Skill and job quality: Polarisation in a 'liberal' economy?

Theories of ‘varieties of capitalism’ have asserted that ‘liberal’ economies, with their emphasis on the primacy of the market, will be particularly conducive to polarization in job quality between skill groups. This chapter assesses whether there is evidence for this in the case of the UK – which is often taken as an exemplar case of a liberal economy. It focuses on four key aspects of job quality that have been shown to have important implications for employee psychological health – participation at work, opportunities for skill development, work intensity and job insecurity. Examining trends over several decades, it shows that there was no general pattern of polarization between skill groups for any of the dimensions of job quality. The striking feature of evidence is the high degree of stability of differentials between skill groups over time, reflecting the fact that skill is constitutive of employees’ power in the employment relationship.