Job quality matters as much for wellbeing as physical health. Yet we rarely measure it. New research explains why governments should pay much more attention to the quality – not just the quantity – of work. By @francisgreen1.bsky.social buff.ly/6UJrLph

Beyond wages: what makes a good job? - Economics Observatory

People’s wellbeing at work is influenced by various features of their jobs, including autonomy, intensity and prospects. Researchers use surveys to track these dimensions of working life and measure…

economicsobservatory.com

NEW on the Economics Observatory – Beyond wages: what makes a good job? By Francis Green @francisgreen1.bsky.social 👇

Beyond wages: what makes a good job? - Economics Observatory

People’s wellbeing at work is influenced by various features of their jobs, including autonomy, intensity and prospects. Researchers use surveys to track these dimensions of working life and measure…

buff.ly

In our new @bjireditor.bsky.social paper we show that the establishment is the dominant explanatory factor for non-pay job quality and as important as occupation in accounting for pay. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... @sriucl.bsky.social @francisgreen1.bsky.social @bayesbschool.bsky.social

Do you wonder if bursaries could mitigate the inequality reproduced through private schooling? See our new preprint for a sobering factual account. Diluting Exclusivity? The Prevalence and Distribution of Bursaries and Scholarships for Britain’s Private Schools. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Just published, our analysis of job quality trends in South Korea. A mixed picture. Our findings question the presumption that social progress tracks economic growth. Lee, S. and F. Green. 2025. “Job Quality in the Republic of Korea: Progress or Decline?” International Labour Review 164 (3): 1–21.

Interesting article in the FT this weekend, for anyone concerned about job quality: "What if working from home was a legal right?". The right to work at home for up to two days is being proposed in Victoria. It's popular.

"Hard At Work", my new book about job quality, can be pre-ordered now from Oxford University Press. It will also be available online free access.

My new book will be published in the new year: Hard At Work. Job Quality, Wellbeing and the Global Economy. global.oup.com/academic/pro... "An authoritative new account of the evolution of job quality in the twenty-first century and how it impacts our health and wellbeing"

The battle over private schools. This week's cover, written by David Kynaston and Francis Green.

Class war

How Labour could win the battle over private education.

newstatesman.com

Doing economics and wondering about human capital theory? Here's a fresh critique, explaining why neoclassical economics gets the education-economy nexus wrong. doi.org/10.1111/joes...

Reformulating the Critique of Human Capital Theory

Despite criticism, human capital theory (HCT) has remained central for six decades to the teaching and practice of economics. This paper reformulates the critique of HCT, focusing on two aspects that...

doi.org

Evidence is that the quality of jobs is as important as your physical health for general wellbeing, and far more important than education, gender, marital status, parental status, age, or income -- in Britain, the US, Europe and South Korea. doi.org/10.1093/ser/...

Work and life: the relative importance of job quality for general well-being, and implications for social surveys

Abstract. We investigate the relative importance of variations in job quality in accounting for variations in general well-being among employed people in E

doi.org

It is where you work - not who you are or what you do - that explains most of the variance in non-pecuniary job quality across workers docs.iza.org/dp17724.pdf @sriucl.bsky.social @uclsociology.bsky.social