The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) : an instrument for internationally comparative assessments of psychosocial job characteristics

This article consists of three parts. Part 1 discusses the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ), designed to measure scales assessing psychological demands, decision latitude, social support, physical demands, and job insecurity. Part 2 reports the cross-national validity, for men and women, of the JCQ scales in six broadly representative populations from four advanced industrial societies: the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and Japan. JCQ scale means, standard deviations, reliabilities and correlations are compared. Part 3 reviews comparison of the intercountry and interoccupation differences in the scales, discusses specific scales issues and discusses the implications of the study for interpretation of psychosocial job asessment questionnaires.