Job Quality and the Economics of New Labour: A Critical Appraisal Using Subjective Survey Data

Posted: 16 Jun 2008

See all articles by Andy Charlwood

Andy Charlwood

University of Warwick - Warwick Business School

Chris Forde

University of Leeds - Division of Industrial and Labour Studies

Date Written: November 2007

Abstract

This paper assesses the record on job quality during the early term of office of the New Labour government by interpreting, from a political economy perspective, changes in a variety of subjective measures of job quality taken from several different data sources. We find some improvements in job quality over the period 1998-2004; however we argue that these improvements have arisen not because of New Labour's policies towards the workplace but because of low and falling rates of unemployment. Despite recent improvements, a large number of workers in Britain remain in low quality jobs and, without a radical change of policy direction, sustained and substantial progress in the quality of work will remain elusive.

Keywords: Economics of happiness, Job quality, New Labour, Political economy

JEL Classification: B50, I31, J8, J28

Suggested Citation

Charlwood, Andy and Forde, Chris, Job Quality and the Economics of New Labour: A Critical Appraisal Using Subjective Survey Data (November 2007). Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 31, Issue 6, pp. 941-971, 2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1146024 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cje/bem028

Andy Charlwood

University of Warwick - Warwick Business School ( email )

Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Chris Forde

University of Leeds - Division of Industrial and Labour Studies ( email )

Leeds LS2 9JT
United Kingdom

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