Composite Indicators to Measure Quality of Working Life in Europe: A Systematic Review

AbstractIn the last two decades, Quality of Working Life (QWL) has become a core element of the European social model and the European Employment Strategy. “More and better jobs” is a strategic goal promoted within Europe for emphasising the attention in QWL. However, there is a large debate in the literature on the definition of QWL, its dimensions, and consequently on the methods to use for its measurement. To the best of our knowledge, the syste matic reviews currently available in the literature on QWL measurement in European organisations investigate only a particular industry and/or working population. Moreover, they do not focus specifically on composite indicators, although they appear promising in facilitating QWL understanding and co mparisons for supporting decision-makers and policy makers. To overcome these gaps, we conducted a systematic review to identify composite indicators for measuring QWL in European organisations. The review returned 19 studies that are analysed based on a set of factors related to QWL locutions, inde x name, geographical area, industry or population, level of analysis, dimensions, type of data, inputs, outputs, and test and/or validation. The results highlight a significant heterogeneity among the indicators, confirming the lack of an agreed upon QWL composite indicator for Europe. Such heteroge neity concerns also QWL dimensions. A critical comparison of the different composite indicators is provided, along with a unifying proposal ...
Source: Social Indicators Research - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research