What Is a Good Job? A New Measure of Labor-Market Success

Abstract

No currently available index allows investigators to estimate the overall desirabitlity of specific jobs. With data collected in the 1980 Survey of Job Charactersitics, an index of job desirability (IJD) can be constructed to fill this gap. The IJD incorporates 13 nonmonetary job characteristics along with measures of earnings and weights all job characteristics according to their effects on workers' judgments about how "good" their current jobs are compared with an average job. While earnings are the most important single determinant of a job's desirability, the 13 nonmonetary job characteristics together are twice as important as earnings. Unlike occupational status and earnings, the proposed index explains almost the entire effect of race, sex, educational attainment, and experience on job ratings. It also explains almost all the variation in job ratings provided by workers in different occupations. Furthermore, taking account of nonmonetary job characteristics more than doubles the estimated level of labor-market inequality. White skin, male gender, favorable social origins, high educational attainment, and extensive labor-market experience are also worth two to five times.