Calidad de empleo en Costa Rica: evidencia por grupos de edad.

Abstract

Abstract: This document aims to explore the quality of employment in Costa Rica and presents evidence based on age groups. The overall objective of this work was to construct a synthetic indicator that explicitly demonstrates how to assess and compare employment quality in order to identify the population experiencing precarious employment. To this end, the Synthetic Index of Employment Quality (ISCE) was calculated, which is a combination of four dimensions: type of contract, hours worked, salary, and social security affiliation. The data used correspond to the Continuous Employment Survey (ECE) and consider salaried and self-employed workers; the weightings applied to each dimension and each age group are based on the proposal by Farné et al. (2013). The results showed that salaried workers have better job quality than self-employed workers, who, in addition to low job quality, face precarious conditions with low incomes and no social security. Young people (aged 15-24), adults over 49, and women who work independently are in a more precarious situation than adults aged 25-48 and salaried workers, who have a fixed average salary and social security. These findings show that greater formalization is needed to overcome the job insecurity in the country under study.