Job quality and inequality: The unequal world of work in the UK, 19862012

© 2016 The Authors. Juncture © 2016 IPPR Juncture \ Volume 22 \ ISSUE 4 Following the slow decline in headline unemployment since the Great Recession, the issue of the quality of jobs in Britain has come increasingly to the fore. Average wages have fallen in real terms since 2008. With declining benefits, families become yet more dependent on their pay packets for meeting living costs, and even the Conservatives have felt the need to embrace the ‘living wage’ strategy to try to redress the balance for the poorest households. But beyond wages themselves, the British workplace is, for many, a place of stress, with 9.9 million days continuing to be lost for this reason every year.1 It is not only that wages have been falling but other elements of job quality have seemingly also deteriorated, with the spread of high work intensity and low workplace autonomy.