Abstract. Within the framework of the European Employment Strategy, the European Union has defined a set of indicators to monitor employment quality — the so‐called Laeken indicators. This article discusses and implements these indicators. From a theoretical perspective, it shows that the concept of work quality encompasses several dimensions, which are likely to be related to national institutions, particularly industrial relations and welfare systems. It then proceeds with a comparative analysis of quality in work across the 27 Member States, which confirms the existence of several models in Europe and suggests that the Laeken indicators should be supplemented by additional measures.

Using the EU-SILC database (2005-06) for twenty-four European countries, this article develops a comparative perspective on labor market situations of women and mothers with very young children in relation to labor market institutions and policies (especially childcare and leave schemes). Using multilevel multinomial logit models, our results show firstly the heterogeneity of national arrangements of women's labor market integration in Europe (including among new member states). Secondly, our results show the links between some national policy variables and women's behavior, despite the fact that individual factors explain labor market situations the most. Women's employment is positively related to formal childcare and to characteristics of national labor market regimes. The use of informal childcare is associated with lower women's employment rates, which might be explained by a substitution effect. The employment rate of mothers with very young children is positively related to public childcare and negatively to parental leave.

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This chapter focuses on the consequences of the Great Recession on job quality in Europe. It relies on European survey data (European Working Conditions Survey, Labour Force Survey, EU-SILC). It first shows that on average in the EU there was a marginal decline in job quality between 2005 and 2010 according to the ETUI Job Quality Index. Improvements are visible with regards to working conditions, working-time and work–life balance while involuntary non-standard employment increased and wages displayed a pronounced deterioration. A second step builds on dynamic indicators calculated at the individual level (transitions in terms of job quality between 2007 and 2009), using EU-SILC panel data. It shows that some socioeconomic groups were more affected by decreasing trends in job quality (other things being equal), especially youth, older workers and low-educated workers. In terms of gender, women were more likely than men to become unemployed or inactive over the period. At the same time, comparing national labour market institutions, employment protection legislation (as defined by the OECD) seems to have prevented transitions to non-employment (with no direct effect on job quality) while public expenditure per unemployed slightly reduced the risk of job quality deterioration.