ABSTRACT:In recent years, we have seen how the quality of work life has been focused and defined by the European Commission (EC). In our study we compare the EC definition with the academic one and try to see how close they are. We also analyse the possibility of applying the institutional definition to the Spanish case through the development of specific indicators. Our main conclusions are that QWL is increasingly important for policy makers. In addition, it is essential to have objective indicators and to conduct surveys in order to reliably measure QWL.♣ The results presented in this study were obtained within the framework of the project "Estudio Manpower Professional. Calidad Laboral", funded by Manpower Professional. Of course, any errors are our own.

Quality of work life, Job satisfaction, European Union, Lisbon Strategy,

A convergence analysis is applied to wages and productivity for Euro-area countries in the period from 1981 to 2001. The results show a reduction in the dispersion of wages and unit labour costs, but not in productivity. Different patterns are found for real and nominal wages: higher levels of inflation in countries with higher growth rates of unit labour costs have caused nominal wages to move towards equalization. Moreover, disparities in all the variables have remained more or less the same since 1997, suggesting that the establishment of a single currency area has not accelerated the process of wage equalization.

The objective of this article is to analyse the recent evolution of European Neighbouring countries (ENC) in different dimensions related to economic performance (measured in a broader sense), social progress and institutional reforms. With this aim, we design and build a composite indicator to measure these different dimensions. Next, the index is used to characterise the relative evolution of neighbouring countries compared to a wide sample of developed and developing economies. We also test whether a convergence process has taken place in these different dimensions controlling for the potential effect of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The obtained results show different trends according to the considered dimensions and heterogeneous effects at the country level. From a policy perspective, these results reinforce the validity of the bilateral action plans that have characterized ENP recognising the different starting point and particular characteristics of each neighbouring country.