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What has been happening to the quality of workers' lives in Britain?

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Gardner, Jonathan and Oswald, Andrew J. (2001) What has been happening to the quality of workers' lives in Britain? Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick, Department of Economics. Warwick economic research papers (No.617).

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Abstract

This paper studies workers’ lives in modern Britain. It uses longitudinal data to examine stress and job satisfaction through the decade of the 1990s. The results are disturbing. On both measures, the wellbeing of British public sector workers worsened sharply over the decade. The size of the deterioration was between one half point and one full point on a standard GHQ mental stress scale. This is remarkably large. Stress levels among private sector employees also rose. Job satisfaction in the private sector ran approximately flat through time. These findings may be of interest to nations who are thinking of adopting the British government’s policies towards the public sector, and to those who have conjectured that working life is becoming more pressurised.

Item Type:

Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)

Subjects:

H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor

Divisions:

Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Employees -- Great Britain, Quality of life -- Great Britain, Job satisfaction -- Great Britain, Job stress -- Great Britain, Mental health -- Great Britain

Series Name:

Warwick economic research papers

Publisher:

University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Place of Publication:

Coventry

Official Date:

October 2001

Dates:

Date	Event
October 2001	Published

Number:

No.617

Number of Pages:

Status:

Not Peer Reviewed

Access rights to Published version:

Open Access

Funder:

Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC), Leverhulme Trust (LT), Nuffield Foundation (NF)

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