Perceptions of Good Jobs

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BACKGROUND PAPER FOR THE WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2013

Perceptions of Good Jobs

Ingunn Bjørkhaug Anne Hatløy

Tewodros Kebede Huafeng Zhang

Analytical Report

Risaralda, Colombia

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Fafo-report 2012:21 ISBN: 978-82-7422-882-5

The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Development Report 2013 team, the World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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Chapter 1 Introduction

Jobs have taken a center stage in the policy debate due to recent world developments ranging from consequences of the financial crises to that of the Arab uprising that is partly fueled by youth unemployment as well as political discontentment. The World Development Report 2013 focuses mainly on jobs and their connections with important dimensions of economic and social development. To this end, jobs can be seen as having transformational roles in three dimensions:

living standards, productivity and social cohesion. In essence, focusing on what a good job for development is from these perspectives will provide insights help address diverse job agendas.

The notion of a good job may seem normative but can also be anchored in basic economic arguments. Instead of having a list of criteria such as structure of earning, health benefits, and pension plans to characterize a job as good job, the WDR 2013 calls for focusing on the overall features of a job as seen from its value in terms of increasing living standards, productivity growth, and increasing social cohesion. However, it may be difficult to identify a single type of job that is considered as good job in all dimensions. A job that is considered good in one aspect, such as increasing income, may not necessarily be considered as prestigious job. Instead of trying to focus on a single job, one may be interested to look into various facets of a given job and conduct an assessment from different perspectives

This study has been conducted in order to better understand and explain how jobs are perceived in a number of selected countries. The report is primarily targeted to provide inputs towards the WDR 2013 and is part of a series of studies conducted on perception of good jobs in four countries: Colombia, China, Egypt and Sierra Leone. The main emphasis has been to explore the nature of jobs that affect living standards and enhance social cohesion. The report addresses the following research questions:

- What are the most important factors affecting labor force participation?

- What are the relations between jobs and household wealth?

- Can perceptions and stereotyping of jobs be regarded as constraints for job creation?

- What are the linkages between job benefits and job stability?

- What are the determinants of job satisfactions?

- Jobs can be evaluated using a human empowerment perspective by focusing on three features of job: cognitive, creative and autonomous activities. What is the relationship between job status and human empowerment?

- Does inclusion in the labor force contribute to increased social trust and confidence in institutions?

This study is conducted in the department of Risaralda, Colombia. Colombia has 32 administrative departments and Risaralda is located in the western central part of Colombia, in the central Andean region with a total of 14 municipalities. Pereira, the capital city of Risaralda, has the highest recorded rate of urban unemployment in Colombia. According to Departamento

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Administrativo Nacional de Estadistica (DANE) the unemployment rate in Pereira was 17 percent in September 2011.

Colombia has experienced a long-standing conflict. It is difficult to discuss development issues in Colombia separated from the conflict that has affected the country for more than 60 years.

However, this report will take a step aside from the conflict and focus on the aspect of jobs among the population in the district of Pereira. For both communities and individuals, creation of a stable income, jobs and social security can provide the means for both survival and recovery.

Risaralda is one of the three regions defined as „the coffee region‟: Risaralda, Quindio and Caldas. All three departments suffer from high unemployment. In addition, Risaralda has areas that are both directly and indirectly affected by the conflict and its west-central areas have been most affected by the conflict. In the context of high level of unemployment and conflict, understanding perception of good job will help devise relevant policy action and hence the reason for selecting Risaralda as the study area.

This report is organized as follows. This chapter provides background to the study area. In chapter two a description of the methodology used in this study is presented. Chapter three presents description of the data collected for this study, including socio-economic background and characteristics of labor force in the study area, Risaralda. Chapter four outlines the results and discusses main findings. A summary of the main findings are made in the last chapter.

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Chapter 2 Methods

2.1 Good jobs survey

The main objective of the survey was to obtain data on perceptions of jobs in addition to obtaining information on basic labor force indicators, economy and social trust.

The main design characteristics of the sample used in this study were as follows:

1. The target population of the study was all households living in Risaralda, Colombia 2. The sample frame was the list of enumeration areas that were used for the recent Census

in Colombia (2005) where the information is updated by the local partner ServInformación, which is a company specialized in geographic systems development SIG, data collection, and methodological design.

3. The population was classified into two main reporting domains: rural and urban 4. Each domain received allocation of 45 primary sampling units (PSUs) (clusters) 5. The selection of clusters was based on probability proportionate to size (PPS)

6. In each of the clusters, 12 households were randomly selected using random walk procedures

With this design, the survey was conducted in 90 clusters making up a total sample size of 1080 households.

2.2 Questionnaire

To understand the populations own perception of jobs calls for detailed information about what

„good‟ and „bad‟ job characteristics are and to understand the constraints of accessing a good job.

In addition, barriers to labor market entry and potential solutions for these barriers are important indicators that could have policy relevance. An associated concept of job stereotypes could also help highlight what is regarded as a good job and is obtained through vignettes depicting various types of jobs, and a questionnaire was designed for this study.

Part I of the questionnaire was administered at the household level. The respondent for this part of the questionnaire was the household head or any other eligible knowledgeable person who could provide information for the household as well as other household members. The household member is called for responding to questions on household level information such as demographics, education, labor force participation to household members (age 14 and above), household economic conditions and assets.

Part II of the questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected individual (RSI) in the selected household. The RSI was selected among all household members aged 18 or above. The RSI responded to a number of questions about the person‟s current job status and its associated features; the person‟s own perceptions of jobs; issues regarding social trust, confidence on

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various institutions and participations on social organizations. These question items are intended to be answered only by the randomly selected individual. The structure of the questionnaire is depicted in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1 Overview of structure of instruments

2.3 Empirical methods

Descriptive statistical methods including frequencies, means, graphs and tables are used to describe the various indicators used in this study. In addition to the descriptive statistics, the study employs regression models to explore relationship with various factors affecting the dependent variable under investigation. Generally, the perception indicators used in this study are measured using five Likert items: 1=Not at all satisfied; 2=somewhat unsatisfied; 3=neither;

4=somewhat satisfied; 5=very satisfied. These values make up an ordinal set and ordinary least square (OLS) regression will not be suitable to explain the various job satisfaction indicators used in the study as it can give estimates which imply predictions of the values outside the feasible range. Hence, ordered logit regressions are used to explain factors affecting job satisfaction.

Another type of indicator used in the study takes binary values (0 or 1). Specifically, labor force participation is recorded as whether individuals are in or out of the labor force. OLS will not be suitable for dummy variable indicators either as it predicts values beyond 0 and 1. So, logistic regression is used to explore factors influencing labor force participation.

Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) was used in this report to analyze the pattern of relationships of several categorical variables. It is an extension of correspondence analysis (CA), which was developed by Hirschfeld (1935) and Jean-Paul Benzécri (1973). MCA is part of a family of descriptive methods, such as Principal Components Analysis, that use mathematical procedure to reveal pattern in complex data sets. It is very useful in mapping both variables and individuals so as to construct complex visual maps whose structuring can be interpreted. The increasing use of visualizations in presentations makes this method more popular in illustrating

All Household Members (PART I)

 Demographics

 Household composition

 Education

 Labor force participation

 Housing

 Economic conditions

 Assets

Selection of RSI

Information on RSI’s (PART II)

 Job status and features

 Perceptions on job

 Social trust and participation

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complex relationships between variables. The method is particularly suitable when responses to question items are recorded in categorical scale. In this report, we employed Multiple Correspondence Analysis in analyzing perception of different of jobs, social trust and confidence in institutions. Technical description of the method can be obtained in Greenacre and Blasius.

2006.

This report also constructs a wealth index from a set of assets owned by the household. This wealth index is a linear asset-based index, constructed following procedures as in the Demographic and Health Surveys (Rustein and Kiersten 2004). It considers households‟ access to durable consumer goods and other asset indicators related with housing, water, sanitary facilities and other amenities owned by households. To construct this asset index, we use the following set of mixed asset-based and health-related variables for determining wealth tertiles:

- Household ownership of consumer durables (mobile phone, sofa set, chair, table, bed, mattress, mat, sewing machine, gas cooker, stove, water heater, water filter, electric fan, vacuum cleaner, microwave, fridge, freezer, air conditioner, washing machine, TV, radio, bicycle motorbike, cars, DVD player, satellite connection, internet access, personal computer, photo camera, video camera)

- Characteristics of households‟ dwelling (number of rooms, floor material, electricity, toilet facility, water sources)

- Households‟ ownership of dwelling

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Chapter 3 Data

The survey was planned to cover 1080 households in both rural and urban areas of the department of Risaralda. The survey has a response rate of 88 percent resulting in final sample size of 956 households as shown in Table 1. This includes four percent of households with partially completed interviews. Regarding the randomly selected individual survey, the response rate is 77 percent resulting in a final sample size of 837 RSIs (including partly completed interviews of RSIs).

Table 1 Interview status for households and randomly selected individual

Interview status Households (%) Randomly selected individual (%)

Interview completed 84 77

Interview partly completed 4 1

No contact 4 8

Refusal 7 1

Convinced for interview after refusal 0 -

No usable information 1 2

Incomplete household interview - 12

Total 100 100

Sample Size 1080 1080

The study did not conduct any substitution of households or RSIs that could not be contacted during the survey period. This is mainly needed so as not to introduce a bias that may be due to systematic absence of households and RSIs. In situations where people who do not work are more likely to be at home, substitutions would increase a sampling bias through oversampling of RSIs that are unemployed or outside the labor force. During the survey implementation, repeated visits have been made to interview selected households and individuals and hence reduce non- response rates of the survey.

3.1 Demographic and dwelling characteristics

The age and sex structure of individuals covered under the study exhibited a slightly higher percentage of women (52 percent) than men. The average age for the total population living in Risaralda was 34 years old.

The majority of the people live in houses or apartments, and 51 percent own the dwelling they live in, with the number of rooms ranging from two to five. As many as 98 percent of households reported that their houses are connected to electricity, and 92 percent have piped water into their dwelling. The remaining households receive water from public taps, open wells or surface water.

Only a small percentage has rain water as their main source of water. In addition, the survey found that 91 percent of households have toilets that are connected to piped sewer systems.

Although these results indicate that a large number of people have access to water and sanitation facilities, the quality of some of these facilities might vary depending on the location. For example, in one of the rural areas visited during the survey period, inhabitants had been without

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water for almost three months at the time of the survey due to old pipes that needed repair. The inhabitants did not know how long it would take before it would be repaired posing challenges for day to day life activities. Electricity is priced according to the stratified social system in Colombia. The higher strata¹ people live in, the higher costs involved. Electricity service providing companies did not necessarily follow the official strata system stipulated by the government, but did their own investigations and decided the strata classifications accordingly.

Many of the respondents felt that this would make them vulnerable to price fluctuations.

3.2 Economic situations

Households‟ income was not asked in this survey, as good quality of income data is rather difficult to collect in such small surveys. Instead, the set of consumer goods owned by households, together with other asset indicators were asked by the survey. They were used to construct a wealth index to identify households‟ economic situations. When ranking the households‟ wealth index, household size was taken into account, that is, the ranking of the wealth index was based on the population. And among all the households, they were grouped into three groups, with each group containing one third of the population according to the constructed wealth index.

The economic disparity between urban and rural was quite apparent. Table 2 shows households‟

economic situation in urban and rural areas in Risaralda. Around one fourth of the urban households were ranked as the poorest, while as many as 68 percent of the rural households were ranked as the poorest. Only 12 percent of the rural households and 38 percent of the urban households were among the richest.

Table 2 Household wealth asset index by location

Urban (%) Rural (%) Total (%)

Poor third 24 68 32

Middle third 39 20 35

Rich third 38 12 33

Total 100 100 100

Sample size 428 471 899

In addition to using objective measure of wealth based on household assets, households were interviewed to provide a subjective assessment of their economic situations that are classified into three different categories: live well; neither rich nor poor and poor. The households‟ subjective assessments on the economic situation indicate that 67 percent of households considered themselves as living well while only 8 percent considered themselves as being poor (Table 3).

Slightly fewer households in the rural area considered them as living well (59 percent) than those in the urban area (69 percent).

1 Colombia is divided into localities that are stratified into social systems, depending on income, economic stability, living conditions etc. among the population. The stratification is conducted by the government, and each area is given a strata number, ranging from one to six, where one is the poorest areas and six is the richest areas.

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The implications from the subjective assessment does not necessary mean that they were economically well off in objective terms as indicated using the wealth index. These subjective assessments can be understood better when we consider peoples‟ expression in that peace is important for a good life. The sense of security was highly appreciated among the people who did not experience the conflict directly.

Table 3 Household economic situation

Subjective assessment on household

economic situation

We live well 69 59 67

We are neither rich nor poor 23 33 25

We are poor 8 7 8

Satisfaction with current financial situation

Fully satisfied 10 16 11

Rather satisfied 47 40 46

Neither 7 8 7

Less than satisfied 16 17 16

Not at all satisfied 19 20 19

Financial situation during last year

Save money 5 3 5

Just get by 63 70 64

Spent some savings 15 8 14

Spent savings and borrowed money 10 10 10

Only borrowed money 7 8 7

Sample size 425 492 917

In addition to these indicators households were also asked how satisfied that they were regarding their current financial situation. Thirty six percent of the household were not satisfied with their current financial situation and no apparent differences between urban and rural area, as shown in Table 3. It was evident that many of the informants in the rural areas expressed that they felt a sense of fellowship in their community. If one needed a favor, the other would help. The majority of households in Risaralda did get by as indicated in Table 3. Households manage with the income they earn and few households (4 percent) have some savings they can use in difficult times. This can also be illustrated by the story of David, a shopkeeper in a small rural village in Risaralda:²

David, the shop keeper

David is the owner of a small shop in one of the rural areas of Risaralda. He was born in another department, but has lived in the region of Risaralda for some years now. It was home for him now.

He loves living in this area due to the safety and peace that exists. He had a small shop located next to the main street of his rural village. He has owned the shop for around 15 years.

He says that one of the things he loves the most is the deep sense of belonging to the community that resides in each of its members. When necessary, people would come to his shop and ask for

2 Interview conducted by main researcher during the fieldwork in Colombia

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credit on the goods they need. Despite the few unpaid bills some of his customers had left him, he would do his best to help his people. He feels that his shop is a way of giving back to the community and that by being there he is able to provide for the need of his neighbors. He also recognizes the need to save and wisely invest in order to progress. The income from the shop only provides enough to subsist, and it is necessary for him to engage in other businesses so that he can have an additional income.

3.3 Labor force participation

For the purpose of this study we have used the ILO definition for unemployment. ILO defines the unemployed as „the person who during the past seven days was without work, was currently available for work and was seeking for work‟. Around 38 percent of individuals of age 18 and above did not participate in the labor force (Table 4). Of the 62 percent economically active individuals 17 percent were unemployed. While urban and rural labor force participation rate was quite similar, unemployment rate is much higher in the urban area, double that of in the rural area. The gender disparity in the labor market in Risaralda was quite contrasting where more women were out of labor force than men. In all the interviewed households, more than half women aged 18 and above were out of labor force, while only 23 percent adult men were not active in the labor market. Among those in the labor market, the unemployment rate of women (23 percent) was also much higher than men (13 percent) reflecting a gender inequality in terms of labor market participation.

Table 4 Employment status (Age 18 and above)

Location (%) Gender (%)

Total (%)

Urban Rural Men Women

Employment status

Employed 49 60 67 38 51

Unemployed 12 6 10 11 11

Out of labor force 40 33 23 51 38

Sample size 1206 1245 1126 1325 2451

Unemployment rate (ILO definition)

Employed 81 90 87 77 83

Unemployed 19 10 13 23 17

Sample size 729 831 905 655 1560

3.4 Characteristics of randomly selected individuals

Altogether 837 RSIs were interviewed, among whom 393 were in urban area and 444 in rural area. Table 5 shows the age and gender distribution, marital status, educational level, employment status of the interviewed RSIs in the survey. The table also shows the wealth index distribution of RSI‟s households, and whether the interviewed RSI had sickness of prolonged nature. Around one-third of the interviewed RSIs were aged 18 to 34, one-fourth were 35 to 49 years old, another one-fourth were 50 to 64 years old, and 18 percent were 65 or older. The gender distribution of RSI showed that more women were selected for RSI interviews than men.

The age and gender distributions of RSI were similar in both urban and rural areas. Half of the RSIs were married or cohabitant, while 30 percent were single and never married.

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Table 5 RSI characteristics

Age 18-34 30 34 31

35-49 24 27 25

50-64 27 23 26

65+ 19 16 18

Gender Male 38 40 38

Female 63 60 62

Marital status Single 30 28 30

Married/Cohabitant 49 56 51

Widow/Divorced/Separated 20 16 20

Education No school or no stage completed 16 42 21

Elementary or intermediate completed 39 28 37

Secondary (high school) or higher completed 45 30 42

Employment status Wage work 21 17 20

Farm work 1 8 2

Enterprises 20 16 19

Unemployed 9 7 9

Out of labor force 49 53 50

Wealth index Poor 24 65 31

Middle 37 21 34

Rich 39 14 35

Physical or psychological illness of prolonged nature

Yes 14 15 14

No 86 85 86

Total 100 100 100

Sample size 393 444 837

The educational level completed by the interviewed RSI varied quite much. As many as 45 percent of the urban RSIs completed secondary high school or higher education, while it was 30 percent in rural area. While almost half of RSI completed secondary or higher education, one- fifth of the RSIs have never been in school or did not complete elementary school. In rural area, as many as 43 percent were never in school or did not complete any level; while in urban area, it was 18 percent. As to the employment status, one fifth of the RSIs were wage earners, and another one-fifth was self-employed or worked in family business. Only 2 percent worked mainly as agricultural work, even in rural area, only 8 percent reported their main activity to be farming.

Half of the interviewed RSIs were out of labor force, while 8 percent were unemployed.

One third of RSIs belonged to each tertile group of wealth index, which was calculated for each interviewed households. Rural RSIs were in relatively poor situation: while only 14 percent of the rural RSIs were among the richest group, 65 percent of the rural respondents were among the poorest. Finally, 14 percent of the RSIs reported to have Physical or psychological illness of prolonged nature.

Table 5 describes the characteristics of the RSIs and what type of work they mainly were involved in the last 12 months. However, many people were engaged in more than one activity.

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Table 6 describes how 17 percent who specified their main activity to be wage work during the last 12 months also conducted additional wage or self-employment activities. Among the people who were self-employed, as many as 40 percent conducted wage work or agricultural work in addition to their private business. Among the people who had agricultural work as their main activity only seven percent conducted this type of activity alone. However, among the population that did not have a job or were out of the labour force, few conducted any type of income related activities.

Table 6 Main employment status of RSI by reported activities

Main employment status in the last 12 months (%)

All work activities conducted in the last

12 months Wage work Agricultural

work¹

Self employed

Un- employed³

Out of labor force⁴

Total

No work -² - - 87 83 49

Wage work 83 - - 9 8 22

Agricultural work* - 7 - 0 0 0

Self-employed - - 60 1 5 14

Wage and agricultural work* 4 47 - 0 0 2

Wage and self 11 - 35 0 2 10

Self-employed and agricultural work - 27 4 3 1 2

Wage, agricultural work and self-

employed 2 20 1 0 0 1

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100

Sample size 147 39 159 64 428 837

1On household farms owned by own family (farm work on for others is considered as wage work)

2- Not possible

3 Not working last 12 months, searching for work last seven days

4Not working last 12 months, not searching for work last seven days

As described in Table 6 one of the coping strategies of the people in Risaralda is to be involved in a number of different activities. The story of Robert, who worked both as self-employed and as a wage worker on short term contracts describes this.³

Robert, the construction worker

Robert had his own construction business. However, he was not always able to provide for his family of eight people on the income from his private business, and they struggled from time to time to make the ends meet. Although his main preference was to work as an entrepreneur in his own business, but he had to conduct other types of labor when the contracts were difficult to find.

They had received some aid from both their extended family and from the government, which had made it possible to build a house for the household. He worked from time to time as a coffee collector during the harvest period; however, this was seasonal and

3 Interview conducted by main researcher during the fieldwork in Colombia

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therefore not sustainable income. He lived in the outskirt a semi-urban town, and commuted into town two days per week to work as a wage worker at the market square butchery. He was the only one in the household with an income. His wife and his sister-in- law had conducted technical education courses in areas such as baking and pastry making, but had not been able to find work at the time of the interview.

Chapter 4 Results

In this chapter, we will present the main results. Section 4.1 presents determinants of labor force participation among the population aged 18 and above. The relationship between jobs and the household wealth are explored in section 4.2. Section 4.3 deals with perception about job types and how this differs by different social categories. Section 4.4 presents job benefits to wage workers. Job satisfactions assessed from different perspectives are presented in section 4.5. The role of job in empowering people is presented in section 4.6. The last section presents how having a job influences social trust and confidence in institutions.

4.1 Determinants of labor force participation

The previous section discussed characteristics of people in and outside the labor force. In this section, we will investigate the features of individuals that are relevant for labor force participation. We conducted a logistic regression for the population in age group 18-65 and the results are shown in Table 7 below.

Table 7 Logistic regression of labor force participation

Variables Estimate Std. Error P-value³ Odds

ratio

Female, compared to Male -1.789 0.123 0.000 ** 0.167

Age 0.146 0.026 0.000 ** 1.157

Age squared -0.204 0.032 0.000 ** 0.998

Elementary completed¹ -0.015 0.000 0.932 0.985

Intermediate completed¹ -0.106 0.170 0.609 0.899

Secondary or higher level completed¹ 0.500 0.208 0.004 ** 1.649 Slightly difficult health condition² -1.063 0.174 0.000 ** 0.345

Difficult health condition² -0.584 0.000 0.112 0.558

Household size -0.100 0.275 0.252 0.905

Dependency ratio 0.069 0.367 0.802 1.072

Wealth index -0.208 0.087 0.003 ** 0.812

Urban compared to rural -0.107 0.277 0.384 0.898

Constant 1.696 0.070 0.003 5.450

-2 Log likelihood 2016.53

1 Compared to No Education; ²Compared to No health problems; ³Significant at 5% level are starred.

Household population 18-65 years old, n=1933

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The logistic regression model shows that women are less likely to participate in the labor market as compared to men exhibited by the negative and significant relationship with likelihood of labor force participation. This is in line with the descriptive observation made earlier in that women are mainly working in their own home. In addition, this is in line with the modern, global economy where the women tend to occupy the lowest paying and the most unstable jobs. In Colombia more than 80 percent of the female workers receive less than the legal minimum wage Higher education is key for labor force participation

Secondary or higher education is positively related to probability of participating in the labor force. The relatively insignificant but negative relationship of lower level education shows the relative importance of having a higher education to participate in the labor market.

As in other countries there is a slight lag between studies and the availability of workforce for a specific sector. In a way there is a greater offer of professionals to match the needs of business and employers alike this has led to positions that are occupied by individuals whose preparation and studies are above the required fields for a certain job description. On the other hand there are also job offers that offset the requirements for the available job market, for example there may be a job offer for a company director under 30 years old with 5 or 7 years of experience and a masters at minimum to occupy a position which is almost impossible to fill.

Health matters

Self-reported chronic health status of individuals is a key indicator that determines labor force participation. The reported chronic health status is classified into three categories: individuals who has no reported health problem; individuals with slightly difficult health situation in that they have reported health problem but are less hindered to go out on their own; individuals who have health problems that makes it difficult to move around by themselves. Individuals with slightly difficult health conditions are less likely to participate in the labor force.

Less participation for the wealthier

Wealth of individuals as measured by using a wealth index constructed from the list of assets is found to be negatively related to the likelihood of labor force participation. This may be an indication of preference for leisure.

Household size, Dependency ratio and Location

These indicators are found to have statistically insignificant relationship with that of labor force participation. However, as indicated by the signs, household size negatively influences the likelihood of labor force participation. On the other hand, when the dependency ratio increases, individuals are highly likely to participate in the labor force. Urban dwellers are less likely to participate in the labor force.

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Higher employment not significantly contribute to household economy

Table 8 shows the ranking of households‟ wealth index in all the interviewed households in Risaralda by the proportion of employed members in the household. It indicates that in urban area, households were slightly better-off when more people were employed in the households.

But the differences between the groups were not large. However, in rural area, the number of household members employed did not have apparent correlation with households‟ wealth. The households with all the members employed were poorer than other households, while the households with over 40 percent of the members employed but not all were relatively well-off.

Table 8 Household wealth index by proportion of employed persons

Proportion of members employed

Wealth index tertile (%)

Total (%) Sample size Poor

third Mid third Rich third

Urban

No employed member 23 48 29 100 114

0.01 to 0.40 25 38 37 100 154

0.41 to 0.99 23 32 45 100 114

All are employed 24 30 46 100 46

Total 24 39 38 100 428

Rural

No employed member 63 27 10 100 83

0.01 to 0.40 67 24 9 100 152

0.41 to 0.99 64 16 20 100 153

All are employed 81 10 10 100 83

Total 68 19 13 100 471

Employment type related more with households’ economic situation

The households‟ wealth was related with the type of work conducted by the household, as illustrated in Table 9. Households that conducted agricultural activities had low wealth index: 86 percent of them were in the poorest group, while only 7 percent were in the middle and 8 percent were in the richest group. When household members conducted salary work together with self- employment or family business in rural area, the households were more likely among the well- offs. Only one third of the rural households whose members had both wage work and family or self-employed business were among the poorest, while 28 percent were among the richest. In the urban area, the type of employment did not play such big roles in improving household economic situation as that in rural area. But households with wage employment or both salary work and self-employment were relatively better-off than those with only self-employment. That is, 42 percent of the households with wage employment were among the richest, and only 18 percent were among the poorest; while 36 percent of those only had self-employment or family business were among the poorest.

The households without any employed members were not found to have particularly difficult economic situation, except that relatively fewer of them in the urban area were in the richest

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group of wealth index. However, around 40 percent of the households without any employed members had some members who were looking for job, and the rest of them had relatively few members in working age. They might rely mostly on pension or assistances. Furthermore, wealth index measures households‟ long-run economic condition, while the income might correlates more closely with the employment, but measures short-term situation. Therefore, these households did not stand out as the most difficult ones.

Table 9 Household wealth index by employment status

Location Wealth index tertile (%)

Total (%) Sample size

Poor Mid Rich

Urban

No employment 23 48 29 100 114

Only wage employ 18 40 42 100 158

Only self-employment 36 29 36 100 53

Wage employment and self-employment 26 31 43 100 103

Total 23 39 38 100 428

Rural

No employment 63 27 10 100 83

Only wage employ 70 17 13 100 175

Only self-employment 47 33 20 100 41

Agriculture together with other

employment 86 7 7 100 121

Wage employment and self-employment 33 39 28 100 51

Total 67 20 13 100 471

4.3 Perception about job types

Randomly selected individuals were asked to choose from eight different types of professions and rank them according to their preference. This is in order to understand job stereotyping that will shed light on features of good jobs by ranking them across three different dimensions:

preference for them, most important to society and easiest to pursue.

The preferred jobs are different in the urban and the rural setting. The most preferred job in the urban areas of Risaralda was to work as a government employee. More than 30 percent of the men and more than 20 percent of the women answered that this would be their first choice of work (Figure 2). This is not surprising, as a job as a government employee would offer them a steady income and make the income more predictable. Pereira, the capital of Risaralda, is a city that struggle with high unemployment and insecure income sources. Secure income is therefore attractive. The same is the case for the preference of being a teacher and a doctor. These are jobs that require skills and that offer a regular income. In addition, being a shop owner is a much preferred job both in the urban and the rural areas. In particular, the women responded that they preferred the job as a shop owner.

In rural Risaralda, being a farmer is the most preferred job among the male population. Although the access to own land is difficult and most people involved in farming activities are wage workers, this is the most preferred job by more than 20 percent of the respondents.

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Figure 2 Preferred job by location and gender⁴

Figure 3 shows a map of people‟s preference of jobs, by a number of characteristics among the population using multivariable correspondence analysis. The characteristics which are related have a short separating distance, while characteristics that are not linked are spread apart.

The plot shows that each of the work categories falls in its own quadrant. Quadrant I can be labeled „the rural, poor and excluded‟, this group was not part of the labor force and lived in the rural areas and had a low level of education. Quadrant II can be labeled „the young and unemployed‟ as the characteristics of this group were that they were aged between 18 and 34 years and not employed. Quadrant III can be labeled „the rich wage workers‟. They were living in the urban areas; they lived well and worked as wage employers. Quadrant IV can be labeled „the self-made man‟ and they were male self-employed workers aged 50 and above. The findings in Figure 3 show that the young and unemployed preferred jobs that required education, such as to be a doctor, a teacher or a government employer. On the other hand, the self-made men preferred to work as a farmer, a carpenter or as a taxi driver. In general they preferred professions that do

4 n=794 adults 18-65 years of age in Risaralda, Colombia: January 2012

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not necessary require formal education, but rather experience, access to land or access to a vehicle. Among the rich wage workers and the rural, poor and excluded, the findings revealed weaker preferences to what type of job they preferred.

Figure 3 Job preferences in relation to location, gender, job status, age, education and socio-economic status. Multivariate correspondence analysis

On the question of what job that is easiest to pursue, shop owner range high across all categories.

In particular in the urban area this is considered most accessible to the people. In the city, people can start small businesses either on the street or as a part of their house. It does not necessary require a location or to rent a venue, nor does it require formal education.

In the rural areas, the gender difference regarding what people consider easiest to pursue is quite visible (Figure 4). Almost 40 percent of the men answered that farming was the easiest job to pursue, whereas 40 percent of the women answered that to become a shop owner is the job they find easiest to pursue.

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Figure 4 Job type easiest to pursue by location and gender⁵

Figure 5 shows a map of what the population in Risaralda found easiest to pursue, using multivariable correspondence analysis, as described for Figure 3. The job statuses are in the same quadrant as in Figure 3, and the labels are the same as described above.

The findings in Figure 5 shows similar trends as described in Figure 3; the young and unemployed population perceived it easiest to pursue professions that require a university degree and have ambitions to work as doctors, teachers or government employees. They had higher ambitions in terms of academic jobs and did not seem to neither prefer nor pursue jobs that are manual, such as being a farmer, a carpenter or a taxi driver. The self-made man found the same categories of jobs he preferred to have to be the ones that were easiest to pursue. On the other hand, the wage workers did not seem to have strong preferences on what jobs they found easy to pursue, and the same was the case among the people outside the labor force.

5 n=764 adults 18-65 years of age in Risaralda, Colombia 2012

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Figure 5 What job that is easiest to pursue in relation to location, gender, job status, age, education and socio-economic status. Multivariate correspondence analysis

The response to what type of job is most important for the society is quite similar across location and gender (Figure 6). Doctors and teachers rank the highest, followed by government

employment and farmers. Taxi drivers, hair dressers, carpenters and shop owners are ranked low along the dimension of importance for society.

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Figure 6 Most important job by location and gender⁶

4.4 Job benefits for wage workers

In this section, we will describe job associated benefits for wage employees. This will help assess the labor market situation for wage employees in addition to providing a basis for assessing job satisfaction in the subsequent sections. All wage employees with long term contract receive health insurance from their employers. In addition to health insurance, pension after retirement, transportation allowance and learning opportunities are provided to employees with long term contracts. Job benefits is strongly related to the type of job contract a person has and as can be seen from Table 10, employees with long term wage contract has more benefits as compared to employees with short term contracts (less than one year).

6 n=795 adults 18-65 years of age in Risaralda, Colombia: January 2012

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Table 10 Benefits from employer by contract status

Job related benefits Short term contract (%) Long term contract (%)*

Health insurance from employer 25 100

Pension after retirement 23 98

Transportation allowances 26 87

Learning opportunities 34 78

Maternity leave 24 69

Bonuses 24 62

School fees 4 48

Free meals 39 30

Housing allowances 2 15

Unemployment benefits 1 14

Stock shares 5 14

Sample size 83 62

* Long term contract=contract for one year or more

The contrast between benefits for employees with long and short term contracts becomes sharp when the number of benefits provided is taken into account. To this end, long-term contract employees have large number of benefits as compared to short term contract employees (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Distribution of benefits among wage workers⁷

All wage workers were asked about their access to different benefits and their evaluation on the different work benefits. Around 12 to 18 percent of the respondents were not willing to pay for the benefits, while around half of the respondents could not tell how much they would like to pay for each work benefit. People acknowledged the value of the work benefits, but most found it difficult to measure such work benefits in monetary value.

7 n=140 wageworkers in Risaralda, Colombia: Jan 2012

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Even though, the work benefits had actually quite high correlation with people‟s satisfaction in the work. All the interviewed wage earners were classified into one of the four groups, according to their accesses to different work benefits. The work benefits here refer to the list of benefits in Table 10. Among all the wage workers, 12 percent did not have any benefits connected to their work, one-fifth had 1 to 2 types of work benefits, and 30 percent had 3 to 5 or 6 to 8 work benefits, respectively. Only 8 percent wage workers had more than 8 kinds of work benefits.

In Figure 8 these four groups of people and their satisfaction with job stability, form of contract, training and skill development, social status from job, potential for future personal development and level of income are listed. The answers “very satisfied” and “somewhat satisfied” were grouped to be presented as “satisfied” for all the questions. This group of people who enjoyed most work benefits was most satisfied with almost all aspects of their work, and in particular satisfied with job stability and form of contract. However they were least satisfied with their income. Their satisfaction with their income was only slight less than those who had 6 to 8 work benefits, but higher than those who had very little access to work benefits. People who had relatively more work benefits (4 to 7 work benefits) were least satisfied with the potential of their work for their future personal development. Those who had very limited or no access to the work benefits were most dissatisfied with the form of work contract. Among those who did not have any access to the work benefits, only 30 or 40 percent of people reported to be satisfied with different aspects of their job.

Figure 8 Satisfaction and number of job benefits

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Job satisfaction is an indicator of workers‟ happiness and is in a number of studies shown to be good both for workers and employers. Workers that are satisfied have positive organizational behavior and tend to perform better and are more likely to receive rewards realized in the form of promotion and pay rises (Clark and Oswald 1996, Diener and Seligman 2004, Fassina et al 2008).

In this study, workers were asked about their satisfaction with difference facets of their job.

Overall, 58 percent of the people with employment in Risaralda were somewhat or very satisfied with their current level of income. The group of people who was most satisfied with their current income was contract workers and as Figure 9 illustrates did 67 percent report that they were somewhat or very satisfied with their salary. The group that reported the least satisfaction was the people who were working in a family enterprise: 45 percent reported that they were somewhat unsatisfied or not satisfied with their current income. However, the people who reported the highest satisfaction with their work hours were the people without contracts (Figure 9).

Figure 9 Level of satisfaction by work categories

The level of satisfaction for people between people who were hired with and without contract was different regarding the level of job stability and opportunities for training and skills development. As many as 90 percent of the people who were hired with contract reported that they were somewhat or very satisfied with their job stability, compared to 68 percent among people who were hired without a contract. Only six percent of people with contract responded that they were somewhat satisfied with their job stability, and no one reported that they were not satisfied at all. This was different from the people hired without a contract, where 28 percent reported that they were somewhat unsatisfied or not satisfied at all with their job stability.

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The satisfaction with potential opportunities for both training and skills development opportunities varied between the contract workers and people with no contract. This is not surprising as wageworkers without contract more often tend to change work and therefore do not have the time or the capacity to develop new skills in the trades they are involved in. In the rural areas, a common non-contract employment is to help the farmers with the harvest. This is a trade known to most people as manual and repetitive work that does not encourage further development.

Figure 10 Level of satisfaction by workers with and without contract

Among the various aspects in which people have evaluated their level of satisfaction, we focus on three facets: satisfaction with their level of income; satisfaction in their job potential for future development and satisfaction in social status they obtain from their job. We conducted ordered logit regression analysis on each of these satisfaction indicators that are measured as a single index on likert scale (1=not at all satisfied, 2=somewhat satisfied, 3=neither, 4=somewhat satisfied, 5=very satisfied.)

The job satisfaction-age relationship is U-shaped; other things being equal, job satisfaction initially declines with age, but then tends to increase after the turning point is reached. This result is consistent with findings reported in earlier studies: the youngest and oldest workers tend to have highest job satisfaction (Clark et al 1996). In addition, as wealth increased the level of satisfaction the level of income also increased. Satisfaction on level of income was also

Perceptions of Good Jobs