… and the Pursuit of Happiness - Institute of Economic Affairs

… and the pursuit of happiness
wellbeing at work: any lessons?
compatible from one survey to another; and there may be cultural
differences in the way in which respondents reply to identical
questions. 16 Nevertheless the results are interesting.
The first column of Table 2 shows that the UK workforce
displays low levels of self-reported ill-health: only Ireland does
better. This indicator 17 is one of many which could have been
included showing a similar picture of a healthy workforce by
comparison with most European countries. For example, a
European Working Conditions Survey, using a different sampling
frame, found that the UK had the lowest proportion (among 31
nations) answering ‘yes’ to the question ‘Does your work affect
your health, or not?’ We also have one of the lowest work-related
accident rates in the European Union. To help maintain this
record, evidence shows that health and safety inspections are far
more likely to occur in any given period than is the case in any
leading European country except Ireland. So the comparative
record here appears to be a strong one, and the case for further
government intervention seems, on the face of it, very weak.
The second column uses an ‘objective’ indicator of job
security. Although UK workers are by no means easy to dismiss,
and are entitled to redundancy payments after a qualifying
period, every other European Union country has tighter employment
protection legislation than the UK. 18 The corollary of this is
16 On this last point, Nicoletti (2006) reports ‘bunching’ of job satisfaction scores
(low standard deviation) in some countries – for example, Denmark and the
Netherlands – whereas they are more spread out in others, such as Greece and
Italy.
17 This covers males only. The female data present a similar picture and are excluded
only for reasons of space. An overall figure would provide misleading
comparisons because of the big differences in the proportion of females in the
workforce between countries.
18 The OECD’s Employment Protection index for 2008 shows the UK at 1.1 on a
Table 2 Some indicators of wellbeing at work, with comparative rankings*
Country
Percentage of
male workers
reporting one
or more workrelated
health
problem
(2007)
Temporary
employment
as percentage
of dependent
employment
(2008)
Self-reported
work stress,
average score
on five-point
scale (2002)
Job
satisfaction,
average score
on sevenpoint
scale
(2002)
Subjective
wellbeing
at work,
composite
normalised to
10-point scale
(2006/07)
Australia n.a. n.a. 3.43 [10] 5.04 [15] n.a.
Austria 16.3 [12] 9.0 [5] 3.55 [12=] 5.51 [2] 5.47 [4]
Belgium 12.8 [11] 8.3 [2] n.a. n.a. 5.44 [5]
Denmark 10.8 [8] 8.4 [3] 3.06 [1] 5.42 [3] 5.66 [1]
Finland 20.6 [13] 15.1 [11] 3.41 [9] 5.12 [10=] 5.16 [9]
France n.a. 14.2 [9] 3.68 [15] 5.07 [12] 5.07 [10]
Germany † 6.6 [4] 14.7 [10] 3.80 [16] 5.27 [6] 4.88 [13]
Greece 7.0 [5] 11.5 [6] n.a. n.a. n.a.
Ireland 3.5 [1] 8.5 [4] 3.22 [5] 5.41 [4] 5.43 [6]
Italy 7.4 [6=] 13.3 [8] n.a. n.a. n.a.
Netherlands 11.2 [9] 18.2 [13] 3.30 [8] 5.12 [10=] 5.60 [2]
New
n.a. n.a. 3.49 [11] 5.14 [9] n.a.
Zealand
Poland 21.9 [14] 27.0 [15] 3.09 [3] 4.94 [16] 4.43 [14]
Portugal 7.4 [6=] 22.8 [14] 3.10 [4] 5.17 [7=] 5.05 [11]
Spain 5.6 [3] 29.3 [16] 3.23 [6] 5.05 [14] 5.22 [7]
Sweden 11.7 [10] 16.1 [12] 3.58 [14] 5.17 [7=] 5.21 [8]
Switzerland n.a. 13.2 [7] 3.07 [2] 5.61 [1] 5.50 [3]
United 5.3 [2] 5.4 [1] 3.55 [12=] 5.06 [13] 4.98 [12]
Kingdom ‡
United States n.a. n.a. 3.25 [7] 5.34 [5] n.a.
Sources: Column 1: Health and Safety Executive using Labour Force Survey data; Column
2: OECD; Column 3: International Social Survey Programme data, reported in Blanchflower
and Oswald (2005); Column 4: as Column 3; Column 5: New Economics Foundation using
European Social Survey data.
Notes: * For first three indicators lowest value gives highest ranking; for last two highest
value is best; † for stress and job satisfaction, West Germany; ‡ for stress and job satisfaction,
Great Britain; figures in brackets indicate rankings.
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