3. Life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA)

As in LCA, the key elements of this step of SLCA are: analysis of data quality; classification; characterization; and, optionally, normalization. Qualitative data can be "translated" into a quantitative form by appliying specified methods.

• Example of characterization in the employment field: weighting of the specified types of employment and calculation of totals (e.g. full-time job at 100%, part-time job at 50% etc.)
• Example of normalization: relating the employment figure to the numbers of people in employment in the country studied.
• Example of classification in the employment field: categorization into full-time and part-time jobs and (e.g. in the German context) mini-jobs, state-subsidized self-employment, pseudo self-employment, etc.

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