Quality of the employment created by cooperatives and employee-owned companies in the recovery from the Great Recession. The Spanish case

Abstract

Social economy entities share differential principles and values such as the generation of social value above financial and revenue results or the focus on people. Regarding employment, literature points out a higher stability and quality of jobs, especially in periods of economic crisis (Monzon and Chaves, 2012, 2017). For Spain, empirical research for cooperatives show evidence that support that higher stability for the employment created (Grávalos and Pomares, 2001, Díaz and Marcuello, 2010). The main objective of this paper is to analyze the contribution of cooperatives and employee-owned companies to social cohesion in Spain in terms of the quality of the employment created in the recovery from the Great Recession (period 2013-2016). For that purpose, we design and estimate a composite index of job quality. Estimations obtained for social economy are compared with a control group, formed by limited liability companies and corporations, to analyze the potential differences and its significance. Results show some differences between the two groups with respect to employment quality related characteristics, although not always in favor of social economy. Globally, the composite index supports the idea of better quality in employment within cooperatives and employee-owned companies compared with jobs created at the control group, reflecting to a great extend the lower partiality observed in social economy entities.