English version:
B. My job offers good prospects for career advancement

German version.
B. Meine Arbeit bietet gute Karrierechancen

Nein

Online Probing:
In the UK, almost half of the employees (45%) and a quarter (23%) of the self-employed (strong-ly/tend to) agree with this statement. In Germany, one third of the employees and of the self-employed respondents state that they agree with this statement, respectively. In contrast, the proportion of self-employed people in Poland who (strongly/tend to) agree with this statement is significantly higher with 57%. The proportion of employees that agree (43%) is comparable with the other two countries.
A look at the frequency distribution of the answer option “not applicable” shows a similar pattern: In Germany and the UK, self-employed are more likely than employed to answer that the statement “My job offers good prospects for career advancement” does not apply to them (UK: 30% self-employed vs. 5% employed; DE: 22% self-employed vs. 13% employed). In Germany, self-employed are also more likely to choose the middle category (30% vs. 19%). In contrast, in Poland, self-employed neither answer that this statement does not apply to them more often than employees, nor are they more likely to choose the middle category.
A look at the frequency distribution of the answer option “not applicable” shows a similar pattern: In Germany and the UK, self-employed are more likely than employed to answer that the statement “My job offers good prospects for career advancement” does not apply to them (UK: 30% self-employed vs. 5% employed; DE: 22% self-employed vs. 13% employed). In Germany, self-employed are also more likely to choose the middle category (30% vs. 19%). In contrast, in Poland, self-employed neither answer that this statement does not apply to them more often than employees, nor are they more likely to choose the middle category.
As a follow-up question, we examined respondents’ understanding of the term “good prospects” across countries and employment status. Divergent themes would indicate interpretation differences between the respondents across groups of employment status or countries. As respondents could mention several themes, multiple coding applied. The results are shown in Table 3.
Good prospects are described in terms of general advancement, promotion or moving up to a higher position with more responsibility by the vast majority of respondents. The second large thematic complex is the financial aspect, so having a high or higher salary. The third thematic complex is learning or doing new things as part of the job:

• “Chance to get a better position.” (R236DE)
• “Salary increase.” (R358UK)
• “To train in specialist areas. (R218UK)

Self-employed are likely to name advancing their business as having good prospects, which is sometimes associated with delivering good work and building a larger customer base, but at other times with the economy. Also, a large number of self-employed say that the question does not apply to them.

• “To increase production and attract more sales.” (R181UK)
• “Given that I am self-employed, this question is invalid.” (R42DE)

Respondents understanding of the term “good prospects”
Topics such as job security and appreciation are also mentioned occasionally. Surprisingly, respondents from Poland mention most frequently that they do not have any prospects and less frequently that “career prospects” do not apply to them because of their self-employment. Besides that, there are no large differences in the understanding of “career prospects” between countries. A total of 5% of respondents does not respond to the probe question or provide non-evaluable information:

• “Long-term job, personal development.” (R27PL)
• There aren’t any prospects on my farm, because it is too small.” (R50PL)

In addition, respondents were asked what the term “career advancement” means to them. 28 respondents did not provide a response to the probe question (8%). All other 337 respondents gave a substantive probe answer. Respondents' answers were assigned to multiple thematic codes. The answers are very similar to the answers in the previous probe asking for “good prospects”. Respondents are mostly thinking of promotion or advancement, earning more money, growing companies or expanding their (own) business, more responsibility in their job and more interesting fields of work and to educate themselves professionally and personally. The main difference between the group of employees and the group of self-employed was that employees think more of promotion and advancement on the career ladder, while self-employed people also think of the expansion of the company and its further development:

• “Senior position, higher salary.” (R61DE, employee)
• “Taking my business to the next level and earning more money from it.” (R253UK, self-employed)

A closer look at the self-employed shows that only respondents in the UK and in Germany state that they do not have career prospects because they own their own business. Self-employed in these two countries also think more often of promotion and professional advancement than respondents in Poland (DE: 35%, UK: 41% and PL: 24%). Polish participants more often mention aspects such as further training (development; DE: 0%, UK: 5% and PL: 18%) and expanding business (DE: 15%, UK: 15%, PL: 25%). However, one has to keep in mind that the proportion of respondents being the sole director of their own business was significantly higher in the UK (43%) and in Germany (35%) than in Poland (11%).

No changes recommended.

true