Employment status and job quality

This technical report contains an in-depth analysis of employment status in the European Union. Our main objective is to study the relations betweenemployment status and workers’ job quality and quality of working life. Weidentifyseven employment status categories: indefinite contracts, fixed-term contracts of longer than one year, fixed-term contracts of less than one year, other employees, dependent self-employed without employees, independent self-employed without employees, and self-employed with employees. The results of this study show clear differences in job quality according to the categories of employment status. Employment status is also related to quality of working life-determinants, although this relation is strongly mediated by job quality. Also the importance of country-level variation in employment status and its relationships with job quality and quality of working life are demonstrated. The conclusions of this research are embedded in the on-going EU policy debate on job quality and non-standard employment.