Work, Jobs and Well-Being across the Millennium

This paper uses repeated cross-section data ISSP data from 1989, 1997 and 2005 to considermovements in job quality. It is first underlined that not having a job when you want one is a major sourceof low well-being. Second, job values have remained fairly stable over time, although workers seem togive increasing importance to the more “social” aspects of jobs: useful and helpful jobs. The centralfinding of the paper is that, following a substantial fall between 1989 and 1997, subjective measures of jobquality have mostly bounced back between 1997 and 2005. Overall job satisfaction is higher in 2005 thanit was in 1989. Last, the rate of self-employment has been falling gently in ISSP data even so three to fourtimes as many people say they would prefer to be self-employed than are actually self-employed. As theself-employed are more satisfied than are employees, one consistent interpretation of the above is that thebarriers to self-employment have grown in recent years.