Measuring 'Bad Jobs' Through Worker Wellbeing: New Evidence from South Korea

How do we define a 'bad job'? Moving beyond arbitrary thresholds, a new study published in The Economic and Labour Relations Review applies a novel wellbeing-based methodology to identify bad jobs in South Korea's labour market. Using Korean Working Conditions Survey data (2014-2023), IER's Dr Sangwoo Lee and Emeritus Professor Francis Green (UCL Institute of Education) demonstrate that workers in the bottom decile of job quality experience distinctly larger wellbeing gains when moving above this threshold – providing empirical justification for defining these as 'bad jobs'.

The analysis reveals encouraging trends: bad job prevalence declined sharply from 22% in 2014 to 5-6% by 2017, likely reflecting both economic growth and major labour reforms. The study also uncovers distinctive features of Korea's dual labour market, where the intersection of employment status and firm size creates unique patterns of job quality disadvantage. Notably, the findings differ from European patterns in key ways: bad jobs are less common in large Korean establishments (unlike in Europe), and educational attainment shows particularly strong protective effects at the tertiary level. However, gender patterns converge – men and women face similar bad job risks despite persistent wage gaps.

This is the first application of a wellbeing-based approach to defining bad jobs outside Europe, demonstrating both the international applicability of the method and the importance of national context in understanding labour market quality.