Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractEffort-biased technological change and other explanations for work intensification are investigated. It is hypothesised that technological and organizational changes are one important source of work intensification and supportive evidence is found using establishment data for Britain in the 1990s. Work intensification has also been stimulated by the use of highcommitment human resource policies. A reduction in union power, and a rise in the use of temporary agency workers and contractors, were positively associated with work intensification; however, their impact during the 1990s was comparatively modest.JEL Classification: J22, J33 and J51.

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Two theories of over-qualification are considered, namely mismatch, whereby workers do not find the most appropriate jobs for their skills, because of imperfect information or labour market rigidities, and 'heterogeneous workers', whereby individuals with the same qualifications have different actual skill levels, so that they can be over-qualified in terms of formal qualifications, while their skills are actually appropriate for the jobs that they do. The evidence suggests that both theories are relevant in certain situations.

Employability strongly moderates the effects of unemployment and of job insecurity on life satisfaction and mental health. Using nationally representative panel data from Australia, I find that an increase in employability from zero to 100% cancels around three quarters, in some cases more, of the detrimental effect of unemployment. Employability also matters for employees: an increase in men's employability from zero to 100% reduces the detrimental effect of job insecurity by more than half. The effects of extreme job insecurity and of unemployment are large and of comparable magnitudes. The findings are used to compute estimates of the well-being trade-off between increases in job insecurity and increases in employability, relevant to the support of "flexicurity" policies, and of the "misery multiplier", the extent to which the effect of a rise in aggregate unemployment on those becoming unemployed is supplemented by the effects on others' insecurity and employability.

This paper presents evidence on trends in work pressure in late twentieth-century Britain. The main findings are: (1) Average hours of work levelled off at the start of the 1980s, following a long historic fall, but have not increased since. However, the dispersion of hours has increased, and working hours have been concentrated into fewer households. (2) Work effort has been intensified since 1981. Intensification was greatest in manufacturing during the 1980s, and in the public sector during the 1990s. (3) Between 1986 and 1997 there have been substantial increases in the number of sources of pressure inducing hard work from employees. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2001.