Decent Work as a Core Dimension of Social Sustainability in Tourism

Abstract

Social sustainability remains the least operationalised dimension of sustainability research in tourism, particularly with regard to employment quality. Tourism growth is often assumed to generate positive social outcomes through job creation, yet limited empirical attention has been paid to whether tourism employment meets basic standards of decent work. The main objective of this study is to assess whether sustained employment growth in the Portuguese tourism sector has been accompanied by measurable improvements in employment quality, and to examine the implications of this relationship for the social sustainability of tourism development. Drawing on the International Labour Organization’s Decent Work Agenda, the study operationalises decent work as a core, though partial, dimension of social sustainability and develops a Social Sustainability Index in Tourism (SSIT). The index is constructed using longitudinal administrative labour data from the Portuguese tourism sector covering the period of 2010–2022 and integrates indicators related to employment stability, remuneration, working conditions, gender equality, and social protection through a transparent, theory-informed weighting scheme complemented by sensitivity analysis. The empirical results show that, despite substantial expansion in tourism employment, gains in job quantity were not matched by commensurate improvements in decent work outcomes. Persistent employment insecurity, low wage adequacy, and enduring gender inequalities continue to characterise the sector, indicating a structurally constrained pattern of social sustainability. The main contribution of the study lies in providing a replicable, employment-based composite indicator that enables systematic monitoring of social sustainability in tourism and empirically challenges growth-centred narratives that implicitly equate employment expansion with socially sustainable development. The SSIT is intended as a diagnostic and monitoring tool rather than a comprehensive evaluation of social sustainability, as it captures only formal employment and those dimensions of decent work observable in administrative data.