12th December at 4pm CET / 3pm GMT

Cherise Regier will give a talk on the topic ‘Employees’ Capability for Voice as a Determinant of Wellbeing: An Empirical Evaluation of the Right-to-Disconnect Legislation in Europe.’ Jean-Michel Bonvin, Professor of Sociology and Socioeconomics at the University of Geneva, will be a responder.

The event is open to all and can be accessed via the following Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87313296602?pwd=Zk5WbXNlbmJwVU9NMDFIaTBKa05VUT09

ABSTRACT

Employees’ Capability for Voice as a Determinant of Wellbeing: An Empirical Evaluation of the Right-to-Disconnect Legislation in Europe

Cherise Regier, PhD Candidate in Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at the University of Oxford

Employee voice is a key component of labour power that represents a human capability according to Amartya Sen’s conceptualisation: a real freedom to achieve states of being that one has reason to value. Employees deficient in the capability for voice lack sufficient bargaining power to influence workplace decision-making, which threatens their wellbeing by increasing their risk of exposure to work-related stressors and limiting their opportunities to improve their welfare. In this presentation, I will present a comprehensive framework for the evaluation of employee voice legislation (a necessary social conversion factor for employees’ capability for voice) based on Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach. I will then operationalise this framework to empirically evaluate the Right-to-Disconnect legislation across Europe between 2008 and 2020 utilizing a dynamic difference-in-difference model. This legislation has become an increasingly common response among Governments to reduce accounts of work intensification from digital overconnectivity to protect employee wellbeing, but there is limited evidence to support that these laws are achieving this objective. The results indicate an overall positive treatment effect on multiple dimensions of employee wellbeing, and reveals employees’ capability for voice as a potential mechanism driving heterogeneity in outcomes across treated countries and over time.

Cherise’s paper on this topic was recently published in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities and is available here:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19452829.2023.2266691?src=.

Organized by the Work and Employment Thematic Group