Global Job Quality: Evidence from Wage Employment across Developing Countries

Shoghik Hovhannisyan (), Veronica Montalva-Talledo (), Tyler Remick (), Carlos Rodriguez Castelan () and Kersten Stamm ()
Additional contact information
Shoghik Hovhannisyan: World Bank
Veronica Montalva-Talledo: World Bank
Tyler Remick: George Washington University
Carlos Rodriguez Castelan: World Bank
Kersten Stamm: World Bank
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán

No 15565, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Measuring job quality across countries has been challenging and has relied typically on a single indicator, such as formality or wages. To contribute to this critical policy issue, this paper presents a first global estimate of job quality departing from microdata. It assembles a harmonized global data set of labor force and household surveys to produce a measure of job quality across four dimensions: sufficient income, access to employment benefits, job stability, and adequate working conditions. The results for 40 developing countries show significant variation in job quality across countries, economic sectors, and sociodemographic characteristics, including age, location, and educational attainment. Countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean region have relatively higher levels of job quality, while countries in Sub-Saharan Africa display the lowest levels of job quality. Most workers in the sectors of finance and business services, public administration, and utilities have, on average, better jobs. Higher education matters in securing greater job quality, while the average job quality of wage employment is relatively similar between men and women but with some variation in income and working conditions.

Keywords: job quality; working conditions; wage employment; private sector; global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J30 J81 O10 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2022-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp15565.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15565

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().