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Good Job, Good Life? Working Conditions and Quality of Life in Europe

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Abstract

Cross-national comparisons generally show large differences in life satisfaction of individuals within and between European countries. This paper addresses the question of whether and how job quality and working conditions contribute to the quality of life of employed populations in nine strategically selected EU countries: Finland, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Using data from the European Quality of Life Survey 2003, we examine relationships between working conditions and satisfaction with life, as well as whether spillover or segmentation mechanisms better explain the link between work domain and overall life satisfaction. Results show that the level of life satisfaction varies significantly across countries, with higher quality of life in more affluent societies. However, the impact of working conditions on life satisfaction is stronger in Southern and Eastern European countries. Our study suggests that the issue of security, such as security of employment and pay which provides economic security, is the key element that in a straightforward manner affects people’s quality of life. Other working conditions, such as autonomy at work, good career prospects and an interesting job seem to translate into high job satisfaction, which in turn increases life satisfaction indirectly. In general, bad-quality jobs tend to be more ‘effective’ in worsening workers’ perception of their life conditions than good jobs are in improving their quality of life. We discuss the differences in job-related determinants of life satisfaction between the countries and consider theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

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Notes

  1. Davoine et al. (2008), however, contend that because of lack of political consensus the indicators exclude some fundamental dimensions of employment quality, such as wages. Also, Green (2006) points at deficiencies in the European definition in neglecting dimensions such as wages and work intensity.

  2. The methodological question of whether such a ten-point scale can be used as a cardinal variable in an OLS regression has been addressed by Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters (2004) in a study on happiness scores. They assert that assuming ordinality (as usually done by economists) or cardinality of happiness scores makes little difference for the results.

  3. A potential problem with measuring working conditions is the reliance on self-reported attitudinal data that may have several biases. One such bias is habituation, where respondents get used to bad jobs, for example, and stop reporting their working conditions as poor. However, there are no other standardized methods of assessing job quality other than using surveys to ask workers about their jobs. With such caveats in mind, we nevertheless adhere to the view that subjective reports are valid and reasonably credible (see also Fahey and Smyth 2004).

  4. The highest GDP per capita can be found in The Netherlands (€26,020), followed by Finland (€24,280), Germany (€24,140), the United Kingdom (€23,160), Sweden (€23,130), Spain (€19,100), Portugal (€16,920), Hungary (€12,300), and Bulgaria (€5,700).

  5. For example, Dutch respondents were randomly assigned GDP per capita values ranging between €25,760 (Dutch GDP − 1%) and €26,280 (Dutch GDP + 1%).

  6. Differences in the meaning and implications of the work-family conflict is perhaps at the core of the problem of transferring successful measures for improving the work-life balance from some countries to others (Leitner and Wroblewski 2006).

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Acknowledgments

This research has been supported in part by the European Commission Sixth Framework Programme Project “Quality of Life in a Changing Europe” (QUALITY), and the Network of Excellence “Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe” (RECWOWE).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hamburg, Allende-Platz 1, Hamburg, 20146, Germany

    Sonja Drobnič

  2. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Spandauer Str. 1, Berlin, 10178, Germany

    Barbara Beham

  3. University of Groningen, Grote Rozenstraat 31, Groningen, 9712 TG, The Netherlands

    Patrick Präg

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  1. Sonja Drobnič
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Correspondence to Sonja Drobnič.

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Drobnič, S., Beham, B. & Präg, P. Good Job, Good Life? Working Conditions and Quality of Life in Europe. Soc Indic Res 99, 205–225 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9586-7

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