Low education, high job quality? Job autonomy and learning among workers without higher education in Scandinavia, the United Kingdom and Ireland

In what is often referred to as the ‘high skills society’ of Western countries, a substantial portion of the workforce has no education above upper secondary school. Concern for the quality of employment they can attain is made more salient as automation and skill polarisation increase. Job quality in terms of involvement and discretion is associated with positive outcomes on both the company, national and individual level. From a managerial point of view, this may increase business performance because higher involvement draws on the employees’ creative abilities (Felstead et al. 2016: 4). In what has been named the ‘learning economy’, the way in which informal networking relations, practical problem-solving on the job, and investments in lifelong learning contribute towards competence building may also be important drivers of national economic growth (Lundvall et al. 2008). For the individual – the concern of this article – job involvement, discretion and learning are linked to greater job satisfaction and better work-life balance (Boxall and Macky 2014). Most comparative studies of job autonomy and learning opportunities find that workers in the Scandinavian countries are better off. Recent studies have challenged these findings, showing relatively low job quality, particularly in the Scandinavian lower private service sector.

Some scholars argue that national employment systems may influence an entire economy (e.g. Dobbin and Boychuk 1999; Lloyd and Payne 2013). Previous research demonstrates that the Scandinavian countries are characterised by a high degree of job involvement compared to both other coordinated market economies, such as Germany, and liberal regimes, such as the United Kingdom (see, e.g. Gallie 2007). Scandinavia, characterised by a relatively highly educated work force, is said to have exceptionally high levels of individual task discretion, job variety and opportunities for self-development on the job (Gallie 2007: 99). The United Kingdom, in contrast, has fewer jobs that offer ‘discretionary learning’ and more jobs described as ‘simple’ or ‘Taylorist’ (Holm et al. 2010). These findings, however, are nuanced by studies on specific occupations that are less protected by collective agreements or not embedded in the national system of vocational education and training (see Lloyd and Payne 2013).

Although previous research demonstrates that job quality varies between countries and occupations, less attention has been paid to the relationship between the level of formal education and job quality in and between different countries. In particular, it would be of interest to compare Scandinavia with liberal countries as these welfare regimes may represent the largest differences in workers’ job quality. This article presents a comparative quantitative study of job quality among people with no education above upper secondary school in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) – and two liberal countries – the United Kingdom and Ireland (see, e.g. Gallie 2007). The aim of this article is to examine (i) whether the job quality of Scandinavia also applies to people without higher education, and (ii) whether they experience more job autonomy and job learning than their counterparts in liberal systems such as the UK and Ireland. Job quality can be understood in different ways (see, e.g. Burchell et al. 2014). This article focuses on two aspects of intrinsic job quality (see Felstead et al. 2016): (1) job autonomy: workers’ scope for initiative-taking in carrying out their jobs and (2) informal job learning: referring here to the informal and unorganised learning that happens through everyday work, learning by doing and learning from colleagues. From here on, the term ‘job learning’ is used as shorthand for this job feature. The term ‘job quality’ is used when referring to both job autonomy and job learning.

This article is structured as follows: First, an outline of theoretical perspectives and related studies, with a more detailed description of the term ‘job quality’ and how it is operationalised in this article. Then the data and method are presented, followed by the results of analyses of job quality, both across and within countries. Finally, the results are discussed in light of the previous research and theoretical assumptions.

The quality of working life has been a topic of interest among scholars for decades (Gallie 2003). How job quality should be understood has been subject to debate for just as long and, as Burchell et al. (2014: 464) state, there is no simple set of variables that can indisputably be thought of as summarising what constitutes a good job. Within political sociology, where the relation between job quality and the quality of employment is one of the main concerns, the emphasis has been on skill levels, job control, participation at work and job security (Burchell et al. 2014: 462–463). Both job control and participation at work are important features in what is understood as job autonomy, a concept emphasised by scholars in the broad fields of the sociology of work, labour process theory and political economy (e.g. Braverman 1974; Gallie 2007; Kalleberg 2011; Vidal 2013).

Learning over the life course can play a crucial role in adjusting to changing labour markets and life conditions (Barabasch 2014). In both neo-Marxist and liberal theories, learning opportunities are regarded as central features of work quality (e.g. Braverman 1974; Gallie 2007). Through learning, individuals can strengthen their sense of self and assume more control over their lives (Biesta et al. 2011). The high esteem of varied and learning-intensive work is not exclusive to people with higher education – it may also be understood as an ideal among people with little formal education (see, e.g. Tønder and Aspøy 2017). Previous research on adult education has repeatedly stated that due to the ancient ‘Matthew effect’, people with little formal education participate less in organised learning than people with higher education (see, e.g. Rubenson 2009). Among several reasons, one is that people without higher education are often selected for jobs with limited opportunities for organised learning participation. Nevertheless, learning not only includes formal education and course participation but also informal learning through everyday life (see also Inanc et al.2015). Many jobs are learning-intensive, even if participation is hard to count by the number of course and conference days. Moreover, whereas a worker may participate in a course without feeling that he or she learned anything of relevance to the job, informal learning always entails actual learning. Learning opportunities may differ according to individual characteristics, conditions in the firm, sector or occupation, as well as institutional educational system and the national labour market situation. In this article, this aspect of learning is captured through the composite variable ‘job learning’, referring to informal learning from colleagues and learning by doing. By choosing this operationalising, we eliminate the risk of concluding that low participation in formal or organised non-formal learning, such as course participation, equates to a learning-deprived job.

Boxall and Macky (2014: 963–964) state that as opposed to Taylorist forms of work organisation, a high level of job autonomy may release ‘untapped human potential’ through the use of worker's existing skills and provide better opportunities for learning. Inanc et al. (2015) state that there is widespread agreement that task discretion should be conducive to learning (see, e.g. Felstead et al. 2010; Kalleberg 2011). In their analyses of the UK-based Skills and Employment Survey, they found that task discretion (as well as organisational participation) was related to higher levels of individual learning through job task activity and knowledge sharing. Task discretion gave employees the scope to develop skills by experimenting with work methods and sharing acquired knowledge with colleagues (Inanc et al. 2015: 460–462). A similar finding is demonstrated by Lundvall et al. (2008: 687), who showed that workers experiencing autonomy, typical for Nordic countries, are expected by the management to solve problems on their own, thus becoming more competent as they cope with new challenges (defined as ‘discretionary learning’ in their study).

In recent decades, theories on differences in job quality according to institutional regimes have come in various forms (see, e.g. Korpi 2006 or Burchell et al. 2014). Employment regime theory (also termed ‘power resource theory’) emphasises how class conflict is key to shaping different welfare regimes.¹ The role of organised labour is understood as one of the explanations why coordinated regimes differ from liberal regimes when it comes to job skills and job quality (see, e.g. Gallie 2007, 2011; Holman 2013; Korpi 2006; Mustosmäki et al.2017; Streeck 2011). Streeck (2011: 29) argues that the high skills and job quality in coordinated regimes are partly explained by the tripartite public policy and general upskilling, leading to low hierarchies and autonomy. Similarly, Gallie (2007, 2011) argues that employee-elected bodies play a significant role in company decision-making. He stresses how Scandinavian countries stand out especially as a specific type of coordinated regime wherein the level of job quality and employee involvement is high. Of particular importance is the level of bargaining coverage, which downplays the difference in job control between professionals and the non-skilled. Studies also show that union density strongly relates to job control (Gallie 2011).² Union density is greater in the inclusive regime of the Scandinavian countries than in liberal regimes,³ and the Scandinavian countries have a more compressed wage system than liberal economies do. A compressed wage structure may encourage employers to use workers’ skills more productively and consider job quality as part of recruitment and retention (Gautié and Schmitt 2010).

The relation between institutional context on job conditions has been studied by several other scholars via quantitative, comparative analyses. With data from the 1980s, Dobbin and Boychuk (1999) show that there are clear differences in job autonomy between employees in Scandinavia and in the liberal countries of the United Kingdom and the United States. In the third European Survey on Work Conditions (ESWC) from 1995 to 2000, respondents were asked about their influence on the order of tasks, methods of work and speed of work. Workers in Denmark, Finland and Sweden were well above the overall EU mean of the index of task discretion (Gallie 2007). Holman (2013) applies a rigorous taxonomy of job quality that includes job discretion and learning. Across 27 European countries, he demonstrates cross-national variation in both the level and nature of job quality, with more high-quality jobs in the Nordic countries than in liberal (and continental/coordinated) regimes. Halldén et al. (2012) compare the job skills and job quality among female part-time workers in Sweden and Britain, concluding that differences between these institutional systems have a significant effect on the absolute quality of part-time work. Swedish female part-timers experience lower job autonomy compared to Swedish female full-timers despite Swedish policies giving greater salience to improvements in job quality. Nevertheless, the differences between female full-time workers and female part-time workers are greater in Britain (Halldén et al.2012). Berglund (2014) explores job quality in the Nordic countries before and after the 2008 financial crisis and states that the Nordic employment regime remains characterised by a large proportion of jobs where employees have influence and autonomy. Gallie (2011: 21–22) looks at the differences between level of job control between high and low occupational classes. He finds that the difference in job control between occupational classes is lower in countries where employees generally have higher task discretion, such as the Nordic countries. Ireland and Great Britain, on the other hand, exhibits greater differences.

There are, however, other studies that challenge the assumption of relatively high job quality among Scandinavians without higher education. Qualitative research points out that in the lower private service sector, which attracts a large share of these workers, job quality is downplayed, even in Scandinavia. In the hotel cleaning industry (Vanselow et al.2010), the differences between Scandinavia and the United Kingdom are small or even non-existent. An important nuance to the Scandinavian job autonomy image is also added in Lloyd and Payne’s (2016) study of job autonomy in the service sector in Norway, the United Kingdom and France. Focussing on café workers, fitness instructors and vocational teachers, they draw a complex image. Based on a qualitative case study, they demonstrate that Norway does not exhibit more job discretion in the service sector than the United Kingdom (or France) does. They state that the relationships between systems of welfare and skill formation on the one hand and job autonomy on the other can vary in the regime. In a similar vein, Teipen (2017), have studied job flexibility, autonomy and learning opportunities among video game developers, and found that they are similar across regimes. Furthermore, a more recent quantitative study of job quality and satisfaction among female part-time workers compared to female full-time workers conducted by Gallie et al. (2016) demonstrates similar levels of lower job learning and task discretion among this group across liberal, social democratic and coordinated regimes. Nevertheless, studies also show that UK graduates often find low quality ‘non-graduate’ jobs (see Lloyd and Payne 2016; Mason 2002), which could still downplay the ‘job quality gap’ in the UK.

Although union density is high in Scandinavia, it differs between industries and sectors. Especially in Norway, union density is higher in the public than in the private service sector, with the latter attracting more workers without higher education. For instance, the hotel/restaurant and retail industries are characterised by relatively low union density (the same applies to Denmark and Sweden) (Andersen et al. 2014), which could depress both job autonomy and job learning among people without higher education in these countries.

Even with these factors considered, it seems reasonable to assume that workers with relatively little formal education should benefit from the overall higher level of job quality in Scandinavia. It is expected that the relative differences in job quality between educational groups will be smaller in Scandinavia than in the British Isles.

The dataset is drawn from the Adult Skills Survey (PIAAC), a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2011/2012 among a representative sample of 16- to 65-year-olds. The numbers of participants in the survey were 4469 in Sweden, 5128 in Norway, 7328 in Denmark, 8892 in the United Kingdom (including England and Northern Ireland) and 5983 in Ireland.

Different welfare systems imply differences in the selection of categories of welfare benefits and retirement situation. In addition to the share of self-employed people in PIAAC, Table 1 shows the share of unemployment and non-employment, including disability, domestic labour and early retirement. Although the latter category is heterogeneous, it offers an important image of labour market inclusion. Factors that lie behind exclusion from the labour market and a falling out of the unemployment category may be mechanisms concerning health issues and personal priorities mediated by the welfare system and labour market demand. Exclusion is especially high in Ireland, and this applies especially to people without upper secondary school (data not presented here). The differences in exclusion from the labour market need to be accounted for when comparing job quality across groups and countries. For example, Scandinavia's high level of labour market inclusion could entail that people without higher education must settle for routine jobs, which could increase the difference in job quality between people with high and low education. It should be noted that in 2011/2012, Ireland was still experiencing the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, which likely affected the relatively high level of labour market exclusion in the country. The relatively large share of workers in self-employment could also affect differences in job quality between education groups among those who are employed.

A subsample was chosen for this study. Only people who stated that their main activity was employment were included. Self-employed are excluded (a total of 2440 in the five countries altogether). The age group was restricted to 30–60 years. The lower age threshold was chosen due to the high average age of completion of higher education in Scandinavia, as this education group served as the reference group in the analyses. The upper age threshold was chosen to diminish any bias of variation of early retirement in the five countries. This left a restricted sample of 13,191 respondents (see Table 2 for country details).

Two dependent variables were drawn from factor analyses with varimax rotation of five different questions pertaining to work conditions, as follows⁴:

1. ‘Job autonomy’ was derived from factor analyses of the three survey questions on the extent to which the respondent felt that he or she could choose (i) ‘how to do the work’, (ii) ‘the speed of work’ and (iii) ‘the sequence of tasks’. Answers were given on a scale of 1–5 as (1) ‘Not at all’, (2) ‘Very little’, (3) ‘To some extent’, (4) ‘To a high extent’ and (5) ‘To a very high extent’.

2. ‘Job learning’ was derived from a factor analysis of the following questions: (i) ‘How often do you learn from your co-workers or supervisors?’⁵ and (ii) ‘How often do you learn something useful to your work through learning-by-doing?’. Answers were given on a scale of 1–5 as (1) ‘Never’, (2) ‘Less than once a month’, (3) ‘Less than once a week but at least once a month’, (4) ‘At least once a week but not every day’ and (5) ‘Every day’.

The two-factor analyses generated one-factor each. To help with the interpretation of effect sizes, these were converted to z-scores.

The key independent variable is educational level. Education is divided into three categories, as follows: lower secondary school, upper secondary school and higher education (reference category). Lower secondary school covers both people who never started and people who started but did not complete upper secondary school. People with non-vocational postsecondary education are included in the upper secondary school category.⁶ Higher education covers both vocational postsecondary education⁷ and tertiary education (see Schneider 2010).⁸

The control variables are age (continuous), immigrant background (non-Western immigrant as a control variable), gender (woman as the control variable), parents’ education (three variables based on parent with highest education: lower and upper secondary school and higher education), working part-time, fixed-term or no contract, and working in the public sector.⁹ A control for occupational group is also included (ten categories based on the International Standard Classification of Occupations). As demonstrated in Table 2, the distribution of occupational groups varies between the five countries. The reference occupation category is ‘Services and sales workers’, as this occupation displays a relatively high prevalence across countries, and is an important occupation for workers with low formal education.¹⁰ A control for company size accounts for country-specific differences in the number of small companies (i.e. <50 employees), as this may affect both opportunities for learning and autonomy.¹¹

Interaction between control variables, education and country was tested using Wald test.

Table 2 presents the country-wise mean scores on the variables included in the factor analyses and the distribution of the explanatory and control variables in each country. The table includes only statistics from the restricted sample, which comprised people whose self-reported main activity was ‘employed’. We note that, on average, the Scandinavian workers experience more job autonomy than workers in liberal regimes. Broken down on educational level, workers with either lower or upper secondary school in Scandinavia score higher on the autonomy variables than their liberal counterparts. We also note the differences between workers with high and low education within the Scandinavian countries are smaller compared to the differences between workers in the British Isles (and regarding ‘speed of work’, the scores in Scandinavia are more or less similar across educational levels).

When it comes to the job learning variables, the cross-national differences are less obvious, although with the same educational gradient as before, with fewer opportunities for learning by doing among the low educated. The gap between high and low education in the smallest in Norway, whereas Denmark shows learning differences on par with the UK.

Looking at education level, Sweden exhibits the smallest share of workers with only lower secondary school. At the same time, Sweden has a smaller share of workers with higher education than the other countries do. The large share of workers with higher education in Ireland is explained by the prevalence of postsecondary education in this country.¹³ The last rows of Table 2 demonstrate country differences in employment by sector and occupation. The share of workers in the group ‘Services and sales workers’, which serves as the reference category in the analyses, is relatively similar across the countries.

The next section studies (i) if Scandinavian workers without higher education experience higher job quality then their UK and Irish counterparts and (ii) the relative differences within the countries. Table 3 shows the difference between workers with lower or upper secondary school education in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland using OLS regression. The models include pooled data for the five countries, with dummy variables for each country. The dependent variable is standardised (i.e. with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation (SD) of 1). This implies that the point estimate for each variable refers to the corresponding change in the SD of the dependent variable. Sweden is chosen as the reference country in each model.

We first look at model 1a of the analysis of job autonomy, where no control variables are included. The positive intercept indicates that Swedish workers with higher education experience more autonomy (0.33 SD) than the average. In comparison, Swedish workers with lower or upper secondary school experience less (−0.2 standard deviation) autonomy than workers with higher education. Furthermore, Norwegian workers generally report less autonomy than Swedes, whereas there is no significant difference between Swedes and Danes. The dummy variables representing UK and Irish workers, show that they generally experience less job autonomy than Scandinavian workers, with the contrast being especially clear for Irish workers (with a negative difference of 0.6 SD). The interaction terms of education and country suggest that, relatively speaking, Norwegian and Danish workers with lower secondary school education experience the same level of job autonomy as their Swedish counterparts; that is, they have less autonomy then workers with more education. UK and Irish workers with lower secondary school experience less autonomy than both their Scandinavian counterparts and workers with higher education on the British Isles (with a negative difference of 0.5 and 0.3 SDs, respectively). Even having no education above upper secondary school seems to be associated with less autonomy in these countries, although the difference is smaller, especially for the UK.

In Model 2a we also include all control variables (see appendix, Table A3)¹⁴, which means that the reference category now is 30-year-old Western men with higher education, whose parents’ have not completed upper secondary school, who work fulltime on an unlimited contract in the occupational group ‘services and sales workers’, in the private sector in a firm with 11–50 employees. The control variables do not seem to change most of the associations in Model 1a: the relative difference between workers of different education levels in the liberal regimes remains, as does the association between lower and upper secondary education and less autonomy in these countries in the absolute sense. The education estimates indicate that Swedish workers without higher education experience more autonomy than workers with higher education in the reference group. The intercept is no longer significant.¹⁵ The interaction terms indicate that overall, Scandinavian workers with maximum upper secondary school do not experience less autonomy then workers with higher education.¹⁶

To summarise, the country differences in job autonomy are consistent across the models, including when control variables are considered. (A) Workers in the liberal regimes are less autonomous than Scandinavian workers. (B) Moreover, both lower and upper secondary school is associated with a relative disadvantage in the liberal regimes, whereas we do not find this gap in Scandinavia. Scandinavian workers, regardless of educational level, experience more job autonomy than their counterparts in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Furthermore, the analyses suggest that they experience a relative disadvantage to a lesser extent within their own country.

The analyses of job learning demonstrate a different pattern from the analyses of job autonomy. As with job autonomy, the reference group, Swedish workers with higher education, experience more job learning than other educational groups, evident through the positive intercept (0.2 SD) in model 1b. The education dummies demonstrate that low education is associated with relatively low levels of job learning in the country of reference, Sweden. This is particularly evident for workers with no education above lower secondary school (−0.4 SD). The country dummies suggest that Norwegian workers generally experience more job learning than Swedes; in contrast, both UK and Irish workers report less job learning. There is no significant interaction between Norway and education, which means that in the absolute sense, Norwegian workers without higher education experience more job learning than their Swedish counterparts. Still, their jobs are less learning intensive than for people with higher education. Lower secondary school is associated with less learning opportunities in both Denmark and the United Kingdom than in the other countries. Model 1b suggests that in Ireland, however, the gap in job learning between lower and higher educated workers is no greater than that in Sweden. Nevertheless, the general level of learning on the job is lower (−0.2 SD). For upper secondary school, no country-specific differences appear from the model.

In model 2b, the control variables are included. The intercept increases, and the point estimates for the education dummies, referring to the reference country, Sweden, are no longer significant This indicates that the difference between higher and lower education are related to other background variables and job features. If we look at the country dummies, we see that the country differences from model 1b persist: Norwegian workers generally experience more job learning, whereas workers on the British Isles experience less learning than Scandinavians in the absolute sense. The interaction terms, however, indicate that when background characteristics are accounted for, workers with lower secondary school in Denmark and the UK do not experience less learning than workers with higher education within their own country. Overall, the adjusted explained variance indicates that the control variables explain less of the variation in job learning than job autonomy (11 percent in model 2b, compared to 20.8 percent in model 2a).

To summarise, Scandinavian workers reported more job autonomy than workers in the liberal regimes of the United Kingdom and Ireland. When other factors were controlled for, workers without higher education did not experience less autonomy than workers with higher education in Scandinavia. Workers with lower and workers with upper secondary school in the liberal regimes, in contrast, experienced their jobs to be less autonomous both in the relative sense, within-country, and in the absolute sense. This difference was not explained by selection into different occupations and sectors, nor other background variables. The pattern is somewhat different when it comes to job learning. In this study, Norwegian workers seem to experience more job learning than their Swedish counterparts, but the size of the difference is inconspicuous. This advantage is robust against the introduction of more variables.¹⁷ Both lower and upper secondary educated workers in Scandinavia experience less learning than their higher educated counterparts, and this gap loses significance when the selection into different types of jobs is accounted for in model 2b. This selection also seemed to account for the learning gap between workers with lower secondary school and workers with higher education in the UK and Denmark. The analyses demonstrate less job learning on the British Isles than in Scandinavia, but when other factors are controlled for, no significant gap in job learning between educational groups within countries.

Two aspects to job quality are studied in this article: job autonomy and job learning. Job autonomy is associated with positive outcomes on both the individual, company and national level. Moreover, people's opportunity to influence their workday is a vital component not only of job quality but also quality of life. Job autonomy is also essential in making use of individual knowledge and skills (see, e.g. Lloyd and Payne 2016). Within employment regime theory, learning opportunities are expected to be a logical consequence of job autonomy. As previous research has already stated that formal and nonformal learning participation (such as taking a course or seminar) depends on present educational level, this study focuses on the informal learning that occurs on the job.

According to employment regime theory, the levels of job autonomy and job learning should be relatively high in Scandinavia. The literature offers clear indications that these countries have some distinctive features which positively affect job quality: high union density, collective bargaining, a compressed wage structure and a skill formation system focussing on specific rather than general skills, where upskilling leads to low hierarchies and high job autonomy. However, these findings are challenged by studies suggesting that the system differences vary between different sectors. In the lower private service sector, for example, the differences between Scandinavian and liberal regimes are small. The aim of this article is to examine whether the job quality of Scandinavia also applies to people without higher education, as well as whether they experience more job autonomy and job learning than their counterparts in liberal systems such as the UK and Ireland. The findings are based on a set of survey questions pertaining to job autonomy and job learning across five countries.

With respect to within-country variation in job autonomy, the analyses support the assumptions based on employment regime theory as well as the generality of previous research. Overall, results show that the gap in experienced job autonomy between people with low and high education is relatively low in Scandinavia. In general, Scandinavian workers also report more job autonomy than workers the United Kingdom and Ireland do. In other words, working life in Scandinavia is relatively autonomous, regardless of educational level. The relatively small gap in job autonomy is accounted by, among other factors, selection into different type of jobs. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, workers without completed upper secondary school are disadvantaged, both in the relative and absolute senses. They experience less autonomy in their jobs than workers with higher education do. In addition, they experience less autonomy than their Scandinavian counterparts do. This applies both to workers without upper secondary school and workers who have completed upper secondary school, even when selection into different occupations is accounted for. This is particularly visible in Ireland.

Overall, the Scandinavian working life demonstrates a relatively high level of informal job learning – especially in Norway when compared to the UK and Ireland. When other factors, like different occupational distributions, are not accounted for, the learning gap is larger than the autonomy gap, also in Scandinavia. Moreover, workers in the UK and Ireland generally experience less job learning, regardless of differences in company size, the share of different occupations and sectors, and country-specific differences in background characteristics. Interestingly, the results do not confirm expectations drawn from employment regime theory regarding the job learning gap among workers in liberal countries. In Ireland, there was no significant difference in job learning between educational groups even before job and background characteristics were taken into account. On the other hand, workers with only lower secondary school seem to be relatively learning deprived in Denmark and in the UK. In Ireland, informal job learning is relatively low for all educational groups.

When selection into different types of jobs and other background variables are accounted for, the results indicate that Scandinavian workers without higher education experience the same level of informal job learning as their higher educated counterparts. Nonetheless, the analyses in this article show that in Scandinavia as well as the UK, workers without higher education seem to be selected into occupations offering relatively little informal job learning. Furthermore, the results imply that especially in the UK and Denmark, workers without higher education are selected into routine jobs that are quickly learned. There are, however, limitations to such a conclusion. Self-reported informal learning may be affected by how the individual interprets what should be considered learning. Furthermore, it can be an indication of the individual's ability to learn, which may co-vary with education level. These are questions that should be further investigated. The analyses suggest that the differences between educational groups vary across occupations and sectors, as demonstrated by previous research. Although controls for occupation and sector are included in the analyses of this study, the sample size does not allow for a more thorough investigation of such differences. In line with employment regime theory, it would be interesting to explore whether learning and autonomy differ according to union density at the company level – both in Scandinavian and liberal regimes and for different education groups. Applying a larger, quantitative sample size or qualitative data, future studies should focus on these questions. The main finding here, though, reveals that Scandinavians with no education above upper secondary school do experience greater job autonomy than their counterparts in the British Isles. Moreover, the gap between education groups in terms of job autonomy is larger in the UK and Ireland than in Scandinavia.

An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the 2017 ILPC conference in Sheffield. I am thankful for the helpful comments made by several of the participants. I would also like to thank Gunn Elisabeth Birkelund, Emily Murphy, the rest of the research group at Fafo and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Tove Mogstad Aspøy is a PhD candidate at the department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, Norway and a researcher at Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research, Oslo, Norway. Her research interests focus on workplace learning, skills, vocational education and training and job quality

Tove Mogstad Aspøyhttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-6654-7530