Work and life: the relative importance of job quality for general well-being, and implications for social surveys

Abstract

We investigate the relative importance of variations in job quality in accounting for variations in general well-being among employed people in Europe, the USA, Australia and South Korea. We find that the importance of job quality is everywhere of a similar magnitude to that of health, while both are far more important than other conventional determinants, including education, gender, marital status, parental status, age or household income. Job quality accounts for somewhat more of well-being’s variation among men than among women. Within the majority of European countries, the R2 for the variation accounted for ranges between 14 and 19%. The paper’s findings, alongside rising policy interest, support the allocation of a greater priority for job quality in general socio-economic and labour force surveys than hitherto.