Measuring the unmeasurable: defining and rating precarity with the aid of EU-LFS data

Precarity has been established as a central theoretical issue in labour market research and numerous attempts have been made in the past to provide indicators that measure it. Precarity has also been present in political discourse and linked to specific new forms of employment (temporary, part-time, insecure, and atypical amongst others) and certain social groups often defined as vulnerable groups (youth, women, ethnic minorities). However, precarity still remains a phenomenon that needs to be quantified with the use of reliable data. The present paper aims at providing a methodology for measuring individuals that are in precarious employment with data drawn from the EU-Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). Thus, it presents a way of identifying individuals in the core of precarity and others that belong to this set to a lesser degree. More specifically, four different levels of precarity are identified and the methodology is illustrated and tested for a specific case study, that of Greece. However, the proposed technique can be applied with no or minor modifications to other data sets of EU member states, where the common EU-LFS questionnaire is used. An effort is also made to recognise the socio-demographic characteristics of the individuals that are identified as being precarious belonging to the four levels of precarity and to specify their differences. The analysis yields that as we move from the fist level of weak precarity to the last one of strong precarity the individuals become younger, worse paid and better educated.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43545-023-00651-5.