe.

There are several other composite indicators of working conditions such as those used by the OECD (2008: ch. 4) or Smith et al. (2008). The OECD indicator focuses on causes of mental problems and is therefore based on a limited number of specific vari-ables. The other indicator cited is also restricted to only three dimensions of working conditions. The conclusion reached is that working conditions depend more on gender and branch of industry than on country.

1 The aggregation is based on a prime component analysis, that is to say, the dimensionality of the phe-nomenon is artificially reduced. For this purpose, two or three new indicators – weighted sums of varia-bles – are used with which a good approximation can be obtained of where countries/social groups stand in the policy area. The resulting weightings are used to construct aggregate indices. It is questionable, however, whether these data-driven indicators really reflect policy targets of improving job quality.



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Three purposes of the article

This article attempts to index working conditions on the basis of the Fourth European Working Conditions Survey 2005 (EWCS 2005). The survey covers 31 countries – EU-27, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia and Turkey. Only employees are considered: trainees, the self-employed, and the unemployed are excluded from the model. The number of persons selected was reduced from a total of 29 860 to 23 788. Two known methodologies, which differ in the scaling of variables, are applied in order to construct the indices of working conditions. One is attributed to the Hans Böckler Foundation (see Tangian 2004, 2007a). The second is attributed to the OECD (2005/2008). The structure of the composite indicator for quality of work proposed is the same as that of the DGB’s Gute-Arbeit index (DGB 2007/2008). In a sense, our study extends the German indicator to European data. The questions (variables) for constructing the indices as well as further technical details are provided in the Annex.

The access to individual data under the micro approach enables advanced applications. This article has three objectives. The first is to evaluate and benchmark countries and different social groups for policy monitoring purposes. The results are not very encour-aging and show that Europe is still far from creating ‘better jobs’ as demanded in the Agenda 2010.

The second objective is to conduct an empirical analysis of the flexicurity concept as outlined in the European Commission’s Communication entitled Towards common principles of flexicurity (European Commission 2007). It will be recalled that the European Commission puts forward employability as the keystone of the European Employment Strategy. As the Commission emphasises (European Commission 2006: 78): ‘The main thrust of the EU recommendation on flexicurity is to encourage a shift … towards employment security … In particular, investing in human capital is vital both to improve the long-term employment prospects and the employment secu-rity of the individual, and also to enhance the competitiveness and adaptability of the labour force.’ In turn, employment security means ‘providing people with the training they need to keep their skills up to date and to develop their talent’ (European Commission 2007: 11). European policy-makers thus hope to improve employability through lifelong learning, in particular, by company-based training, which in turn will improve labour force mobility and bring stable employment and broad opportunities for moving into better jobs. The consistency of the new flexicurity concept is thus contingent on the wide availability of occupational training options and the readiness of Europeans to learn.

Empirical results contradict the claim made by the Commission that European employees are less interested in remaining with the same employer but need more flexibility combined with ‘upward mobility’ and lifelong learning (European Commission 2007: 8). From the point of view of employees, the results show that job



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stability is the most important of the 15 aspects of working conditions, whereas income comes far behind in 6th place. That is to say, Europeans unambiguously prefer ‘secure jobs’ to ‘better jobs’. And finally, the working conditions of the flexibly employed are less favourable than those of the normally employed. In other words, flexible jobs are by no means ‘better jobs’. As for lifelong learning, we provide evi-dence that Europe is suffering from a shortage of training opportunities and, on the other hand, that employees demonstrate latent resistance to learning. All of these factors definitively disprove the belief that the flexibilisation of labour relations can be compensated by high employability based on learning. A policy strategy based on measures so obviously contrary to the real wishes of working people can hardly be expected to be effective.

An alternative conception of flexicurity should therefore be developed. In addition to flexinsurance (Tangian 2007d) – progressive employer contributions to social security proportionate to the flexibility of the contract – this article proposes that employers be motivated to equalise the working conditions of workers in normal and atypical employment through a workplace tax imposed on bad working conditions. Bad working conditions are regarded as a form of ‘social pollution’, so that ‘the working environ-ment’ should be protected by the workplace tax just as the natural environment is protected by the green tax. This is the third objective of the present article – to suggest that a workplace tax be imposed as a policy instrument. Indexing individual working conditions with questions from a specific checklist, as developed in the article, can be regarded as a prototype for measuring ‘social pollution’ with a view to determining the level of tax to be levied.

Working conditions by country

Table 1 shows the composition of the working conditions indicator constructed using the HBS method, with which the situation can be evaluated in ‘absolute’ terms (see the technical report by Tangian (2007c) for the indicators constructed using the OECD methodology). Each country is rated on the basis of 15 partial indices for 15 aspects of working conditions, as well as with the overall index shown at the extreme right of each row. The latter is used to class the countries from top to bottom.

In order to visualise the ‘relief’ of the table, the elements are marked in grey scale: high levels are pale and low levels are dark. The ‘bad/good’ interpretation of the index values is taken from the DGB’s Gute-Arbeit indicator: values below 50 are ‘bad’, those above 80 are ‘good’, and the DGB 50-80 single medium range is split into three levels, ‘inferior’ (50-60), ‘medium’ (60-70), and ‘superior’ (70-80). The aggre-gate indices range from 51 (almost bad) for Turkey to 67 (medium) in Switzerland. Germany is evaluated as the European average with 61 points, which is close to 58 in the DGB indicator.



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Table 1: Indicator of working conditions by country

Source: Author’s computations derived from the 4th European Working Conditions Survey (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 2007a).



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Positive trends

The aspect of working conditions with the highest rating is ‘Meaningfulness of work’ (81 points in the EUROPE-31 row). The corresponding 9th column in Table 1 is pale, meaning either good or superior evaluation in all of the countries.

The aspect with the second highest rating is ‘Collegiality’ (73 points in the EUROPE-31 row). The corresponding 8th column of Table 1 is grey, meaning medium, superior, or good evaluation. The only exception is Turkey with 57 points (inferior level). The fact that this aspect is so highly rated can be explained by European social traditions and developed solidarity.

Next in line come ‘Work intensity/stress’ and ‘Physical strain’ (70 and 68 points in the EUROPE-31 row), which are given a superior or medium rating throughout Europe, except for Greece with 55 points for physical strain. This reflects a minor amount of overtime, good technical equipment of jobs, and moderate physical strain.

Despite the ongoing deregulation of labour markets, the ‘Job stability and job security’ aspect (14th column) obtains a rating of 66 points in the EUROPE-31 row. As one can see, the highest job stability is to be found in northern countries. This may seem surpris-ing, since countries such as Denmark are known for weak employment protection. This contradiction indicates that institutional flexibility does not necessarily imply job inse-curity in actual practice. In other words, the ease of hiring and firing is not practised to as great an extent as one might imagine.

The fact that job stability is highest in countries with relaxed employment protection legisla-tion can be explained by strong trade unions.2 Indeed, Denmark, Sweden and Finland (80, 76 and 74 points for job stability) had the highest trade union density in Europe in 2004 with 80, 77, and 71% respectively (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 2007b: 6). Similarly, job stability is high in Cyprus and Malta (71 and 70 points), where the applicability of employment protection is limited (according to EWCS 2005, 42% and 40% of employees in Cyprus and Malta have no contract). At the same time, trade union density in these two countries is as high as 70% and 63% respectively (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 2007b: 6).

On the other hand, Greece, where the legislative framework for employment protec-tion is one of the strongest in the OECD countries (OECD 2004: 117) is evaluated as having inferior job stability (55 points). Trade union density in Greece is as low as 20% (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 2007b: 6), which is in line with the hypothesis that job stability is influenced by trade unions rather than by institutional employment protection norms.

2 This trend is not exemplified by the UK, however, where job stability is high − 76 points − but trade union density is only 26% (European Foundation 2007b: 6).



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Job stability is thus correlated with trade union density rather than with the strictness of employment protection. Employment is regulated by both formal and informal com-ponents – legislation and social traditions, and the latter can be decisive.

Finally, the ‘Quality of management/leadership’ and ‘Creativity’ aspects with 70 and 64 points respectively (EUROPE-31 row) also explain the high reputation of European product quality and occupational skills worldwide. Europe has good prospects for becoming a knowledge-based economy.

Negative trends

The aspect of working conditions with the lowest rating is ‘Qualification and develop-ment possibilities’ (33 points in the EUROPE-31 row). The corresponding first column of Table 1 is dark, meaning that the situation is bad in all countries. This is a serious warning for the European Employment Strategy, which presumes that employment security can be based on lifelong learning.

The ‘Career opportunities’ aspect of working conditions is the aspect with the second low-est rating (49 points in the EUROPE-31 row). The corresponding third column of Table 1 contains bad or inferior evaluations except for Denmark, which, however, only obtains 61 points (lowest medium level). This indicates poor occupational prospects across Europe.

The ‘Communication and transparency’ aspect hardly exceeds the ‘bad’ threshold (51 points in the EUROPE-31 row). ‘Possibilities for influence’ are also qualified as inferior (56 points in the EUROPE-31 row). Correspondingly, the colour black prevails in the 4th and 5th columns, which indicates that the role played by workers in corporate management is inadequate. In particular, the efficiency of the German co-determina-tion model appears to be low, since these aspects of working conditions in Germany are evaluated with 51 and 46 points respectively.

A further critical aspect is ‘Emotional strain’ (52 points in the EUROPE-31 row). In the corresponding 13th column, 10 of the 31 countries are given a rating of below 50, and another 20 countries below 60 points. Only Hungary with its 62 points attains the low-medium level. This indicates that the emotional working environment should be improved urgently. The critical situation regarding emotional strain can be explained (in part) by a rather low ‘Industrial culture’ (54 points in the EUROPE-31 row). ‘Industrial culture’ in fact deals, inter alia, with various forms of assistance. Emotional strain can thus be aggravated by insufficient help in executing current tasks. It should be noted that emotional strain is high in the countries with the best working conditions such as Denmark, Sweden and Norway, whereas many countries with working condi-tions below the European average have a better emotional environment (Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, and Turkey).



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The situation is not much better when it comes to ‘Time arrangements’ (55 points in the EUROPE-31 row). The corresponding 10th column is almost exclusively dark grey, indicating an inferior rating for all countries except Malta. This aspect reflects the degree to which working time can be adapted to personal wishes. The indices show that the current flexible organisation of working time is to the advantage of employers rather than employees, a fact which calls in question the declared recipro-cal advantages.

Finally the evaluation of the ‘Income’ aspect also remains within the inferior range (55 points in the EUROPE-31 row). The corresponding 15th column contains eight countries with a bad and 15 countries with an inferior income rating. Only Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, and Spain attain the medium level.

All of these factors, together with the low range of aggregate indices (at the extreme right of the rows in the table) show how much remains to be done for the ‘better jobs’ referred to in the European Agenda 2010.

Working conditions by industry, gender and type of contract Table 2 shows the indices of working conditions by industry (simplified NACE clas-sification). The financial sector has by far the best working conditions of the indus-tries, especially as regards qualification possibilities, career opportunities, possibili-ties for influence, managerial abilities, physical strain, and income. This group leaves the next best group of business people far behind. On the other hand, the hotel and catering trade is the branch of industry with the least advantageous conditions: all aspects of working conditions are significantly below average, the most critical being qualification possibilities, career opportunities, emotional strain, and time arrange-ments amongst all of the groups considered. Income ranks second worst in this industry and worst in agriculture.

The indices of working conditions by gender are set out in Table 3. Working condi-tions for men are better than those for women in 9 of the 15 aspects: qualification possibilities, creativity, career opportunities, possibilities for influence, communi-cation and transparency, industrial culture, collegiality, emotional strain, and income. Women enjoy the following better aspects: quality of management, mean-ingfulness of work, time arrangements, work intensity/stress, physical strain and job stability.



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Table 2: Indicator of working conditions by industry (simplified NACE classification)


Table 3: Indicator of working conditions by gender

Source: Author’s computations derived from the 4th European Working Conditions Survey (European Foundation 2007).



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Table 4 shows the indices of working conditions by types of contract. Those with per-manent contracts have the best conditions, and the others have inferior working condi-tions, which are even worse than the European average. This shows that the Commission’s theory of ‘more and better jobs through flexibility and security’ is not confirmed by realities. The increase in atypical forms of work has not improved work-ing conditions; in fact, the opposite is the case.

Table 4: Indicator of working conditions by type of contract


Impact of different aspects of working conditions on job satisfaction So far we have evaluated working conditions more or less ‘objectively’, that is to say, on the basis of certain facts. For instance, the level of ‘Qualification and development pos-sibilities’ has been measured by the number of days in training paid by the employer, educational leave, etc (see Annex for the full list of questions). Now we turn to another analysis method. The EWCS 2005 has a question on general satisfaction with working conditions (q36), which reveals the impact of the 15 aspects of working conditions on job satisfaction; this is done by means of stepwise regression.

Table 5 (below) displays the rankings of the various aspects of working conditions within each country. As in the previous tables, the ‘relief’ is shown by grey scale: the aspects with high rankings are pale, and the aspects with a negative impact on job satisfaction are in black. Non-significant aspects of working conditions are shown in dark grey.



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Table 5: Ranking of aspects of working conditions for general satisfaction within countries (Insignificant aspects are not ranked)

Source: Author’s computations derived from the 4th European Working Conditions Survey (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 2007a)



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The ‘Job stability’ aspect has the highest ranking in the EUROPE-31 row and ranks high in all European countries. Compared with Table 1, some countries with high job stability (countries in the north such as Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway as well as former socialist countries and Malta) seem to be less preoccupied with this aspect than the countries with low job stability. This may be a manifestation of common indif-ference to what one already has.

The next most important aspects of working conditions for general satisfaction are ‘Physical strain’ and ‘Career opportunities’, ranking 2nd and 3rd in the EUROPE-31 row. However, their role varies from one country to another. In Germany, for example, they come 4th and 6th, after ‘Collegiality’ and ‘Meaningfulness of work’. Physical strain also obtains a moderate ranking in countries with low physical strain such as Ireland, the United Kingdom, Norway or Switzerland (see Table 1); workers in these countries are more concerned about career opportunities.

The ‘Collegiality’ aspect ranks 4th, indicating that relations between colleagues is one of the most important aspects of working conditions.

The ‘Income’ aspect comes only 6th in the EUROPE-31 row. It does not come 1st in any country, and ranks 2nd and 3rd only in Turkey and Malta. The impact of income on general satisfaction with working conditions seems to be of secondary impor-tance. Furthermore, satisfaction with working conditions does not depend signifi-cantly on income in 10 of the 31 countries, although many Europeans find their income insufficient.

These findings are in line with the Canadian survey by Lowe and Schellenberg (2001) entitled What’s a Good Job?, which revealed that the most important factors for job satisfaction are social factors, and in particular relations with colleagues (see also Lowe 2003). Similar findings are reported by Clark (2004) who, after studying the replies of 14 000 workers from the OECD countries, concluded that wages are amongst the least important factors in job satisfaction; see also DGB (2007 Report: 23); Kallenberg (1977); Warr (1999); Gardner and Oswald (2001); D’Addio et al. (2003); Kirn (2005).

The ‘Quality of management’ and ‘Qualification and development possibilities’ aspects marked by black in the EUROPE-31 row in Table 5 have a negative impact on general satisfaction with working conditions throughout Europe (often non-significant, how-ever, as in Germany). ‘Creativity’ is also perceived more as a disadvantage, and ‘Possibilities for influence’ rank quite low. It looks as though Europeans are stressed by the fact that they are being monitored by management, learning and the need to show initiative. This can be explained by intellectual laziness on the part of some workers. Another cause can be the uncomfortable feeling that one’s skills are inadequate and that this is a risk for job stability.



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Compare these observations with the statements made by the European Commission (European Commission 2007: 8) ‘88% of citizens said that regular training improves one’s job opportunities’ and the DGB (2007 Report: 24) ‘for 70% of employees good qualification and development possibilities are highly or very important’ (ranked how-ever 6th of 10 items). In both cases the questions were direct and linked to career pros-pects, obviously prompting an answer in the affirmative (it is even surprising that some people replied in the negative). In our study the attitude to learning is revealed indi-rectly and unconditionally. We conclude that there is a drastic difference between the rational and the unconscious attitude to learning.

The above finding is important, because latent resistance to learning can be the cause of its limited effect, and, consequently, of low employer motivation to invest in training, resulting in poor training possibilities (Table 1). In a sense, there is a vicious circle here: little will to learn – little effect of learning – low employer motivation to invest in unpopular measures/measures that have little effect – insufficient learning facilities. All of these factors should be taken into account when new employment policies are being designed.

Conclusions

Dedicated composite indicators of decent work have been constructed for 31 European countries. Partial indices reflect 15 aspects of working conditions as in the recently published Gute-Arbeit index of the German DGB.

Indicators are generally necessary for monitoring development progress and reveal-ing bottlenecks, and they also serve as instruments for taxation and insurance. Besides benchmarking countries, our study suggests some evidence of significant disparities in working conditions amongst European countries and social groups, which, according to the current European policies and efforts of trade unions, should be urgently reduced.

Several specific findings are relevant to the current European Employment Strategy, and in particular to the concept of flexicurity. The study reveals, inter alia, (1) acute shortage of learning options and (2) disadvantages of persons in flexible employment, whose working conditions are not only less favourable than those of persons in perma-nent employment, but are also below the European average. Moreover, the indicator of job satisfaction seen as a function of the 15 aspects of working conditions shows that (3) learning has a negative impact on job satisfaction and (4) job stability ranks highest for job satisfaction, rather than income, which ranks only 6th.

What does this all mean with regard to the Commission’s employment policy? The Commission’s slogan More and better jobs through flexibility and security seems hardly



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applicable to current realities, because at the present time flexible jobs are much worse than permanent ones. The Commission’s claim that ‘individuals increasingly need employment security rather than job security’, and ‘more upward mobility’ (Common Principles: 8) does not hold either. Empirical evidence shows that job stability is rated much higher than income and ‘upward mobility’ (career opportunities). In other words, ‘secure jobs’ are definitely preferred to ‘better jobs’. The Commission’s major emphasis on employability backed up with lifelong learning seems difficult to enact in such a scenario. Our study shows that European countries do not dispose of sufficient learning facilities, nor do Europeans put much effort into learning.3

All of these factors show that the shift from job security to employment security backed up by lifelong learning cannot be implemented consistently. A policy based on poor preconditions and unpopular measures can hardly be successful. An alternative means of implementing flexicurity is thus required, in which empirical feedback is taken into account to a greater extent, more emphasis is laid on job security and job quality, and policy instruments are specifically designed. Possible instruments could include, inter alia, flexinsurance together with workplace tax.

Flexinsurance is based on the principle that the employer’s contribution to social secu-rity should be proportionate to the flexibility of the contract (Tangian 2007d). Progressive charges to constrain dismissals are already used in the US unemployment insurance scheme based on experience rating (Graser 2002). Experience rating reflects the fre-quency of dismissals in the enterprise, which determines the employer’s contributions to unemployment insurance: the more frequent the dismissals, the higher the contribu-tions. It is similar to motor vehicle insurance, where the price is influenced by the fre-quency of accidents. The US practice has two important assets: (1) it operates on the financially fair basis of risk compensation, and (2) it constrains the general freedom of employers to dismiss. The shortcoming of the US experience rating is that the risk of becoming unemployed is linked to dismissals only, and pays no regard to the duration or other particularities of the employment contract.

Flexinsurance has several advantages over the experience rating. The first is financial fairness: the higher risk of being made redundant that is faced by workers in atypical employment is compensated, depending on the particular contract (but not on the firm’s general practice), and contributions to social security correspond to the expectation of unemployment benefits. Secondly, employment flexibility is reasonably moderated: social security contributions which depend on the type of contract affect employers’ labour costs. Flexinsurance thus motivates employers to offer more favourable condi-tions when hiring employees but does not rigidly restrict labour market flexibility. And finally, flexinsurance has a legislative advantage: it is a flexible instrument for ‘regulating labour market deregulation’. Adjusting employers’ contributions does not require new

3 For more critical comments on the Commission’s documents see Tangian (2008b).



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legislation but can be done simply through administrative decisions. It is similar to the regular adjustment of statutory health insurance contributions.

The workplace tax is designed to be imposed on employers who offer bad working conditions. Similar to the green tax in the environmental protection field, which encourages enterprises to take the natural environment into consideration, the work-place tax is intended to encourage enterprises to consider the working environment. Indexing working conditions can be regarded as measuring ‘social pollution’ and used to determine the amount of tax to be levied. Workplaces should be inspected regularly and indexed. A fraction of the tax could be forwarded to the employee as a bonus for bad working conditions, but this should not be done directly by employer, since the bonus would otherwise be regarded as a part of wages; furthermore, the situation should remain under statutory control. The workplace tax is particularly suitable in the case of workers in atypical employment, who, as has been shown, have less favourable working conditions. If ‘more and better jobs’ are to be attained ‘through flexibility’ then the quality of those jobs should be monitored and safeguarded.

Working tax can be complemented with a ‘positive’ measure in the form of tax reduc-tions for very good working conditions. It should be noted that good working conditions are a prerequisite for high production quality, and firms with good working conditions have a competitive advantage, which is an important issue on the Lisbon agenda. Investing in quality of work should therefore pay back, and the workplace tax and/or workplace tax bonus should be understood as an incentive policy instrument rather than an additional financial burden that increases production costs.

The French precariousness premium at the end of a temporary contract in the private sector (Service Public 2008) can be regarded as a prototype of the workplace tax. Its amount – 10% of total earnings throughout the duration of the contract – in certain cases makes temporary contracts more attractive for employees than permanent contracts.

The above instruments have a further important aspect – that of social justice. It is not socially just to provide advantages from flexibilisation only for employers, especially in a context of growing inequality. In fact, every step towards a higher level of labour flex-ibility is in the interests of employers. The business world gets rid of restrictions, man-agers improve performance by rotating and squeezing personnel, and firms gain higher profits. All expenses are covered by the state – costly reforms and additional social security expenditure. This type of flexibilisation scenario thus turns out to be a long-term indirect government subsidy/gift to firms.

Since the state budget originates from taxpayers, employees contribute considerably to this subsidy/gift through the sophisticated money loop supported by legislation, social security and taxation systems.



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Flexinsurance and workplace tax are thus also measures of social justice: employers get no one-sided advantages free of charge. The importance of workers’ feelings is also emphasised in Common Principles (p. 14): ‘Active labour market policies, too, have a positive effect on the feeling of security among workers’.

The policy instruments mentioned need quantitative indicators in order to determine insurance risks and job quality. The indices developed can be regarded as prototypes for evaluating jobs and determining insurance and taxation rates.

References

Anker, R., I. Chernyshev, Ph. Egger, F. Mehran, and J. A. Ritter (2003) ‘Measuring decent work with statistical indicators’, International Labour Review, 142 (2), 147-177.

Clark, A. (2004) ‘What makes a good job? Evidence from OECD countries’, Working Paper 2004-28, Paris: Delta. http://ideas.repec.org/p/del/abcdef/2004-28.html

Council of the European Union (2003) The employment policy guidelines (2003-2005). D’Addio, A. Ch., T. Eriksson and P. Frijters (2003) An analysis of the determinants of job

satisfaction when individuals’ baseline satisfaction levels may differ, Centre for Applied Microeconometrics Working Paper 2003-16, University of Copenhagen. http://www.econ.ku.dk/CAM/Files/workingpapers/2003/2003-16.pdf

DGB (2007/2008) DGB-Index Gute Arbeit. Der Report, Berlin: DGB. http://www.dgb-index-gute-arbeit.de

ETUC (2007) Decent Work. http://www.etuc.org/a/4311European Commission (2001) Communication from the Commission to the Council,

the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Employment and social policies: a framework for investing in quality. Brussels, COM(2001)313 final, 20 June 2001, Brussels.

European Commission (2002) Council Decision of 18 February 2002 on guidelines for member states’ employment policies for the year 2002, OJ L 060, 1.3.2002.

European Commission (2003) Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Improving quality in work: a review of recent progress, COM(2003) 728 final, 26 November 2003, Brussels.

European Commission (2006) Employment in Europe 2006, Luxembourg: European Communities.

European Commission (2007) Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Towards common principles of flexicurity: more and better jobs through flexibility and security, COM(2007)359 final, 27 June 2007, Brussels.

European Commission (2008) Employment in Europe 2008, Luxembourg: European Communities.



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European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (1997) 3rd Indicators of Working Conditions in the European Union, by S. Dhondt, I. Houtman and N. Tno, Dublin.

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (2007a) 4th European Working Conditions Survey, Dublin.

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (2007b) Industrial relations in EU member states 2000-2004, Dublin.

Gardner, J. and A. Oswald (2001) ‘Does money buy happiness? A longitudinal study using data of windfalls’, Coventry: Warwick University. Paper provided by the Royal Economic Society in its Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2002 series, No 81. http://repec.org/res2002/Gardner.pdf

Graser, A. (2002) ‘Sozialrechtlicher Kündigungsschutz’, Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik (ZRP), Sept. 2002, 391-393.

ILO (1999) Report of the Director-General: Decent Work, Geneva: International Labour Organisation.

ILO (2008) ‘Measurement of decent work’, Discussion paper for the Tripartite Meeting of Experts on the Measurement of Decent Work.

Kallenberg, A.L. (1977) ‘Work values and job rewards: A theory of job satisfaction’, American Sociological Review, 42, 124-143.

Kirn, W. (2005) ‘It’s a glad, sad, mad world’, Time, 7 February, 50-51.Leschke, J. and A. Watt (2008) ‘Job quality in Europe’, WP 2008/07, Brussels: ETUI-REHS. Leschke, J., A. Watt and M. Finn (2008) ‘Putting a number on job quality? Constructing

a European job quality index’, WP 2008/03, Brussels: ETUI-REHS. Lowe, G. (2003) ‘The case for investing in high quality work’, Paper presented at the

European Commission’s Mid-Term Review of the Social Policy Agenda: Achievements and Perspectives, March 2003, Brussels.

Lowe, G. and G. Schellenberg (2001) What’s a good job? The importance of employment relationships, Canadian Policy Research Network, Ottawa: Renouf Publishing Company. http://www.cprn.com/en/doc.cfm?doc=50

OECD (2004) Employment Outlook, Paris: OECD. OECD (2008) Employment Outlook, Paris: OECD. OECD-JRC (2005 internet / 2008 extended book) Handbook on constructing composite

indicators: methodology and user guide, Paris: OECD. http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2005doc.nsf/LinkTo/std-doc(2005)3

Seifert, H. and A. Tangian (2007) ‘Reconciling social security with flexibility – empirical findings for Europe’, Discussion Paper 154, Düsseldorf: Hans Böckler Foundation.

Seifert, H. and A. Tangian (2008) ‘Flexicurity: between theory and empirical evidence’, in F. Hendrix (ed.) Flexicurity and the Lisbon Agenda, Antwerp-Oxford: Intersentia, 105-122.

Service-Public (2008) Indemnité de précarité d’emploi. http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/F2314.xhtml



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Smith, M., B. Burchell, C. Fagan and C. O'Brien (2008) ‘Job quality in Europe’, Industrial Relations Journal, 39 (6), 586-603.

Statistical Office of Canada (2008) Project on the decent work indicator commissioned by the ILO and directed by Geoff Bowlby, Labour Statistics Division.

Tangian A. (2004) ‘Constructing the composite indicator “Quality of work” from the third European survey on working conditions’, WSI Discussion Paper 132, Düsseldorf: Hans Böckler Foundation.

Tangian, A. (2007a) ‘Analysis of the third European survey on working conditions with composite indicators’, European Journal of Operational Research, 1 (181), 468-499.

Tangian, A. (2007b) ‘Is flexible work precarious? A study based on the 4th European Survey of Working Conditions 2005’, Discussion Paper 153, Düsseldorf: Hans Böckler Foundation.

Tangian, A. (2007c) ‘Is work in Europe decent? A study based on the 4th European survey of working conditions 2005’, Discussion Paper 157, Düsseldorf: Hans Böckler Foundation.

Tangian, A. (2007d) ‘European flexicurity: concepts, methodology and policies’, Transfer, 13 (4), 551-573.

Tangian, A. (2008a) ‘Is Europe ready for flexicurity? Empirical evidence, critical remarks and a reform proposal’, Intereconomics, 43 (2), 99-111. Revised version: http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_wsi_diskp_160_e.pdf

Tangian, A. (2008b) ‘Towards consistent principles of flexicurity’, International Employment Relations Review, 14 (1), 14-38. First version: http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_wsi_diskp_159_e.pdf

Warr, P. (1999) ‘Well-being and the workplace’, in D. Kahneman, E. Diener and N. Schwarz (eds.) Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 392-412.

Annex: List of variables and technical details

The data structure for the study can be imagined as shown in Table 6. The answers of 23 788 individuals constitute the rows of the table numbered from 1 to 23 788. The columns, regarded as variables, contain coded answers of individuals to 126 selected survey questions that are relevant for defining job quality. The questions are set out as in the survey with question labels such as q28a and are grouped into one section with classifying variables (country, industry branch, sex, etc) and 15 sections reflect-ing 15 aspects of working conditions.



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Table 6: Data structure for constructing the indicator of working conditions from the EWCS 2005; question marks ‘?’ show the aggregation of composite indicators

Classifiers. This section consists of the questions which are not used for constructing the indices but are necessary for classifying individuals by country, branch of industry, gender, etc for comparative analysis of countries and social groups. • Country (variable countcode of the data set): BE–Belgium, CZ–Czech Republic,

DK–Denmark, DE–Germany, etc. • Industry by a simplified NACE classification into 11 branches (variable nace11 of

the data set): A+B–Agriculture, hunting, forestry, and fishing, C+D–Mining and manufacturing, E–Electricity, gas and water supply, F–Construction, etc.

• Sex of the respondent (question hh2a): M–Men, W–Woman • Type of contract (question q3b): P–Permanently employed, F–employed for a

Fixed term, T–Temporary employment agency workers, N–Work with no contract

The following columns of the table contain answers to 125 questions of the EWCS 2005. The questions are arranged hierarchically, according to the structure of the DGB’s Gute-Arbeit indicator. The variables of the survey are used to successively obtain indices of working conditions in three aggregation steps:

1. First-level aggregate indices numbered 1-15 shown in the list below by italics. They are based on EWCS 2005 questions, sometimes grouped into subtopics (a), (b), ... which cover 29 of the 31 items of the DGB’s Gute-Arbeit indicator (two subtopics are not reflected in the EWCS 2005: self-planning of overtime, and expected sufficient pension). On the other hand, our indicator includes topics on health and safety at work that are not reflected by the DGB indicator.

2. Second-level aggregate indices labelled A, B, C shown in bold. 3. Third-level aggregate index of working conditions.



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Furthermore, the survey question q36 General satisfaction with working conditions is used as another top-level indicator of working conditions to reveal which ‘objective’ factors are decisive for general ‘subjective’ satisfaction with working conditions.

We continue the list of variables included in the model.

A. Resources (professional aspects): 1. Qualification and development possibilities a) Training opportunities • Training paid for or provided by your employer during the past 12 months, in

number of days (q28a) • On-the-job training (co-workers, supervisors) during the past 12 months, Y/N

(q28c) • Other forms of on-site training and learning (e.g. self-learning, on-line tutori-

als etc) during the past 12 months, Y/N (q28d) • Educational leave over the past 12 months, Y/N (q34ab) b) Training requiring working conditions • Complex tasks, Y/N (q23e) • Learning new things at work, Y/N (q23f) • Need for different skills (in rotating tasks), Y/N (q26a1) • Need for further training, in 3 grades (q27) 2. Creativity (possibilities for developing own ideas) • Non-repetitive tasks, Y/N (q20aa-ab) • Solving unforeseen problems by oneself, Y/N (q23c) • Non-monotonous tasks, Y/N (q23d) • Ability to apply own ideas, in 5 grades (q25j) • Intellectually demanding work, in 5 grades (l) 3. Career opportunities (in the enterprise) • Career prospects, in 5 grades (q37c) • Opportunities to learn and grow at work, in 5 grades (q37e) 4. Possibilities for influence and initiative a) Own planning and arranging work b) Choosing the order of tasks, Y/N (q24a) • Choosing the method of work, Y/N (q24b) • Influence over the choice of working partners, in 5 grades (q25d) • The opportunity to do what one does best, in 5 grades (q25h) • Influence on the division of rotating tasks, Y/N (q26a2) • Division of tasks by the members of the team, Y/N (q26b1-q26b1a) • Selection of the team leader by the team, Y/N (q26b1b) c) Influence on the amount/quality of work • Assessing the quality of own work, Y/N (q23b) • Ability to change the speed or rate of work, Y/N (q24c)



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d) Influence on working time arrangements • Number of working hours per week: as one wishes or not as one wishes (deriv-

ative of q15a and q15b) • Working time arrangements: set by the company, choice of several options,

reasonable adaptability to individual wishes, or full adaptability (q17a) • Ability to take breaks as one chooses, in 5 grades (q25e) • Ability to take holidays as one chooses, in 5 grades (q25g) 5. Communication and transparency a) Availability of necessary information • Information about health and safety risks, in 4 grades (q12) • Consultations about changes in work organisation/working conditions during

the past 12 months, Y/N (q30b) • Discussions about work-related problems with an employee representative dur-

ing the past 12 months, Y/N (q30e) b) Clear formulation of tasks and requirements • Numerical production targets or performance targets, Y/N (q21c) • Meeting precise quality standards, Y/N (q23a) • Regular formal assessment of work performance during the past 12 months,

Y/N (q30c) • Payments based on the overall performance of the company based on a prede-

fined formula, Y/N (ef6g_1) • Payments based on the overall performance of the group/team based on a pre-

defined formula, Y/N (ef6h_1) 6. Quality of management/leadership a) Appreciation and attention of the boss • Frank discussion with boss about work performance during the past 12 months,

Y/N (q30a) • Discussions about work-related problems with the boss during the past

12 months, Y/N (q30d) b) Good planning of work by the boss • Working time planning: on the same day, the day before, several days in

advance, several weeks in advance, no changes of schedule (q17b) • Contacts related to the main job outside normal working hours, such as tele-

phone, email, etc, in 5 grades (q19) c) Appreciation of training by superiors (already considered in Item 1) 7. Industrial culture a) Support of cooperative work • Rotating tasks between colleagues, Y/N (q26a) • Team work, Y/N (q26b) b) Competent/appropriate management • Direct control of the work by boss, Y/N (q21e) • Possibility to get assistance from one’s superiors, in 5 grades (q25b) • Possibility to get external assistance, in 5 grades (q25c)



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8. Collegiality (possibility to get assistance from colleagues) • Possibility to get assistance from colleagues, in 5 grades (q25a) • Feeling at home in the enterprise, in 5 grades (q37d) • Good friends at work, in 5 grades (q37f) 9. Meaningfulness of work (social usefulness) • Feeling of doing a good job, in 5 grades (q25i) • Feeling of doing useful work; in 5 grades (q25k) 10. Working time arrangements a) Own adjustments of overtime (No relevant questions in EWCS 2005) b) Reliable (advanced) planning of working time • Working time planning: on the same day, the day before, several days in

advance, several weeks in advance, no changes of schedule (q17b) c) Consideration of individual needs while planning the working time • Compatibility of working hours with family or social commitments, in 4 grades (q18) • Absence from work due to maternity/paternity leave over the past 12 months,

days (q34aa) • Absence from work due to family-related leave over the past 12 months, days

(q34ac) • Absence from work due to ‘other reasons’ over the past 12 months, days (q34ad) d) General working time issues (additional to the DGB-index) • Surpassing 42 hours a week in the main job, Y/N (q8a) • Number of minutes per day to get to the workplace and back (q13) • Night work between 22:00 and 5:00, in number of days per month (q14a) • Overtime (more than 10 hours a day), expressed in number of times a month (q14e) • Shift work, Y/N (q16ad)

B. Strain 11. Work intensity/stress a) Disturbing due to undesirable interruptions • Unpleasant interruptions for unforeseen tasks, in 4 grades (q22a-b) b) Hectic and tight deadlines • Working at high speed, in 7 grades (q20aa) • Working to tight deadlines, in 7 grades (q20bb) • Dependence on the speed of machines, Y/N (q21d) c) Insufficiency of time for performing high quality work • Insufficiency of time for doing the work, in 5 grades (q25f) 12. Physical strain a) Heavy physical work • Lifting or moving people, in 7 grades (q11b) • Carrying or moving heavy loads, in 7 grades (q11c) b) Physically one-sided work • Tiring or painful positions, in 7 grades (q11a) • Repetitive hand or arm movements, in 7 grades (q11e)



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c) Noise and other disturbing /unhealthy factors • Vibrations, in 7 grades (q10a) • Noise, in 7 grades (q10b) • High temperatures, in 7 grades (q10c) • Low temperatures, in 7 grades (q10d) • Smoke, fumes, powder or dust, in 7 grades (q10e) • Vapours such as solvents and thinners, in 7 grades (q10f) • Contact with chemicals, in 7 grades (q10g) • Radiation, welding light or laser beams, in 7 grades (q10h) • Tobacco smoke from other people, in 7 grades (q10i) • Contact with infectious materials such as waste, bodily fluids, laboratory mate-

rials, in 7 grades (q10j) d) Health and safety (additional to the DGB index) • Feeling of risks to health or safety, Y/N (q32) • Bad influence of work on health, Y/N (q33) • Hearing problems, Y/N (q33aa) • Vision problems, Y/N (q33ab) • Skin problems, Y/N (q33ac) • Backache, Y/N (q33ad) • Headaches, Y/N (q33ae) • Stomach ache, Y/N (q33af) • Muscular pains in shoulders, neck and/or upper/lower limbs, Y/N (q33ag) • Respiratory difficulties, Y/N (q33ah) • Heart disease, Y/N (q33ai) • Injury/ies, Y/N (q33aj) • Overall fatigue, Y/N (q33al) • Allergies, Y/N (q33an) • Other work-related health problems Y/N (q33aq) • Absence from work due to health problems over the past 12 months, Y/N

(q34ad) • Absence from work due to health problems over the past 12 months, in number

of days (q34b) • Absence from work due to accident at work over the past 12 months, days

(q34c1) • Absence from work due to health problems caused by work over the past

12 months, days (q34c2) 13. Emotional strain a) Restraining/suppressing own emotions • Dealing directly with customers, passengers, pupils, patients, etc, in 7 grades

(q11j) • Dependence on the work done by colleagues, Y/N (q21a) • Dependence on non-colleagues, customers, pupils, Y/N (q21b) • Emotionally demanding work, in 5 grades (q25m)



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• Stress, Y/N (q33ak) • Sleeping problems, Y/N (q33am) • Anxiety, Y/N (q33ao) • Irritability, Y/N (q33ap) b) Inappropriate attendance • Threats of physical violence, Y/N (q29a) • Physical violence from people from your workplace, Y/N (q29b) • Physical violence from other people, Y/N (q29c) • Bullying/harassment, Y/N (q29d) • Sexual discrimination/discrimination in connection with gender, Y/N (q29e) • Unwanted sexual attention, Y/N (q29f) • Age discrimination during the past 12 months, Y/N (q29g) • Discrimination against nationality during the past 12 months, Y/N (q29h) • Discrimination against ethnic background during the past 12 months, Y/N

(q29i) • Discrimination against religion during the past 12 months, Y/N (q29j) • Discrimination against disability during the past 12 months, Y/N (q29k) • Discrimination against sexual orientation during the past 12 months, Y/N

(q29l)

C. Employment security and income 14. Job stability and job security (Fear of the uncertain future) • Ability to do the work after 60: yes, don’t want to, no (q35) • Risk of losing the job in the next 6 months: very high, quite high, moderate,

quite low, very low (q37a) • Uncomfortable feeling at work: very high, quite high, moderate, quite low, very

low (q37d); see also Item 8 15. Income a) Fair performance/income ratio • Fair pay, compared to payment standards: fair, quite fair, moderate, rather

unfair, not fair (q37b) b) Sufficient income • Basic salary, Y/N (ef6a) • Net monthly income harmonised, in 10 harmonised levels (ef5). The survey

uses ten income deciles, that is, 10rate decile groups) used by the European Commission (2005: 179 ff) as income indices are inappropriate for our pur-poses, because they do not allow calculations to find the average income in each group.

• Net monthly income non-harmonised, in euro (ef5 recalculated). For each country, the 10 income deciles are given by 9 income delimiters in the national currency (ibid.: 100). In the case of low earners (1st group) the income is taken as 2/3 of the 1st delimiter. In the case of top earners (10th



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group) it is the last (9th) delimiter increased by the distance to the next-to-last delimiter (=2.9th – delimiter 8th delimiter). The incomes of all other groups are approximated by the mean of their delimiters. Finally, all the values are expressed in euro rated on 1 November 2005 (it will be recalled that the Survey was conducted from 19 September to 30 November, 2005).

The next sections of Table 6 contain first-level aggregate indices numbered 1-15, three second-level aggregate indices labelled A,B,C, and the third-level aggregate index. These indices are obtained for every individual by the procedure described in the next sections. The individual indices are then used to obtain national indicators or indicators for social groups by taking the corresponding average values.

Before aggregation, the answers are coded and scaled. The coding rule is: the better the working conditions, the higher the value. Then every variable (column of the table) is scaled by two methods (meaning that each indicator will be constructed in two ver-sions). Under normalisation (HBS method), the variable’s min and max are reduced to 0 and 100%. Normalisation is appropriate for an evaluation in the absolute scale. Let us say that 100% means that the answer is most positive, and 50% means the mid-range. Under standardisation (OECD method), the mean and standard deviation of a variable are reduced to 0 and 100% respectively.

Standardisation is appropriate for a relative evaluation. Let us say that 0% means the average answer to the given question; ±100% reflects, respectively, the negative or positive ‘mean deviation’ from the mean answer.

The aggregation is first performed ‘horizontally’, i.e. the coded answers of every indi-vidual are summarised section by section to obtain individual indices of 15 aspects of working conditions. These 15 individual indices are entered in the 15 right-hand col-umns of Table 6. Finally, the total individual index of working conditions is calculated from the 15 partial indices.

Next, the individual indices are aggregated ‘vertically’ according to classifiers (by coun-try, by sex, by industry, etc). For instance, the national index is the average index of individuals from a given country.

In spite of their differences, the HBS and OECD methods result in quite similar benchmarking of countries and social groups. The correlation of ranks of 31 countries with respect to 15 aspects of working conditions as well as to the total indicator is displayed in Table 7. Since the differences are minimal, we shall illustrate the results with one indicator − constructed by the HBS method − which allows evaluation in absolute terms.



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Table 7: Correlation coefficients for rankings of EU-31 countries by the indicators constructed using HBS and OECD methods

1. Qualification possibilities .9883 9. Meaningfulness of work .9996

2. Creativity .9948 10. Working time arrangements .8516

3. Career opportunities .9996 11. Work intensity / stress .9976

4. Possibilities for influence .9895 12. Physical strain .9714

5. Communication and transparency .9867 13. Emotional strain .9742

6. Quality of management .9677 14. Job stability .9915

7. Industrial culture .9863 15. Income .9750

8. Collegiality .9976 Total quality of work .9895




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A Study Based on the 4th European Survey of Working Conditions