Measuring employment precariousness in the European Working Conditions Survey: The social distribution in Europe

Abstract

Background: Precarious employment is becoming an increasingly important social determinant of health inequalities among workers. The way in which contemporary employment arrangements and their health consequences are addressed in empirical research is mostly based on the contract-related or employment instability dimension. A broader conceptual approach including various important characteristics of the degrading of employment conditions and relations is needed. Objective: The general objective of this paper is to empirically test a new multidimensional construct for measuring precarious employment in an existing database. Special focus is on the social distribution of precarious employment. Methods: A subsample of 21,415 participants in the EU-27 from the Fourth European Working Conditions Survey-2005 was analysed. A cross-sectional study of the social distribution of precarious employment was conducted through the analysis of proportional differences according to gender, social class and credentials for the European Union as a whole and within each country. The 8 dimensions of the Employment Precariousness Construct were represented by 11 indicators. Results: In general, women, workers without supervisory authority, those with fewer credentials, and those living in Eastern and Southern European countries suffer the highest levels of precarious employment. Exceptionally, men, workers with supervisory authority and those with the highest credentials suffer the highest levels of long working hours, schedule unpredictability and uncompensated flexible working times. Conclusions: This article offers the first validation for an innovative multidimensional conceptualisation of employment precariousness applied to the analysis of existing survey data, showing the unequal distribution of precarious employment across the European labour force. This set of indicators can be useful for exposure surveillance of precarious employment.

Decent Work as Determinant of Work Engagement on Dependent Self-Employed

“…The interviews were conducted face to face in people's homes, with an average duration of 45 minutes, and in the national language(s) of the country. The EWCS has been widely employed to explore working conditions in the European context because of its multidimensional nature (e.g., [86][87][88][89]). This survey delves into the working conditions of European workers, offering a comprehensive overview of decent work that comprises seven dimensions: physical environment, work intensity, working time quality, social environment, skills and discretion, prospects, and earnings by occupation, sector, and age group [24].…”

Relationship between non-standard work arrangements and work-related accident absence in Belgium

“…Employment quality refers to the wage, working hours, and other aspects of a mutual agreement with associated social protection systems and security. However, globalization of the labor market and the recent financial crisis have led to a shift from the traditional standard employment relationship to an increasing number of jobs with insecure contract type or non-standard working time arrangements [16][17][18] .…”

Sustainability of green jobs in Portugal: a methodological approach using occupational health indicators

“…On the opposite the precarious work also exists in green jobs, a key social determinant of health inequalities among workers, of extreme importance 20) especially in a context of economic crisis, which expresses the weakening of the wage relationship as a result of the flexibility of the work and the resulting asymmetry in the power relationships. Stressing that, among of eleven indicators used by Puig-Barrachina et al 20) to measure the precarious work through the data of the European Working Conditions Survey, were considered the following: (a) unstable employment/type of employment contract (indicators 34 and 35 in Table 1) since the type and duration of the contract reflect the degree of certainty of continuous work, taking into account that the short-term contracts can prevent the workers from planning the future of their personal or professional lives 19) beyond they may indicate lower standards of OHS; (b) the wages (indicator 39 of Table 1), bearing in mind the income is insufficient when does not cover regular or unexpected expenses 20) , and that this income shows the purchasing power of workers to buy goods and services, of extreme importance in the context of social protection 32) ; (c) low control over work schedule (indicator 36 of Table 1), when considering the flexibility of working time is a way for the organization of work 21) , but working beyond the normal hours can lead to difficulties among work, family, and social life, tending to have more health's problems 20 , 32) .…”

“…Taking into account the national business with numerous SMEs (micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises) and the relevance of the various international bodies and some authors provide the disaggregation of statistical information by the size of enterprise 12 , 20 , 21 , 36) , it was established that all the statistical data of selected indicators will be subject to disaggregation by "size of LU." Although it is considered that there should be a "high level of compliance with OHS principles, regardless of enterprise size" 21) , SMEs might have a greater difficulty in fulfilling some regulatory requirements and present lower levels of compliance with the measures of OHS management, compared with large enterprises/establishments, due to "lack of specialized knowledge," "lack of awareness to the obligations," "absence of guidelines or application deficiencies" and "compliance costs" 21) .…”

“…The issues of health workers may still allow to complement the quantitative analysis of the transition to a green economy to assess, in a qualitative way, if the transition is fair and leads to a net increase in the employment quality 6 , 20) , besides allowing to evaluate the existence of an adequate occupational risks management and to contribute to the assessment of the costs and benefits of occupational diseases and accidents at work prevention and their contribution to social development 17) .…”