An investigation of job insecurity and life satisfaction in the Albanian labour market and a comparison with other European countries

Drishti, Elvisa ORCID: 0000-0001-6530-1777 (2019). An investigation of job insecurity and life satisfaction in the Albanian labour market and a comparison with other European countries. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This dissertation uses primary and secondary data to investigate how ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forms of employment arrangements (i.e. standard, permanent and full-time jobs and non-standard, temporary and/or part-time jobs) are related to earnings, employment prospects, and quality of life in post-communist Albania.
The first empirical chapter finds that job insecurity undermine employees’ welfare in Albania. This finding motivates the analysis of the next three empirical chapters which investigate the competing ‘steppingstone and entrapment’ hypotheses. The results provide empirical tend to support the entrapment hypothesis. The analysis also finds that non-standard jobs are associated with lower earnings.
While the analysis in this study is mainly focussed on the Albanian labour market, it also extends beyond Albania to labour markets in the European Union (EU). Specifically, in the third empirical chapter, cross-national comparisons are drawn. These indicate that different labour market regulations and welfare regimes (e.g. liberal, social democratic, corporatist, southern-European, and post-Communist) are linked to cross-national variations in job quality.
Additionally, simultaneous use of labour market regulation and flexible forms of employment are found to consistently generate higher unemployment rates. These results highlight the importance of political and socio-economic contexts in Albania and the EU. Since Albania is expected to join the EU (by 2020), these findings have implications for the development of the Albanian labour market which has been labelled one of the poorest performing in Europe.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):