Job Quality and Well-Being: Evidence from DR Congo

Abstract

In the context of dualism of the labor market —informal sector labor market and formal sector labor market—this study assessed the impact of job quality on worker’s well-being. Using the first stage of the 2012 national survey data 1-2-3, preliminary results revealed that among 1443 employees, 85.44% were working in the informal sector whereas 14.56% in the formal sector. Given its multidimensional characteristics, the job quality was measured by six components such as job security, existence of union, training, employer’s support, working hours and promotion. In terms of contribution of each dimension, the Multiple Component Analysis was applied and based on the finding, we have selected the first three components with 46%, 39% and 15% respectively as a contribution to the construction of the job quality index. On the other hand, the well-being was measured by worker’s income and two classes— poor employee and non-poor employees—were created using the 2012 monetary threshold according to the place of residence. We estimated afterwards the logit model. Our results have revealed that the effect of job quality was significantly positive on worker’s well-being in both cases workers from Informal Sector and all workers irrespectively of their sector. In formal sector, the evidence of the significant impact of job quality was statistically rejected. The main explanation of this finding can be imputed to the job quality level which was already high in formal sector compared to informal sector. Furthermore, for all workers, this result was a consequence of the dominant effect of job quality on worker’s well-being in informal sector on that in formal sector. In view of above findings, there is a need of controlling and strengthening the job quality in informal sector for an increase in job security index by one unit, the probability that worker’s well-being increases is 0.38.