The quality of employment in the early labour market experience of young Europeans

This paper presents a new approach to evaluating individuals’ employment quality, considering the evolution of individuals’ employment conditions over a period of time, instead of the quality of jobs held at a point in time. In particular, we present a new definition of employment quality, based on four dimensions: employment security, income security, income success and occupational success. Using EU-SILC data, we analyse the early labour market experience of young adults and the extent to which the achievement of employment quality around five years after leaving education varies according to gender, education and labour market institutions. Our findings suggest that there is still a pressing need to enhance women’s chances of remaining continuously in employment and to move up in the labour income distribution. Stricter rules on the use of temporary contracts appear to improve youth employment prospects in general, whereas a more stringent regulation of individual dismissals seems to generate some difficulties for high-school and university graduates.