Flexible work-arrangements and the quality of life

In the present paper, an attempt has been made to measure the consequences for the quality of life of working with a part-time and/or temporary contract. Quality of life has been defined in a utilitarian and a liberal way. In the utilitarian definition, the quality of life is determined by the extent to which one is happy or satisfied with his or her life. In the liberal definition, it is not happiness which is the chief human end, but living according to one’s own, freely formed, conception of the good life. The liberal definition used in this paper builds on the works of John Rawls and Amartya Sen. In the estimation, cohort effects, the gender-dimension and education-differentials are taken into account. The main conclusions of the research are (i) that temporary work arrangements either on a full-time or on a part-time base decrease the life-satisfaction and, in addition, decrease the capabilities for freely living according to one’s conception of the good-life; (ii) in most cases working part-time increases the life-satisfaction and the capabilities for a high quality of life
in the liberal sense. This holds especially for women.

Keywords: Life-satisfaction, well-being, quality of life, conceptualisation, measurement, nonstandard work-arrangements.