A systematic mixed studies review of decent work literature: implications for research and policy

The importance of decent working conditions in the world of work and society generally has made it a subject of great interest among scholars and practitioners. Work takes up a significant part of the daily routine of humans and significantly affects our lives and determines the kind of effects individuals and society experience (Dodd et al., 2019; Ferreira et al., 2019; Ralph and Arora, 2024; Randev and Jha, 2023). Decent work represents the minimum conditions in the work environment that employees must be given (Blustein et al., 2023b). These conditions, including time and rest from work, social security, adequate compensation, values alignment, safe work, social dialogue, representation, work rights and accessible healthcare, enhance the well-being of employees (Duffy et al., 2019, 2021; Masdonati et al., 2019; Ribeiro et al., 2019). When work is decent, its effects are positive, which contributes a great deal to achieving social sustainability (Conigliaro, 2021). The reverse occurs when work is not decent.

In the last 25 years, there have been four major developments around the decent work phenomenon. First, the ILO (1999) promoted the decent work agenda covering rights at work, employment creation, social protection and social dialogue as its primary goal. Second, in the resolution adopted by the United Nations to transform the world through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, decent work was included as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015). Third, Duffy et al. (2016), in their seminal work, the psychology of working theory (PWT), placed decent work as central to the PWT and individual employees at the forefront of decent work. Fourth and lastly, Duffy and his colleagues in 2017 validated a scale to measure decent work, and this measure has underpinned most cross-cultural empirical studies and advanced decent work practices, particularly at the individual worker level.

Following these developments, interest in decent work research has been high, and it keeps growing among international development organizations and scholars. Some reviews of the literature have consequently been conducted to explore the decent work concept and experiences. Existing reviews have largely focused on context specificities such as sectors/industries (see Wang and Cheung, 2024; Foláyan et al., 2024; Saragih et al., 2024), samples (see Baldry et al., 2024; Hult et al., 2024; López Peláez et al., 2023), methods (see Baldry et al., 2024; Nourafkan and Tanova, 2023; Pereira et al., 2019) and location (see Cooke et al., 2019). Yeh and Wang (2024), on their part, examined the evolution of decent work and how each phase related to empowerment. We note that these context-specific reviews can enhance our understanding of worker experiences of decent work across different organizations, industries/sectors and national cultures. However, they may offer a compartmentalized understanding of the subject.

The current study thus offers a holistic and integrated appreciation of the concept of decent work and provides a critical analysis of the literature to date. Guided by the theoretical question: What insights can be drawn from the decent work literature? We adopt a systematic mixed studies approach to examine decent work research spanning 18 years. Specifically, our review addresses the following research questions (1) How has decent work been theoretically conceptualized? (2) What profiles characterize workers' experiences of decent work? (3) Which antecedents, outcomes, mediators and moderators are associated with decent work? (4) How do decent work conditions compare across meso and macro contexts? and (5) What strategies can be employed to enhance decent work?

This paper thus makes several contributions to the decent work literature. First, unlike prior reviews that tend to be limited by methods, location, sample or industry (e.g., Baldry et al., 2024; Cooke et al., 2019; Foláyan et al., 2024; Hult et al., 2024; López Peláez et al., 2023; Nourafkan and Tanova, 2023; Pereira et al., 2019; Saragih et al., 2024; Wang and Cheung, 2024), our systematic mixed studies review provides a comprehensive and critical analysis of decent work by taking a methodologically inclusive, contextually diverse and multi-level evidence syntheses of the literature. Although the context-specific reviews can enhance our understanding of worker experiences of decent work across different organizations, industries/sectors and national cultures, they may offer a compartmentalized understanding of the subject. Consequently, the current review offers an integrated appreciation of the concept of decent work and provides a critical analysis of the literature to date.

Moreover, the existing reviews have relied largely on descriptive analytic frameworks, thereby limiting the depth of thematic synthesis and integration of findings across studies (see Baldry et al., 2024; Nourafkan and Tanova, 2023; Pereira et al., 2019). Our review is one of the first to thematically synthesize decent work at macro (national), meso (industry) and micro (individual) levels without context and methodological limitations. Accordingly, this review offers breadth and depth that update and extend existing reviews. Relatedly, our review contributes to the discourse of promoting decent work by providing a multi-level thematic map for scholars, practitioners and policymakers. Specifically, this review establishes what constitutes decent work, how it is experienced by workers, factors that impact it and result from it, as well as strategies that can improve decent working conditions. Lastly, our review discusses critical gaps in the decent work literature and advances potentially fruitful avenues for future research and policy directions for promoting decent work in practice.

In the remainder of this paper, we discuss the methods employed in the review, which cover the study design, data identification, eligibility criteria, data screening process and synthesis of selected data. Discussion of the findings and avenues for future research and policy follow the methods. The paper ends with a conclusion and limitations of the study.

Following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines to ensure transparency and reproducibility (Page et al., 2021), this paper employed a systematic mixed studies review through the convergent qualitative synthesis design. A systematic mixed studies review is a type of systematic literature review that uses a mixed methods approach. In such reviews, there is no restriction to study inclusion based on methods. Mixed methods, qualitative, conceptual/theoretical and quantitative studies are integrated in the same review (Bush et al., 2017; Heyvaert et al., 2017; Hong et al., 2017; Pluye and Hong, 2014). Using a convergent qualitative synthesis design meant that the studies that met the eligibility criteria, including the quantitative studies, were coded as texts and synthesized simultaneously (Hong et al., 2017; Pluye and Hong, 2014). This approach allows researchers to bring together diverse types of evidence in the literature regardless of the methods used and the type of results the studies evinced in the same review (Lizarondo et al., 2022). In doing so, we overcame the methodological limitations that characterize previous reviews (e.g., Baldry et al., 2024; Nourafkan and Tanova, 2023; Pereira et al., 2019). Thus, this systematic mixed studies review enables a methodologically inclusive approach to provide a comprehensive and critical analysis of the decent work literature. The systematic mixed studies review design also enabled us to update and extend prior reviews on decent work, as we were not bound by methodological and contextual restrictions.

The data identification process started off by consulting a research librarian, and the research team decided the appropriate databases, search phrases and search strategy (Covidence, 2024; Pluye and Hong, 2014). We settled on four databases (i.e., Business Source Ultimate, PsycINFO, Scopus and Web of Science) because they contain subject areas highly relevant to decent work. On September 20, 2024, we used the phrase “decent work” to search the TITLE-ABS-KEY of all the databases. In each database search, preliminary delimitations applied were peer-reviewed journal articles published in the English language. There were no restrictions by year of publication or location of study. A combined total of 2,426 articles were obtained through this search process.

The following criteria were used to determine the eligibility of studies for inclusion in the review. Only studies that met these criteria were included in our review.

1. Peer-reviewed journal articles published in the English language.

2. Articles with a focus on decent work.

3. Articles with a focus on the working population.

4. Articles from journals not ranked in the top 15 percent in Scopus ^[1].

The data that were obtained at the data identification stage were exported in a research information system (RIS) file format and exported into Covidence, an online platform that aids the selection of studies for systematic literature reviews, to commence the data screening process. Two members of the research team independently screened the titles and abstracts of 1,707 studies (after 719 duplicates were removed) for relevance. After the screening, studies that received conflicting decisions (e.g., yes vote by one reviewer and no by another reviewer) were flagged in Covidence. The inter-rater reliability was moderate (Cohen's Kappa = 0.553) with a proportionate agreement of 79.5%. Discussions were held between the reviewers to decide studies to progress to the next stage (Covidence, 2024; Pluye and Hong, 2014). Eventually, 454 studies progressed to the full-text review stage where they were reviewed against the eligibility criteria. In the end, 98 studies were included in this review as depicted in Figure 1, the PRISMA flow chart.

To synthesize the data, the 98 studies were exported from Covidence in a comma-separated values (CSV) file into Microsoft Excel for initial coding. Data from each study was extracted and coded by its human participants, theory, methodology, measurement of decent work, country and findings/propositions. The author, publication year, journal and publication title were already in the exported file and subsequently coded. The data-based convergent synthesis procedure was utilized to organize the results of the studies. All the results were expressed qualitatively, analyzed thematically and presented together (Hong et al., 2017; Noyes et al., 2019; Pluye and Hong, 2014). Specific to the thematic analysis; we followed the procedures highlighted by Braun and Clarke (2006) and Naeem et al. (2023). The results were read and re-read several times for familiarization. Keywords from the results of each study were then highlighted and coded based on their function in the texts. This was critical to the analysis as some keywords appeared several times in different studies and in some instances, played different roles. Following this step, the keywords were grouped according to their functions, leading to the generation of codes (sub-themes). Finally, themes were generated through the amalgamation of the codes. This thematic analytic procedure was inductively performed. That is, the codes generated were based solely on the data and not pre-existent (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Nowell et al., 2017). The procedure was also done iteratively to achieve rigor and trustworthiness (Nowell et al., 2017; Pluye and Hong, 2014).

This review includes 98 articles published between 2006 and 2024. As Figure 2 presents, decent work research rose gradually from 2016 to 2018 and has seen an exponential increase since 2019. Given that the last of the four major developments around decent work, which involved the development and validation of a scale to measure the concept, occurred in 2017, it is safe to mention that awareness and interest in the phenomenon have been at an all-time high afterwards and likely to increase in the coming years.

Table 1 shows the journals, human participants and theories used in these studies. It is observed that the 98 articles included in this study were published across 40 journals, and more than half of the studies (53) were published in five journals. Majority of the papers (18) were from the Journal of Career Assessment, followed by Journal of Vocational Behavior (15), Journal of Counseling Psychology (11), Employee Relations (5) and Journal of Career Development (4). Concerning the human participants, working adults are shown to be the most studied group (19). Managers were also studied in five of the studies, whereas employed adults were studied in four studies. Both employees and employers participated in three studies each. Of the theories used, the psychology of working was used in 52 studies. Self-determination theory and stakeholder theory were each used in two studies. The rest of the theories, as shown in the table, were used once.

The methodologies used and how decent work was measured in the literature are displayed in Table 2. According to the table, majority of the studies (52) used a quantitative approach to study decent work and literature reviews were the least used methods (3). Again, it is seen that decent work was measured using 16 different measures. The decent work scale was used in 44 studies, the ILO decent work components/pillars/dimensions in four studies, and Korean version of decent work scale 3 studies. Both quality of employment and Turkish decent work scale were used in two studies.

In Table 3, the top 10 most cited papers, productive authors and studied countries are presented. A look at the table points to the Journal of Counseling Psychology as a journal containing half of the 10 most cited papers in Scopus. Journal of Career Assessment and Journal of Vocational Behavior also rank high in the journals with the most cited papers. The psychology of working theory (Duffy et al., 2016) and The development and initial validation of the decent work scale (Duffy et al., 2017) are the two most cited papers. It is important to note that these two articles make up two of the papers that have accounted for the four main developments around decent work. This is a testament to the influence of these papers on the decent work subject. Scrutinizing the most productive authors, Duffy, Autin, Allan and Blustein, all have a minimum of nine papers. They are the most influential scholars when it comes to decent work research. Not only do they have the most papers, but the articles they authored also dominate the most cited papers. Further, it is observed that with 24 studies, the USA is the country with the most decent work studies. This is unsurprising because the authors with the most contributions are based in the USA. China follows with about half (13) of the studies conducted in the USA. Sixteen countries are in the top 10 countries studied. Europe dominates the top 10 countries studied. Asia, having four countries studied (China, Turkey, South Korea and India), follows Europe. Africa (South Africa) and South America (Brazil) have one country each, North America has two countries (Mexico and the USA) and Oceania also has two countries (Australia and New Zealand).

Eight core themes emerged from this review. They are conceptualization of decent work, decent work profiles, decent work antecedents, decent work outcomes, mediators of decent work, moderators of decent work, cross-context decent work conditions and decent work enhancement strategies. The themes are shown in Table 4.

As a relatively new concept, the literature demonstrates that the theoretical conceptualization of decent work has been a preoccupation of scholars in the area, as it has been conceptualized in several national and industrial contexts. The literature reveals seven subthemes related to the conceptualization of decent work (Figure 3). These dimensions combine objective and subjective dimensions from heterogenous sources such as the ILO, employers and individual workers. The synthesis of the existing conceptualizations reveals that there is more to the decent work dimensions than what has been elucidated by the ILO (1999) and Duffy et al. (2017), which have become the widely accepted dimensions. The ILO has employment, social protection, rights of workers and social dialogue as the dimensions of decent work, while Duffy et al. (2017) espoused adequate income, access to healthcare, free time and rest, complementary values and safe working conditions as its constituents. These dimensions can be broadly categorized into two sub-themes (i.e., fair and safe working conditions and supportive and inclusive workplace).

Support for the dimensions of decent work being more than the five that Duffy and his colleagues enumerated is further corroborated when the dimensions were validated in different national contexts. For instance, in France (Vignoli et al., 2020), Portugal (Ferreira et al., 2019), South Korea (Nam and Kim, 2019), UK (Dodd et al., 2019) and Turkey (Buyukgoze-Kavas and Autin, 2019), the conceptualization of decent work was expanded. The foregoing supports the idea that decent work can have additional dimensions (Duffy et al., 2016, p. 131). The additional subthemes that emerged from the literature include work-life enrichment, career growth and development and meaningful and fulfilling employment. These and other dimensions provide a justification to the claims (Di Ruggiero et al., 2015; Dobbins et al., 2024; Wang and Cheung, 2024) that the existing conceptualization of decent work is limited in scope. Moreover, Amankwaa et al. (2025) emphasize tensions around the decent work concept. More importantly, this review synthesizes studies on the different components of decent work (Pereira et al., 2019). As a field which is relatively new and growing steadily, there is the opportunity to reconceptualize decent work to accommodate other dimensions not yet incorporated into the concept so that the totality of its meaning is captured. The continuous wholesale reliance on the already existing dimensions could steer the direction of decent work in ways that do not adequately capture the essence of the concept and could affect emerging theoretical development of decent work.

The Decent work profiles theme was obtained from studies that conducted latent profile analysis. This type of analysis identifies and clusters distinct groups (profiles) within a population based on their experiences of a phenomenon, clusters that would otherwise be hidden at the aggregate level (Spurk et al., 2020). The decent work profiles reveal different subgroups within the larger groups of workers based on their experience of decent work. The analysis suggests that workers' experiences of decent work are not the same, yet they cluster around specific profiles (decent work dimensions). This observation is an important consideration, theoretically and practically, because it highlights the dimensions of decent work (Duffy et al., 2017) that are most accessible and least accessible to workers and thus provides evidence for remedial action at work. The decent work profiles shown in the literature, therefore, reflect the nature of the working conditions experienced by individual workers. Differences in these mutually exclusive profiles are indications that decent work is not uniformly experienced by workers. As Table 4 reports, three broad profiles are identified (i.e., low decent work cluster, average decent work cluster and high decent work cluster). Generally, profiles in the low decent work cluster characteristically experience low levels of decent work. Profiles in the average decent work cluster are workers who experience low and average levels of decent work. The high decent work cluster is made up of profiles that experience high levels of decent work. There exists a significant proportion of the workforce in the low decent work and average decent work clusters. This reality is worrying because workers in these clusters are less likely to be committed to their jobs and more likely to have intentions to quit (Duffy et al., 2024b). They also tend to have low job and life satisfaction (Blustein et al., 2020; Çarkıt, 2024) and experience anxiety and depression (Blustein et al., 2023a). An interesting observation from the literature is that even the workforce belonging to the high decent work cluster do not fully experience decent work because they have low/lack of access to healthcare and adequate rest.

Generally, the foregoing discussion signals the persistence of precarious labor conditions experienced by individual workers and the accompanying gaps in the realization of decent work. A notable observation from the literature is that profile membership is predicted by factors such as the type of work, age, gender, education level, marginalization, work volition, employment status and socioeconomic status (Blustein et al., 2020; Blustein et al., 2023a; Çarkıt, 2024; Kim et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2024). However, Duffy and colleagues note that decent work is achieved when all its components are available to workers (Duffy et al., 2017). This position makes us question whether decent work as a standard work condition is “perhaps, only aspirational at best” or achievable by all workers irrespective of their circumstances. This notwithstanding, it is imperative that approaches used to promote decent work are designed with the profile of employees in mind. There needs to be targeted interventions for different worker groups (profiles) by the key actors in the industrial relations system if we are to improve the decent work experiences of workers, particularly those in the low decent work and average decent work clusters. The relevance of these findings should not be underestimated because these profiles have severe implications for workers' well-being, business profitability and survival in the long term. This can be extended to the achievement of SDG 8.

Employee, work environment and societal factors are three sub-themes shown in the literature as decent work antecedents (Figure 4). The identification of work environment factors as part of the antecedents of decent work adds to the mechanisms through which individual workers access decent work. While the psychology of working theory (Duffy et al., 2016) primarily emphasized societal (economic constraints and marginalization) and individual factors (work volition and career adaptability) as predictors of decent work, work environment factors have also been demonstrated as another medium for workers to acquire decent work. This expands the avenues through which decent work is made possible for workers. Decent work can only be experienced in the work setting since it is a workplace condition (Blustein et al., 2023b), hence it is in order that conditions in the workplace can contribute to its acquisition or otherwise (Allan et al., 2019; England et al., 2020). Blustein et al. (2023b), discuss in detail the importance of work environment factors in fostering decent work. It is therefore safe to hypothesize that decent work is not only a function of individual agency and societal influences, but a function of organizational inputs such as industrial relations systems and human resource management as well. In this regard, we urge researchers to consider work environment factors in their investigation of decent work antecedents.

According to the International Labour Organization (2013), decent work enables the achievement of equitable, inclusive and sustainable development, which makes it a means to an end. Decent work outcomes are a prominent theme discussed in the literature. It was first considered mainly as a macro-level concept and over time, has become an individual-focused concept (Duffy et al., 2016). Decent work thus affects both individual workers and society (Ralph and Arora, 2024; Randev and Jha, 2023), and the outcomes established in the literature align with decent work having employee work outcomes and societal outcomes. A notable observation is that an overwhelming majority of the studies (Table 4) have a bias for individual-level outcomes of decent work, with Pereira et al. (2019) bemoaning a lack of emphasis on the effects of decent work on the family and friends of workers and the broader society. This is quite understandable because the most influential scholar in this subject area (Ryan Duffy) advocates placing the individual worker at the center of decent work. Attention must also be given to the societal outcomes of decent work. Addressing this imbalance would provide a more complete understanding of the impact of decent work to inform policies that not only benefit individual workers but also contribute to broader societal well-being. Additionally, the literature seems to suggest that decent work affects individuals and society separately. However, we make the proposition that the individual and societal outcomes of decent work are a continuum; thus, when individuals are affected by decent work, the effects extend to society.

In the literature, employee needs satisfaction/achievement, work attitudes and cognitive states (Table 4) are shown to be the conduits that enhance decent work when it is an outcome variable (Autin et al., 2022a; Duffy et al., 2018, 2020; England et al., 2020; Su et al., 2023; Tokar and Kaut, 2018) and employee work outcomes when decent work is an antecedent variable (Allan et al., 2020; Duffy et al., 2019, 2021; Seol et al., 2024; Tokar et al., 2024; Wan and Duffy, 2023; Zhao and Liu, 2023) as decent work plays multiple roles in the work context. These indicate that decent work aligns with workers' overall well-being. A critical observation is that these mediators are predominantly employee-level variables rooted in psychological perspectives. This reflects a disciplinary bias for individual agency in transmitting decent work over structural and organizational factors. Looking beyond the individual factors would expand the mechanisms through which decent work is transmitted to facilitate the achievement of SDG 8. Notably, besides its roles as outcome variable and antecedent variable, it also acts as a mediating variable (Allan et al., 2019; Anlesinya et al., 2021; Atitsogbe et al., 2021; Heo and Lee, 2024; Masdonati et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019). The foregoing suggests that decent work is a dynamic variable that is not only a means to an end as asserted by the International Labour Organization (2013), but an end in itself.

Another theme that emerged from the literature is the moderators of decent work. The moderators are shown to comprise employee factors, work environment factors and societal factors. Within the psychology of working theory (Duffy et al., 2016), the moderators consist of employee factors (proactive personality and critical consciousness) and societal factors (social support and economic conditions). Thus, additional moderating variables that extend beyond the initial propositions to include work environment factors have been established in the literature (Figure 4). As presented in Table 4, these include supportive organizational climate, job insecurity, workplace relational civility, labor relations climate and perceived career opportunity (Heo and Lee, 2024; Huang et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2024; Wan and Duffy, 2023; Zhao and Liu, 2023). As anticipated by Duffy et al. (2024a), this addition signals an evolution from the initial framing of the psychology of working theory and underscores the significance of organizational conditions in shaping individual workers' experiences of decent work. By this, we establish the proposition that accessibility to decent work is contingent not solely on individual agency and societal conditions, but workplace dynamics as well.

The literature is replete with revelations of decent work conditions across meso and macro contexts. That is, industry/business sector (meso) and national/transnational (macro) contexts. The conditions within both contexts are benchmarked against compensation, safe working conditions, social protection, social dialogue, employment creation and rights at work dimensions posited by the ILO. The alignment of decent work conditions with dimensions espoused by the ILO is consistent with the assertion that the international body's position on decent work reflects mainly macro-level indicators, with limited emphasis on individual worker experiences (Adhikari et al., 2012; Blustein et al., 2016; Duffy et al., 2016; Paredes Gil et al., 2008). The literature reports a general decent work deficit across both contexts (see Figure 5). While limited social protection, deficient social dialogue and unsafe working conditions emerge as common challenges in both contexts, each context has distinct decent work deficits. This suggests that there are structural and systemic barriers to achieving decent work at the meso and macro levels. Considering the decent work deficit, we are led to question the effectiveness of existing labor policies and the commitment, as well as strategies of international bodies toward the Decent Work Agenda. A coordinated action from actors in the industrial relations system, such as international labor and development organizations, national governments, industry leaders, trade unions, employers and business executives, is required to address these deficits.

A key insight from the synthesis of the decent work literature is discussions related to strategies that can enhance decent work. The strategies operate at three levels: employee, organizational and national levels (Figure 6). Employee-level strategies are the actions taken by individual workers to improve their working conditions (Blustein et al., 2023b; Gibb et al., 2021; Khan et al., 2024). Organizational strategies involve workplace policies and practices as implemented by employers and managers (Blustein et al., 2023b; Cooke et al., 2019; Gibb et al., 2021; Randev and Jha, 2023; Reinecke and Donaghey, 2021; Thomas and Turnbull, 2018; Yao et al., 2017). At the national level, governments play a crucial role by establishing frameworks and policies that support decent work (Adhikari et al., 2012; Blustein et al., 2023b; Cooke et al., 2019). These multi-level strategies highlight shared responsibility among the three key actors in the industrial relations system in shaping decent work conditions. That no single actor can effectively enhance decent work, suggesting that effective progress toward achieving decent work for all requires coordination among the different actors. Further, this suggests that decent work cannot be achieved solely by top-down interventions or bottom-up efforts. Instead, a hybrid approach where policy enforcement, organizational commitment and worker agency interact are the necessities to overcome decent work deficits and drive sustainable improvements in decent work conditions. A thematic map of the literature is presented in Figure 7.

From the synthesized literature, we highlight several avenues for future research to further advance decent work research. These future research avenues cover, broadly, the data sources of decent work research, theoretical frameworks, methods, conceptualization and factors associated with decent work. Regarding the data sources of decent work research, the type of workforce studied, and the countries in which the studies are conducted in, need diversification. Access to decent work is most often influenced by factors such as age, gender, employment status, education level, marginalization experience and socioeconomic status (Blustein et al., 2023b; Çarkıt, 2024; Duffy et al., 2024b; Kim et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2024). While there are some studies that focus on individuals who fall within groups likely to be experiencing indecent working conditions (e.g., youth, women, minority groups, people of color, marginalized), they are hugely underrepresented. As such, their experiences are not adequately reflected in the decent work literature.

People with disabilities are other minority groups who have been ignored in the literature. Closely linked to this group of workers are neurodivergent workers, such as autistic and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) workers, whose decent work experiences are not made available in the literature. Additionally, migrants are largely ignored in the decent work literature. It must be added that while scholars such as Holzberg (2024) and Giddy (2022) had migrants included in their sample, we noted that it was not a deliberate decision to do so. It only happened that the background of the participants showed that they were migrants. Part-time workers, seasonal workers and casual workers are other worker groups likely to be of a low socio-economic status but have also not been represented in the literature. We urge scholars to pay more attention to these groups of workers to have a broader representation of worker groups in the decent work literature. Additionally, we encourage a focus on decent work studies on highly skilled workers because, according to Cooke et al. (2019), they sometimes encounter decent work deficits.

The geographic representation of decent work studies is another area that deserves more attention from scholars due to its skewed nature. Apart from Europe, which has numerous countries being studied, countries in the rest of the regions are less studied. Countries such as the USA and China dominate the studies in North America and Asia respectively. More studies ought to be conducted in North America and Asia besides the USA and China. Generally, more countries from across the globe need to be studied. There is a notable paucity of studies from the global south, particularly South America, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa. Countries in these regions are mostly faced with poverty, lower income and access to education, underdeveloped infrastructure and overall, a non-buoyant economy compared to their global north counterparts. It is therefore important that decent work studies focus on such areas to bring to bear worker experiences from those areas.

The dominance of the psychology of working theory as the theoretical basis in the studies, while offering homogeneity to decent work research, has the propensity to limit its further development. The reliance on the psychology of working theory is important in laying a firm foundation for the subject by providing valuable insights into economic constraints, marginalization, work volition and career adaptability and their contributions to decent work. As a theory that is less than a decade old (Duffy et al., 2016), it is understandable because doing so establishes its relevance and ascertains how it underpins decent work, which seems to have been done. However, the challenge with this is that many of the studies anchored on this theory considered variables that were named in it. That is, economic constraints, marginalization, work volition and career adaptability as antecedent variables; and again, work volition and career adaptability as mediating variables. Similar outcome variables have also been the focus of many of the studies. The continuous reliance on the psychology of working theory especially, its core constructs, risk stagnation of the subject, as it may limit the exploration of new questions and perspectives (Duffy et al., 2024a). To ensure theoretical diversity and further developments of the subject, authors should consider theoretical alternatives to the psychology of working theory in decent work studies. Modified psycho-social theories such as self-determination and social cognitive career theories, as well as relational theory of working are good alternatives given the social and psychological aspects of decent work.

Concerning the methods used in decent work studies, while quantitative methods dominate, a variety of other methods, like qualitative, mixed methods, conceptual/theoretical and literature reviews, have been used. The use of mixed methods is especially important to advance the subject as it leverages the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative studies while limiting the weaknesses inherent in using one over the other (Creswell, 2009). More mixed methods studies will elucidate findings that just one method cannot do. However, many of the mixed methods studies adopted the concurrent mixed methods design where both quantitative and qualitative data were collected at the same time (Di Fabio and Kenny, 2019; Dodd et al., 2019; Ferreira et al., 2019; Masdonati et al., 2019; Nam and Kim, 2019; Vignoli et al., 2020). With this design, the full benefits of mixed methods studies are unlikely to be realized. Future studies are encouraged to adopt sequential mixed methods. For example, using explanatory sequential mixed methods to explain in more detail earlier quantitative findings or using exploratory sequential mixed methods so that, based on qualitative findings, measurement items suitable for the specific context of the group being studied can be developed (Creswell and Creswell, 2018).

Again, it is observed that a few of the quantitative studies are longitudinal or time-lagged. Confidence in the causalities associated with decent work, as found in the included studies, could be thought of as low since cross-sectional studies are limited in establishing clear-cut causality. This is an issue alluded to as a limitation in about 30% of the included studies. Scholars should thus conduct longitudinal or time-lagged studies to increase confidence in established causalities. Additionally, intervention studies are largely absent in the literature. Considering the benefits of intervention studies for theory and practice, the use of interventions in decent work studies could advance the subject in several ways. Such studies could unearth the boundary conditions together with the process factors that revolve around decent work while also firmly establishing causality. Decent work enhancement strategies highlighted in this study could be adopted in intervention studies. Another advantage of the intervention studies for the subject is the propensity to bridge the deficits in decent work conditions revealed in the industry/business sector and national/transnational environments, as well as decent work profiles.

The synthesized evidence regarding how the decent work concept has been theorized demands more research to firmly establish how decent work ought to be conceptualized. The claims by scholars (Di Ruggiero et al., 2015; Dobbins et al., 2024; Wang and Cheung, 2024), coupled with findings in this study, lend credence to the limited scope of the existing conceptualizations of decent work. Moreover, the revelation of additional conditions (e.g., career development, achievement motivation, autonomy, recognition and status) that workers deemed to be decent work conditions when the decent work scale developed by Duffy et al. (2017) was tested in different national contexts adds to the need for a more comprehensive conceptualization of the phenomenon. Pursuant to this, scholars are encouraged to develop a more comprehensive conceptualization of decent work. It must, however, be noted that the dimensions revealed in this study should only be a starting point in the quest to develop a more comprehensive conceptualization of the phenomenon. The dimensions evinced in this study are multi-level and heterogeneous. They combine objective and subjective dimensions from different sources, including the ILO, employers and individual workers, which, in the current state, could be quite problematic to advance without homogeneity. In the search for a comprehensive conceptualization of decent work, specific homogeneous perspectives must be targeted.

The use of latent profile analysis is a notable aspect of decent work studies. It shows individual workers and their distinct decent work profiles, which are essential for targeted interventions for worker groups. However, the decent work profiles deserve the attention of researchers. Available studies on decent work profiles are scanty, and these few studies have some peculiarities. Addressing the peculiarities in future studies will increase the volume of decent work profile studies and enhance their recognition and widespread acceptance because the profiles are not fully established yet. The distinctiveness of the decent work profiles is arguably questionable and not conclusive. Half of the studies involving the profiles were not premised on only decent work, but were combined with precarious work (Blustein et al., 2020, 2023a) and meaningful work (Duffy et al., 2024a, b). Also, these studies were conducted in Korea (Lee et al., 2024), the USA (Blustein et al., 2020; 2023a; Duffy et al., 2024b; Kim et al., 2021) and Turkey (Çarkıt, 2024). In the future, latent profile analysis could be conducted among different populations of workers and in different contexts based on only decent work. It is important to highlight that most of the studies were conducted in the USA, where access to healthcare is not universal, but largely employment-based. As a result, workers often face challenges of underemployment due to declining union influence, inadequate enforcement of labor protections, wage depression among others (Pratap et al., 2021). Given these conditions, and predictions that shifts in the employment landscape will further reduce access to employer-sponsored healthcare (Duffy et al., 2019), the low/lack of access to healthcare is understandable. More decent work profiles in countries where access to healthcare is not tied to employment will enable a holistic appreciation of the access to healthcare component of decent work profiles.

In terms of the factors associated with decent work, some of the antecedents in the societal factors need statistical testing. For instance, decent education (Duffy et al., 2022), national culture, ideology and policies and industrial relations (Cooke et al., 2019) are variables within the societal factors that have not been statistically examined. Additional work environment factors could be considered in future studies to highlight their importance in accessing decent work. Leadership and supervisor behaviors could facilitate the achievement of decent work. Therefore, these variables could be examined in future studies. Similarly, except for national well-being (Anlesinya et al., 2021), the societal outcomes of decent work (Frota, 2008; Ralph and Arora, 2024) require statistical testing. Furthermore, among the factors associated with decent work, studies have not been conducted to unearth moderating variables as much as the other factors (Duffy et al., 2024a). For example, other societal factors such as social support, types of government and labor laws (Duffy et al., 2017) and employee factors like goal orientation (Seol et al., 2024) could be considered in future studies.

The marginalization and decent work link have been found to have both a positive (Autin et al., 2021) and inverse relationship (Douglass et al., 2017, 2020; Duffy et al., 2016, 2018, 2020; Tokar and Kaut, 2018). A similar situation is observed between workplace climate and decent work. England et al. (2020) established a positive effect, whereas Allan et al. (2019) established an inverse effect. This could mean that the relations between these variables are inconclusive. It is also plausible that boundary conditions determine the type of association between the two variables. More research is therefore needed to establish which boundary conditions determine the type of relationship. Moreover, decent work has been established as a dynamic phenomenon. Its dynamism has been shown in it being an antecedent, mediator and outcome variable. It is yet to be made clear the conditions that necessitate the role it plays. Future studies could determine the specific conditions for the role it plays. Additionally, the phenomenon is yet to be considered as a moderating variable. As a dynamic variable, it will be interesting for scholars to pursue this agenda.

As shown in Figure 4, a social/relational theme is underrepresented in the decent work literature despite its importance in the discourse and experiences of decent work. Work is a social activity – it provides individuals with daily opportunities to interact directly with their colleagues, supervisors, supervisees, clients/customers and the wider community – thereby satisfying a natural social appetite (Allan et al., 2020; Blustein, 2011; Duffy et al., 2016). People spend much of their active time working (Ralph and Arora, 2024); hence, the interplay between decent work and social/relational aspects of work needs greater scholarly attention. The social/relational context of work is common to all workers and critical for career development and overall work experience (Blustein, 2011). Besides, the interpersonal discrimination and harmful workplace relationships that often affect marginalized and economically constrained workers (Binggeli et al., 2013; Duffy et al., 2016) underscore the importance of examining this interplay. From the perspective of relational theory of working, decent work can enhance the quality of the social/relational context of work (Allan et al., 2020; Blustein, 2011; Duffy et al., 2016), which may in turn spillover into relations beyond work. There is therefore a need for future research to investigate how decent work shapes and is shaped by the social/relational dynamics of work. Such a line of inquiry will complement existing factors such as employee cognitive states, work behaviors and needs satisfaction that have been linked with decent work and advance a more holistic understanding of the phenomenon.

This study drew insights from the decent work literature through a systematic mixed studies review in which evidence from quantitative, mixed methods, conceptual/theoretical and qualitative studies were synthesized. The study reveals a significant increase in research after the development and validation of the decent work scale in 2017. Despite the growing body of literature, the data sources are still not diverse enough to fully capture the experiences of marginalized groups and people facing economic constraints across different jurisdictions. Also, theoretical and methodological diversity are required in the study of the subject.

Moreover, the conceptualization of decent work needs to be broadened to encompass a wider range of dimensions. Additionally, this review highlights factors associated with decent work that are yet to undergo statistical testing, inconclusive and underrepresented. This study advances the decent work discourse by integrating fragmented evidence spanning individual, organizational and national levels. By consolidating the literature and providing a comprehensive analysis, this study advances theory and discusses avenues for future decent work research, including expanding the data sources and conceptualization of decent work, as well as conducting more statistical analyses to firmly establish factors that impact decent work and are impacted by it. In doing so, future studies can make important strides toward advancing decent work theoretically.

Practically, this study provides valuable insights for work stakeholders such as policymakers, work and vocational psychologists and human resource managers. It clarifies what constitutes decent work, how it is experienced by workers, the factors that impact it and result from it, decent work conditions across contexts and strategies that can improve decent work conditions. These insights can inform evidence-based stakeholder decisions to design targeted interventions to promote decent work and ultimately enhance worker well-being.

This study acknowledges some limitations related to the eligibility criteria. Publications such as conference proceedings, book chapters and grey literature on decent work were excluded. Similarly, journals ranked only in the top 15% were used as a cut-off point to ensure quality and rigor, but this may have resulted in the exclusion of articles from reputable journals that fall just below this threshold, which could have provided valuable insights. These criteria were applied due to concerns about variability in quality, but they may have led us to miss some key findings. Additionally, using only articles published in the English language as an eligibility criterion means that publications in other languages were excluded from the review. While English-language journals dominate global academia, excluding non-English publications may introduce a bias toward Anglo-centric perspectives and miss valuable insights from other regions. Future reviews could consider expanding the scope to include grey literature and non-English language publications to add to the comprehensiveness of the insights provided.