With respect to the content of work and work opportunities, having work autonomy and learning opportunities, such as on-the-job training, are crucial in a job. They provide a sense of self-worth and are conducive to personal accomplishment. Jobs that lack a sense of responsibility or self-worth may become a psychological burden, and mental health is closely linked to job quality (Cottini and Lucifora 2013).

Because of data limitations, the paper includes only a subset of the desired characteristics of working conditions: working excessive hours, holding a second paid job, and possessing a desire to work more. The number of hours of work is readily available across surveys. Excessive work hours are defined by the ILO as work of more than 48 hours a week. This variable may be considered a good proxy for mental health and work-life balance. The justification for using the second paid job indicator is that, because of better physical and mental health, workers with one job are, overall, more highly satisfied than workers with multiple jobs (Smith et al. 2008). If respondents would like to work more, this is indicative of a poor employment situation and dissatisfaction with the current job. Indicators on health and safety issues at work, the content of work, and work opportunities are typically not available in labor force or household surveys and, therefore, cannot be included.<sup>15</sup> Unlike the three previous dimensions whereby only one indicator needed to be satisfied to achieve success, _the working conditions dimension requires all indicators to be satisfied to achieve success_ . This union approach means a job is considered satisfactory to the individual if the individual does not work excessive hours, does not work a second paid job, and would not like to work more.<sup>16</sup> Collective interest representation is sometimes considered a key determinant of basic rights at work and an important source of subjective job satisfaction, and it has been included in some JQMs (ILO 2008; Leschke and Watt 2014). Another view is that labor organizing and bargaining rights are important, but are not job quality outcomes per se. Others argue that, instead of including these indicators in the JQMs, it is useful to analyze the relationship between good jobs and unionization (Brummund, Mann, and Rodríguez-Castelán 2018; Sehnbruch et al. 2020). In Latin American countries, Brummund, Mann, and Rodríguez-Castelán (2018) find that union membership is associated with high levels of job quality, but that a small share of workers (7 percent) in general are unionized. Data limitations prevent a similar analysis from being conducted here.

# **b. The Alkire-Foster method**

The selected method for measurement and aggregation across dimensions adapts the Alkire-Foster theoretical framework originally developed as an approach for measuring multidimensional poverty (Alkire and Foster 2011). This method assigns indicators to each dimension and defines deprivation cutoffs (threshold levels of each indicator). If individuals are below the deprivation cutoff in a dimension, they are considered deprived in that dimension. The deprivation indicators of each of the dimensions are then aggregated for each individual, creating a multidimensional measure of poverty.

> 15 These indicators are likely to be correlated, though, with other indicators included in the measure of job quality. For example, health and safety issues may be correlated with working excessive hours. Also, informal learning may be proxied ex post by years of experience in a given job, included as tenure in the job stability dimension, and a potential proxy for formal learning is whether the employer is a formal firm, also included in the job stability category. Informal firms employ a predominantly low-skill workforce, have lower access to financing and capital markets and services and are thus less likely to invest in the human capital of their workers (Ohnsorge and Yu 2021). Moreover, learning opportunities at work are not only fulfilling in their own right, but also offer a path to more well-paying jobs and more job opportunities that increase job security (Cazes, Hijzen, and Saint-Martin 2016; Lagakos et al. 2018).

> 16 Missing data for one of the three indicators do not preclude success, which is then based on fulfilling all available indicators.

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