Since its launch in 1990, the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) has provided an overview of working conditions in Europe.
European Working Conditions Survey 2005
Data from the fourth European Working Conditions Survey provides a unique insight into the views of around 30,000 workers in 31 countries on a wide range of issues including work organisation, working time, equal opportunities, training, health & safety and job satisfaction.
The EWCS 2005 survey was carried out using the same methodology as in previous instances and is based on a questionnaire containing a core of common questions, allowing meaningful comparisons to be made between this survey and previous editions. Obviously, the comparative analysis is limited to those countries that were EU Member States at the time each successive survey was carried out. Country comparisons should be made with caution as the distribution of the workforce differs widely between countries.
Conducting an international survey in many different countries and languages was very demanding in terms of organisational planning and procedures. In order to ensure that the survey was carried out to the highest specifications and scientific standards, a detailed methodological framework was put in place.
The survey was conducted between 19 September and 30 November 2005.
Nearly 30,000 individual workers were interviewed in 31 countries: the EU 27 Member States plus Turkey, Croatia, Norway and Switzerland.
Face-to-face interviews in the workers' homes.
The questionnaire was translated into 26 different languages and 15 language variants.
A dashboard for this survey round is currently not available. Please refer to newer rounds of the survey to access data visualisations.
Over 80% of workers say they are ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with working conditions in their job.
80% of workers say they are satisfied with their work–life balance, although more than 44% of those working long hours – over 48 hours a week – report being unhappy with their work–life balance.
Around 5% of workers say they have experienced violence, or bullying or harassment in the workplace. Workers in the education and health sector are six times more likely to have encountered the threat of physical violence than their counterparts in the manufacturing sector.
78% of European employees work under an indefinite-term or open-ended contract.
The services sector is the largest sector in the EU27 and is still growing: it employs around 66% of EU workers.
High-skilled jobs (both blue and white collar) account for more than half (55%) of all jobs in Europe.
One quarter of all workers reports having to work at very high speed all or nearly all of the time.
More than 60% of workers are able to choose or change the order in which they perform tasks, their speed of work or their working methods.
Public sector workers are twice as likely to receive training as those in the private sector (41% and 21% respectively).
While men work longer than women in paid employment in all countries, women work more hours than men if paid and unpaid working hours are combined.
Telework remains marginal: fewer than 2% of workers telework full time. A further 4% do occasional telework (between one quarter and three quarters of the time).
The two most common risks for men and women are repetitive hand/arm movements and working in painful or tiring positions: over 62% make repetitive hand/arm movements a quarter of the time or more, while 46% work in painful or tiring positions.
One quarter of all workers work at least some of the time outside their company’s premises; they tend to associate such work with a higher level of risk to their health and safety.
Women are more likely to work in low-paid jobs than are men, partly because they work part time more often than do men.
Part-time and non-permanent workers are less likely to have received training than their full-time, permanent colleagues – 25% of part-time and 23% of non-permanent employees receive training, compared to around 30% of full-time and permanent employees.
This section provides further information targeted in particular at researchers.
The following publications were produced in relation to the EWCS 2005.
Methodology
Comparability and reliability of information are key requirements when carrying out cross-national investigations. With this in mind, a unified methodological approach and a quality assurance system was developed in an effort to provide comparable and reliable data on working conditions across Europe. Over the years, methods have been improved, new concerns integrated and geographic scopes expanded with the enlargement of the European Union.
The latest outcome of such intensive cross-national research is the fourth European Working Conditions Survey, conducted in 2005 by Eurofound in close cooperation with its data collection contractor GALLUP Europe.
Contractor
Gallup Europe
Coverage
Almost 30,000 European workers were interviewed in 31 countries (all EU25 Member States plus Bulgaria, Croatia, Norway, Romania, Turkey and Switzerland), answering more than 100 items on a wide range of issues regarding their employment situation and working conditions.
Fieldwork period
Between 19 September and 30 November 2005
Target population
Active population of the respective nationalities of the EU Member States, candidate countries, Norway and Switzerland, and aged 15 years and over, resident in each of the countries
Sample
The basic sample design is a multi-stage, random sampling. In each country, a number of sampling points are drawn with probability proportional to population size (for a total coverage of the country) and to population density.
Sample size
The target number of interviews was 1,000 in all countries except Cyprus, Estonia, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovenia, in which it was 600. Total: 29,680 interviews.
Type of interview
Face to face, at home (i.e. outside the workplace)
Quality Assurance
Preparation of the fourth survey included the review of the EWCS statistical production process and the design of a strict quality assurance framework relying on current best methods. The production process was examined, sub processes identified, actors’ roles described, performance targets fixed and performance indicators selected and monitored. The quality assurance framework has guided the implementation of the fourth survey. Quality control was performed by internal and external agents.
The questionnaire for the European Working Conditions Survey 2005 was developed with a view to:
maintaining the balance between the different blocks of questions
retaining core 'trend' questions to ensure continuity
identifying new and emerging areas of interest falling within the scope of the survey
This is a crucial activity in the survey preparatory phase as it impacts on the quality of the results.
The questionnaire includes questions on age, gender, marital status, activities at home, country, sector and company size as well as questions on the employment situation (working time, work organisation, job demands, working with a computer, etc.).
Questionnaire development
The questionnaire was developed and reviewed by Eurofound’s then Working Conditions team in close cooperation with an expert questionnaire development group. The expert group included members of the Eurofound's Governing Board, representatives of the European Social Partners, other EU bodies (EU Commission, Eurostat, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work), international organisations (OECD, ILO), national statistical institutes as well as leading European experts in the field. This expert group met three times during the preparation phase. Interviews were conducted in the national languages of each country.
The questionnaire was translated into 27 different languages, with nine of these used in more than one country.
The translation process implemented for the survey was based on current good practice in the multilingual translation of international survey questionnaires: for trend questions, existing translations from previous surveys were retained except in a small number of cases where problems were identified and new revised translations introduced.
For new and modified questions, the English master version was subject to parallel translation into the main target languages by independent translators familiar with survey research in the working conditions area. These parallel translations were merged into a final draft which was then translated back into English to identify and resolve remaining problems or ambiguities.
Following the 2005 survey, Eurofound carried out a secondary statistical analysis of the data from the fourth EWCS on sector profiles with regard to working conditions in the 27 Member States.
The findings are set out in 26 fact sheets, each covering one of the 26 sectors in the NACE classification. Each fact sheet presents a profile of the sector’s socio-demographic characteristics and a profile of working conditions in the sector, both based on data at NACE at 1 and 2 digit level.
Research report: A sector perspective on working conditions
Eurofound experts
You can contact the following experts for questions on the survey.
Agnès Parent-Thirion
Senior research managerAgnès Parent-Thirion is a senior research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound, tasked with the planning, development and implementation of working conditions research projects, in particular the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) and its analyses. She is responsible for the EWCS 2021 extraordinary edition and for the preparation of the questionnaire for the EWCS 2024. Her research interests include working conditions, job quality, the monitoring of working conditions, work organisation, gender, the future of work and time. She has been working in the area of European comparative surveys for more than a decade, in all aspects including design, questionnaire development, fieldwork, quality control and analysis. She is a graduate in economics and management from Paris IX Dauphine and Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne universities and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Statistics from Trinity College Dublin. She has recently completed online courses on artificial intelligence: inquiry-driven leadership with MIT Sloan Executive Education and ‘Les grand enjeux de la transition: re-ouvrir l'horizon, comprendre pour agir’ with the Campus de la Transition. Before joining Eurofound, she worked for a number of years in the European Commission.
Sophia MacGoris
Surveys officerSophia MacGoris is surveys officer based in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She works on all three of Eurofound's surveys. Having been involved in cross-national surveys for many years, she uses her experience and her transversal role to ensure a continuity of learning and quality assurance to the highest level during the entire survey process. Prior to joining Eurofound in 1996, she worked for several years in the European Commission in Brussels in the area of science, research and development. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Social Science specialising in Social Policy.
