European Working Conditions Survey 2015

How to combine work with life is a fundamental issue for many people, an issue that policymakers, social partners, businesses and individuals are seeking to resolve. Simultaneously, new challenges and solutions are transforming the interface between work and life: an ageing population, technological change, higher employment rates and fewer weekly working hours.

Two-thirds of the EU labour force are in permanent, full-time employment; the remaining one-third has a non-standard employment status, meaning temporary or part-time employment or self-employment. Given the variety of employment statuses, it is worth asking whether working conditions differ across them.

Despite years of gender equality legislation, men outnumber women in management positions by two to one. While structural barriers continue to impede women’s career advancement, women themselves may be deterred from becoming managers if they perceive that it would have a negative impact on their working and personal lives.

Demographic change is increasing the number of older workers in employment in Europe. In order for all of them to work beyond 55 or even after the pension age, it is necessary to identify what are the factors preventing or helping workers to have a sustainable work.

In the rapidly changing world of work, the traditional dichotomy of employee and self-employed is insufficient to capture the wide diversity of self-employed workers in Europe today. This report identifies five categories of self-employed, reflecting the wide-ranging attitudes, income levels, and health and well-being among this diverse group. Based on data from the sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) and the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS), the analysis reveals that the majority of self-employed workers enjoy high levels of job quality.

Working time is a recurrent topic of study because the nature of work, its content, the conditions under which it is performed and the labour market itself keep changing. This report provides an overview of the recent evolution of working time duration and organisation in the EU and highlights the most important trends and differences between Member States.

New information and communications technologies have revolutionised work and life in the 21st century. The constant connectivity enabled by these devices allows work to be performed at any time and from almost anywhere. This joint report by the ILO and Eurofound synthesises the findings of national studies from 15 countries, plus the European Working Conditions Survey, to consider the effects of telework and ICT-mobile work (T/ICTM) on the world of work.

In this article, originally posted in Social Europe Journal, senior programme manager Greet Vermeylen highlights why making work sustainable is an important issue for Europe.

Even in the confused and contentious context of the new US President-elect as well as the EU’s post- Brexit deliberations, it is hard to argue otherwise. But, while having a job in the first place is clearly of paramount importance to people - and society at large – there is also a more sophisticated issue at play with wider ramifications for the world of work and life today: the quality of the jobs themselves.

The sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) builds on the lessons learned from the previous five surveys to paint a wide-ranging picture of Europe at work across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups. EU employment policy priorities aim to boost employment levels, prolong working life, increase the participation of women, develop productivity and innovation and adapt to the digital challenge.