Green Jobs and Meaningful Work

We investigate the perceived meaning of green jobs. Theoretically, we extend the standard meaningful work framework, by introducing a social esteem component, which depends on both the green content of occupations and the socio-political awareness of environmental issues. To identify green jobs, we employ a task-based indicator based on ESCO data, which is then merged with individual-level data from the 2015 and 2021 waves of the European Working Conditions Survey. Moreover, we proxy the degree of environmental consciousness at the country level through the Environmental Policy Stringency index from the OECD. In line with our theoretical framework, we find that workers’ perceptions of meaningful work increase with the green content of their occupation and are amplified in countries exhibiting higher levels of environmental consciousness. These results highlight the role of social esteem, derived from the contribution to what is considered a socially valuable objective (i.e. the fight against climate change), in shaping the experience of meaningful work. To allow a more ‘causal’ interpretation of the results, we employ an instrumental variable approach which corroborates the main findings.