The Quality of Jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean - Technical Note - October 2024

Jul 19, 2026

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The technical note analyzes patterns of job quality across countries and over time in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). It addresses a measurement gap: while employment levels are often available, job quality is rarely reported systematically. The study applies the Job Quality Index (JQI), combining four employment characteristics—earnings, benefits, security, and satisfaction—to evaluate differences within and across countries. Results show substantial cross-country variation, persistent within-country gaps for women, youth, and rural workers, and strong links between improved job quality and poverty and inequality reduction.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Summary

Motivation and Methods

Rationale for Job Quality Measurement

Ambiguity in Valuing Job Characteristics

Job Quality Index Framework

Earnings

Benefits

Security

Satisfaction

Key Messages

Public Disclosure Authorized Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Technical Note The Quality of Jobs in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean Karen Barreto, Hernan Winkler, Carolina Diaz Bonilla, Diana Sanchez October 2024 Summary The creation of more and better jobs has been a key driver of poverty and inequality reduction. However, while estimates on the number of jobs are available for most countries, comprehensive measures of job quality are not typically reported systematically. This note contributes to the filling of this gap by studying patterns of job quality across countries and overtime in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) . This study uses the Job Quality Index (JQI) based on Brummundi, Mann, and Rodriguez-Castelan (2018), which incorporates four key employment characteristics that are key to assessing job quality: earnings, benefits, security, and satisfaction. Key messages • The JQI exhibits substantial variation across countries, with Chile and Costa Rica leading the region. • Important gaps in job quality also exist within countries, with women, youth, and rural workers having lower-quality jobs. • The employment-to-GDP elasticity grows in most countries when adjusting for job quality; that is, economic growth is not only associated with job creation, but also with the creation of better jobs. • Episodes of poverty and inequality reduction tend to be accompanied with increases in job quality. • Low labor productivity is linked to poorer job quality across the region. 1. Motivation and Methods Changes in employment and earnings have been one of the main drivers of poverty and inequality reduction in LAC over the last decade.1 However, the role of jobs in reducing poverty and inequality goes beyond the level of earnings associated with them. Having social insurance coverage associated with employment can be an important tool for preventing the vulnerable from falling into poverty as they grow old or if they become sick. Accordingly, having stable employment helps protect earnings from the ups and downs of the business cycle. Finally, having a job that is empowering and rewarding can be welfare enhancing on its own beyond the associated monetary compensation (World Bank 2013) . The task of assigning a monetary value to these job characteristics involves a high degree of ambiguity. While the market value of pension, disability, and health benefits or a more secure job can be large, the calculation of each involves several complex decisions. For instance, it requires making strong assumptions about the timing, likelihood, and welfare impacts of illness and family-care responsibilities and how different types of jobs may mitigate or exacerbate to varying degrees such direct impacts. At the same time, the likelihood, timing, and size of these shocks vary across age, area of residence (urban/rural) and educational attainment, as well as gender. This challenge becomes even harder when trying to estimate job quality measures that are comparable across countries and across time. This article adopts the approach to the analysis of job quality developed by Brummundi, Mann, and Rodriguez-Castelan (2018), who aggregate different dimensions of a job into one index, based on a methodology similar to that of multidimensional poverty measurement. This study includes four dimensions to measure job quality. First, it considers whether a job pays high enough earnings, that is, above a minimum level of well-being. Second, it considers whether a job provides benefits such as health insurance and old-age pensions.2 Third, it considers job security, which aims to capture the extent to which workers are protected from becoming poorer during economic downturns. In addition, job security is associated with other positive outcomes such as reduced stress and improved mental health (Watson and Osberg 2018; LaMontagne et al. 2020) . Finally, it considers job satisfaction in order to capture the role of other nonmon

FAQs

What gap does the technical note address?

The note targets the lack of systematic reporting of job quality measures, even though estimates of the number of jobs are available for most countries.

How is job quality measured in the study?

Job quality is measured using the Job Quality Index (JQI), which aggregates four employment characteristics: earnings, benefits, security, and satisfaction.

Which groups are reported to have lower job quality within countries?

Women, youth, and rural workers are identified as having lower-quality jobs, even when cross-country job quality differs.

Jul 19, 2026

Upload by Hazel