The Validation of a Multidimensional Indicator for Precarious Employment in Europe.

Karen Van Aerden , Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Kim Bosmans, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Christophe Vanroelen, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The changing nature of employment in recent decades, due to an increased emphasis on flexibility and competitiveness in European labour markets, has gained importance as a topic in both occupational health and industrial relations research. In that context, the phenomenon of precarious employment is often used to describe and analyse flexible employment arrangements at the bottom of the labour market. This article aims to validate a typological measurement approach towards precarious employment, comparing it with simple dichotomies of standard versus non-standard work and with multidimensional specifications based on the idea of a summed scale. Proxies for the different aspects of precarious employment are derived from three waves of the European Working Conditions Survey (2005, 2010 and 2015). The prevalence, cross-national distribution, evolution and socio-economic profile of the different precarious employment specifications are reported. The first draft of the paper (uploaded in step 5) contains only the results from the comparison between the typological approach and the summed scale approach (which will be elaborated by the time of the EPC). The comparison with the standard versus non-standard contract dichotomy will be added in the coming months.

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 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy