Measuring job quality and job satisfaction

Job quality is a multi-dimensional concept that has become prominent on the agenda of policy-makers. There is no consensus about how to measure and how to monitor it. In this paper we compare often used objective and subjective indicators of job quality. We argue that objective indicators are .too objective, as they neglect interindividual differences in preferences, while subjective job satisfaction is .too subjective, as it also reflects differences in aspirations. We propose an alternative measure of job quality in terms of equivalent incomes that does respect individual preferences but rules out aspirations. We illustrate our approach with Flemish data on school-leavers (SONAR) using the information on the .rst job of the 1978 birth cohort. We compare the results for the equivalent income indicator with the results of objective and subjective indicators.