Framing Job Quality: A Functional Definition
Abstract
Job quality-not just the fact of having a job but the conditions of the job-is a central concern for workers individually and for US social policy. Going into the pandemic, a strong body of research showed that while the economy was generating lots of jobs, the quality of these jobs was increasingly poor, and this was especially the case for jobs held by non-white and female workers. The pandemic spotlighted not just economic inequality but work inequality, where workers vary in wages and important working conditions. Policy makers are now committing to a recovery from the pandemic that includes equitable distribution of quality jobs.In this paper, we outline a policy-oriented framework for understanding job quality and options for improving it. First, we conceptualize a functional definition of job quality, one that defines a job less by its features than by the role it serves in people's lives. We suggest that the essential function of a quality job is that the conditions of the job itself advance worker well-being. Second, we describe the conditions that make a job a quality job, distinguishing those that are endemic to the job and those that are conventionally (though not necessarily) tied to the job in the Unites States context. Third, we advance our argument that specific and deliberate post-Fordist policy interventions shifted the ecology of our labor (and product) markets, and these shifts created incentives to drive down the quality of jobs, especially for those workers with the least social and economic power. Finally, we identify policy responses-public, private, and cross sectoral-that may increase the numbers of and equitable access to good jobs: jobs that advance worker well-being and strengthen contemporary links between worker well-being and conditions of the job.