The Quality of Working Life: Is Scandinavia Different? Paper presented at the 22nd InternationalWorking

There have been marked differences between countries in the importance that governments and the social partners of industry have attached to quality of working life issues. In particular, these themes have been much more salient in the public discourse of the Scandinavian societies than in other European societies. But did such policy commitments translate into effective differences in the experience of working life? Hitherto there has been insufficient comparative evidence for any serious attempt to assess this. However, a new survey providing data that is comparable for all of the European Union countries offers the opportunity for a tentative assessment of the implications of such policy differences. The paper compares employees ’ perceptions of the quality of working tasks, the degree of involvement in decision-making, career opportunities and job security to see whether Denmark, Sweden and Finland have a distinctive pattern from other European Union countries