SHINE Director, Dr. Eileen McNeely, presented a new paper titled “The Things that Matter Most at Work for Flourishing in Life: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Well-being in Apparel Supply Chain Workers” at ILO’s 6th Regulating for Decent Work conference on Work and Well-being in the 21st Century.
Tamar Koosed and Carlued Leon of Manaus Consulting, as well as, Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Research Associate at SHINE contributed to the paper.
The research team surveyed over 11,000 apparel workers across seven suppliers, 13 garment factories, and five countries between 2017 and 2019. The survey assessed well-being across several dimensions of human flourishing. It also collected information on work resources that workers perceived as supportive to their well-being, such as trust, fairness, respect, and adequate physical working conditions. We benchmarked differences across suppliers and countries. Using cross-sectional data from five countries and longitudinal data from Mexico, we also conducted a multivariate analysis of the work resources that contribute most to flourishing at work and in life.
The research team found that resources affect workers’ ability to thrive in and outside of the workplace. Each workplace resource examined affected at least one dimension of flourishing at work and of flourishing in life. The state of physical working conditions was generally the most influential factor affecting human flourishing. The team also found that when workers thrive at the workplace, they also flourish in life: job satisfaction, positive mood at work, and self-reported productivity were the factors contributing the most to flourishing in life.
Link to this publication will be posted soon.