Fragmentation of Employment Patterns: Conceptualizing Job Quality in the Context of Multiple Jobholding

Labour market research on job quality has traditionally been designed to study individuals with a single job. However, in an increasingly specialized, fragmented and flexible world of work, a key question emerges: do the current concepts and indicators of job quality adequately capture the complexities of multiple jobholding? This chapter begins by drawing insights from the existing literature on job quality from different fields, including the sociology of work and occupations, occupational psychology, labour economics, organization studies and industrial relations. It then explores the applicability of current job quality frameworks to multiple jobholders, considering how aspects of job quality across different roles may enhance, neutralize or deteriorate each other – a dynamic largely underexplored in the literature to date. The chapter ultimately proposes a framework for analysing job quality in the context of multiple jobholding, offering guidance for data collection and fostering theoretical advances at the intersection of job quality and multiple jobholding.