Measuring poor job quality amongst employees: the VicWAL job quality index

Abstract

Job quality is a central, though contested, concern of contemporary employment relations. Our focus in this article is on poor job quality, which can have a major impact on employee well-being and work–life outcomes. We report on the construction of a job quality index (JQI) using items from the 2009 Victorian Work and Life (VicWAL) survey, which had 3007 employee respondents. The VicWAL JQI is composed of 15 items, subsumed in six components that are recognised in the literature as contributing to job quality: working-time autonomy, job security, job control, workload, skill development and access to work–life provisions. Our measure counts aggregate job quality deficits across the six components. The VicWAL JQI performs as expected in regard to several key screening variables, including contract status and occupation, and has a significant linear relationship with a measure of work–life interference. We find almost one-fifth of respondents are located in very poor-quality jobs (two or more reported deficits in components), with considerable diversity in these jobs and in the deficits reported. High workloads were reported in almost half the sample. The article explores the intriguing impact of workload on the VicWAL JQI and highlights the implications of the measure for the assessment of job quality in Australia.

Keywords:

• job quality measurement
• poor job quality
• working conditions
• work–life balance
• workload

Acknowledgements

The research on which this article draws was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant (LP0882475).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara Charlesworth

Sara Charlesworth is Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Work + Life, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.

Jennifer Welsh

Jennifer Welsh is a Senior Research Officer at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Lyndall Strazdins

Lyndall Strazdins is a Senior Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Marian Baird

Marian Baird is Professor of Gender and Employment Relations and Director of the Women and Work Research Group in the Business School, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.

Iain Campbell

Iain Campbell is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.