Building a Quality in Work index in Spain

Abstract

The European Union launched the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 with the aim of establishing itself as the world’s most competitive knowledge-based economy. At the same time, job quality was placed at the top of the European employment and social policy agenda and, later, it was to be incorporated as part of the European Employment and Europe-2020 Strategies. However, in a climate of economic crisis, it is argued that the price we are paying for continued economic growth is the dehumanisation of labour relationships with good jobs being substituted by bad jobs. In order to appraise such claims, scholars require quantifiable measures. The aim of this study is to define and apply a composite index of the quality in work in Spain. We present the results for the period 2001 to 2009. Our measure adopts the dimensional framework provided by the European Commission, and we present our results by region, sector, professional category and firm size. We find that the best results are recorded in the most developed regions, in the service sector, in the largest firms and in jobs in which workers are entrusted with most responsibility.