Enrique Fernandez-Macias – författare

Mainstream economics traditionally restricts the analysis of the labor market to purely monetary factors, such as earnings, leaving aside many other characteristics which might affect the desirability of certain jobs. By contrast, this original book aims to explore the alternatives and problems faced by researchers in quantifying and measuring a broader notion of job quality. The main objective is to analyze the different approaches to measurement and to analyze both the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods within a European context. Specifically, the book presents a unique new index of job quality and applies it to the EU Member States. The index proves particularly useful to measure the differences in job quality by country, occupation, gender and age.

Based on solid theory and data, this book will prove essential for postgraduate students, researchers and academics of labor economics, sociology, industrial relations, and European studies as it presents a coherent discussion of the concept and components of job quality, and of the difficulties of measuring it. The book also proposes a new aggregate index of job quality that can contribute to the evaluation of European employment policies and performance that will appeal to European policy circles.

This open-access book offers a comparative analysis of changes in employment structures on a global scale, focusing on employment trends during the first decades of the 21st century across 17 developed and developing economies, including countries from Europe, North America, Central and Latin America, and Asia. The authors examine patterns of occupational change in all cases, with job upgrading and polarization being the most prevalent, and explore the factors driving these changes, such as technological change, the increased participation of women, the growth of service-oriented sectors, and others. Particular attention is given to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment.By applying consistent methods across all countries, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of employment dynamics and trends worldwide, representing one of the most significant efforts to produce comparative evidence on a global scale to date. As such, it will be of interest to researchers and policymakers focused on labor, inequality, and economic development.