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Employment status and perceived health condition: longitudinal data from Italy
TL;DR: Evidence is offered on the relationship between self-reported health and the employment status in Italy using the Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), which finds that temporary workers, first-job seekers and unemployed individuals are worse off than permanent employees.
Abstract: The considerable increase of non-standard labor contracts, unemployment and inactivity rates raises the question of whether job insecurity and the lack of job opportunities affect physical and mental well-being differently from being employed with an open-ended contract. In this paper we offer evidence on the relationship between Self Reported Health Status (SRHS) and the employment status in Italy using the Survey on Household Income and Wealth; another aim is to investigate whether these potential inequalities have changed with the recent economic downturn (time period 2006-2010). We estimate an ordered logit model with SRHS as response variable based on a fixed-effects approach which has certain advantages with respect to the random-effects formulation and has not been applied before with SRHS data. The fixed-effects nature of the model also allows us to solve the problems of incidental parameters and non-random selection of individuals into different labor market categories. We find that temporary workers, unemployed and inactive individuals are worse off than permanent employees, especially males, young workers, and those living in the center and south of Italy. Health inequalities between unemployed/inactive and permanent workers widen over time for males and young workers, and arise in the north of the country as well.
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TL;DR: It is concluded that periods of economic recession are possibly associated with a higher prevalence of mental health problems, including common mental disorders, substance disorders, and ultimately suicidal behaviour.
Abstract: Countries in recession experience high unemployment rates and a decline in living conditions, which, it has been suggested, negatively influences their populations’ health. The present review examines the recent evidence of the possible association between economic recessions and mental health outcomes. Literature review of records identified through Medline, PsycINFO, SciELO, and EBSCO Host. Only original research papers, published between 2004 and 2014, peer-reviewed, non-qualitative research, and reporting on associations between economic factors and proxies of mental health were considered. One-hundred-one papers met the inclusion criteria. The evidence was consistent that economic recessions and mediators such as unemployment, income decline, and unmanageable debts are significantly associated with poor mental wellbeing, increased rates of common mental disorders, substance-related disorders, and suicidal behaviours. On the basis of a thorough analysis of the selected investigations, we conclude that periods of economic recession are possibly associated with a higher prevalence of mental health problems, including common mental disorders, substance disorders, and ultimately suicidal behaviour. Most of the research is based on cross-sectional studies, which seriously limits causality inferences. Conclusions are summarised, taking into account international policy recommendations concerning the cost-effective measures that can possibly reduce the occurrence of negative mental health outcomes in populations during periods of economic recession.
386 citations
Cites background from "Employment status and perceived hea..."
...[29] National population sample, Italy Cohort 37,782 (2006–2010) 15–64 y Inter-time Variables Psychosocial/economic indicators Pre- and post- recession period Employment Status Psychological Well-being Self-rated health Temporary workers, first job seekers and unemployed individuals all perceive their health as being worse than permanent workers do....
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...viduals were amplified after the onset of the recession [29]....
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...tion [28, 29, 33, 39], although Icelandic and Swedish...
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TL;DR: There is evidence that young people are especially vulnerable to health problems when unemployed or working in precarious conditions, and active labour market and training programmes, inclusive social security measures, improved working conditions and targeted health programmes are important for addressing this vulnerability.
Abstract: Background: The impact of unemployment and precarious employment on the health of young people is not well understood. However, according to social causation, higher socio-economic positions and th...
101 citations
Cites background from "Employment status and perceived hea..."
...Lack of economic and social benefits [36, 42, 48, 67, 70, 79]...
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...[12, 35-79] in the actual review (see Figure 1)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors apply a dynamic panel data estimator (system GMM) to account for both unobserved confounders and reverse causality, and find strong support for the causality thesis.
47 citations
TL;DR: Race by gender heterogeneity in the residual effect of restless sleep over depressive symptoms on CMC over 25 years suggests that comorbid poor sleep and depressive symptoms differently contribute to development of multi-morbidity among subpopulations based on the intersection of race and gender.
Abstract: Sleep and depression are comorbid problems that contribute to the development of chronic medical conditions (CMC) over time. Although racial and gender differences in the bidirectional associations between sleep, depression, and CMC are known, very limited information exists on heterogeneity of the residual effects of sleep problems over depressive symptoms on CMC across race by gender groups. Using a life-course perspective, the present study compared race by gender groups for residual effects of restless sleep over depressive symptoms on CMC. We used data from waves 1 (year 1986), 4 (year 2001), and 5 (year 2011) of the Americans’ Changing Lives Study (ACL). The study followed 294 White men, 108 Black men, 490 White women, and 237 Black women for 25 years. Restless sleep, depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale [CES-D]), and number of chronic medical conditions (hypertension, diabetes, chronic lung disease, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and arthritis) were measured in 1986, 2001, and 2011. We employed multi-group cross-lagged modeling, with chronic medical conditions as the outcome and race by gender as the groups. Major group differences were found in the residual effect of restless sleep on CMC over depressive symptoms across race by gender groups. Restless sleep in 2001 predicted CMC 10 years later in 2011 among Black women (standardized adjusted B = .135, P .05). Race by gender heterogeneity in the residual effect of restless sleep over depressive symptoms on CMC over 25 years suggests that comorbid poor sleep and depressive symptoms differently contribute to development of multi-morbidity among subpopulations based on the intersection of race and gender. Thus, interventions that try to prevent comorbid sleep problems and depression as a strategy to prevent medical conditions may benefit from tailoring based on the intersection of race and gender.
46 citations
TL;DR: Mental health was generally poorer in both male and female employees as a result of precarious employment, and males were also at higher risk of mortality.
Abstract: Aim:Precarious employment is known to be detrimental to health, and some population subgroups (young individuals, migrant workers, and females) are at higher risk of precarious employment. However,...
33 citations
References
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TL;DR: Precarious employment is an important social determinant of health and the EU policy-makers should take into consideration the new forms of employment and legislate accordingly.
Abstract: BACKGROUND The objective of this study is to describe the prevalence of precarious employment in the European Union (EU) using a multidimensional approach, 8 years into the economic crisis (2014). METHODS We use data from the Flash Eurobarometer 398 among salaried workers (n = 7702). We calculated the proportion and its 95% confidence intervals (CI 95%) for each of the precarious employment dimensions (not having the ability to exercise rights, vulnerability, disempowerment and temporariness), the prevalence of precarious employment (presenting at least one dimension) and the proportion of workers presenting one, two, three or four dimensions. RESULTS Two out of three workers had a precarious employment. The prevalence of precariousness was higher in Eastern (72.64%; CI 95%: 61.78; 81.34) than in Nordic European countries (51.17%; CI 95%: 44.30; 58.00). The most prevalent dimension was not having the ability to exercise rights (42.39%). CONCLUSIONS Precarious employment is an important social determinant of health. Therefore, the EU policy-makers should take into consideration the new forms of employment and legislate accordingly.
15 citations
TL;DR: Some of the indicators used to proxy economic deprivation are significant predictors of SHS and their correlation with the employment condition is such that it should not be neglected in empirical analysis, when available and further to the monetary income.
Abstract: Background: The mixed empirical evidence about employment conditions (i.e., permanent vs. temporary job, full-time vs. part-time job) as well as unemployment has motivated the development of conceptual models with the aim of assessing the pathways leading to effects of employment status on health. Alongside physically and psychologically riskier working conditions, one channel stems in the possibly severe economic deprivation faced by temporary workers. We investigate whether economic deprivation is able to partly capture the effect of employment status on Self-evaluated Health Status (SHS). Methods: Our analysis is based on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey, for a balanced sample from 26 countries from 2009 to 2012. We estimate a correlated random-effects logit model for the SHS that accounts for the ordered nature of the dependent variable and the longitudinal structure of the data. Results and Discussion: Material deprivation and economic strain are able to partly account for the negative effects on SHS from precarious and part-time employment as well as from unemployment that, however, exhibits a significant independent negative association with SHS. Conclusions: Some of the indicators used to proxy economic deprivation are significant predictors of SHS and their correlation with the employment condition is such that it should not be neglected in empirical analysis, when available and further to the monetary income.
14 citations
TL;DR: Multilevel logistic regression showed that the association between MHP (GHQ-12-total score ≥2) and area unemployment was strong in the Netherlands, but absent in Slovakia, and citizens from the most favourable neighbourhoods had nearly double the risk of MHP than their Dutch counterparts.
14 citations
"Employment status and perceived hea..." refers background in this paper
...(2008); Carrieri et al. (2012): unobserved characteristics, possibly also health related, may non-randomly group workers into different contract types, unemployment and inactivity, and gives rise to a bias in their effect on the health status....
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TL;DR: An institutional typology of labour market regulation and social security is constructed to evaluate whether inequalities in self-reported health and limiting longstanding illness between temporary workers and their permanent counterparts are smaller in countries that most closely approximate the ideal type described by advocates of the flexicurity approach.
Abstract: Flexicurity policies comprise a relatively novel approach to the regulation of work and welfare that aims to combine labour market flexibility with social security. Advocates of this approach argue that, by striking the right balance between flexibility and security, flexicurity policies allow firms to take advantage of loose contractual arrangements in an increasingly competitive economic environment while simultaneously protecting workers from the adverse health and social consequences of flexible forms of employment. In this study, we use multilevel Poisson regression models to test the theoretical claim of the flexicurity approach using data for 23 countries across three waves of the European Social Survey. We construct an institutional typology of labour market regulation and social security to evaluate whether inequalities in self-reported health and limiting longstanding illness between temporary workers and their permanent counterparts are smaller in countries that most closely approximate the ideal type described by advocates of the flexicurity approach. Our results indicate that, while the association between temporary employment and health varies across countries, institutional configurations of labour market regulation and social security do not provide a meaningful explanation for this cross-national variation. Contrary to the expectations of the flexicurity hypothesis, our data do not indicate that employment-related inequalities are smaller in countries that approximate the flexicurity approach. We discuss potential explanations for these findings and conclude that there remains a relative lack of evidence in support of the theoretical claims of the flexicurity approach.
13 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of temporary contracts and job insecurity on well-being among younger Italian employees was analyzed using the "Health Conditions and Use of the Health Service Survey" carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics in conjunction with the Bank of Italy's Survey on Households Income and Wealth (SHIW).
Abstract: Working conditions in Western countries have changed dramatically in the last twenty years, witnessing the emergence of new forms of employment contracts. The number of "standard" fulltime permanent jobs has decreased, while non-standard work arrangements such as temporary, contingent or part-time contracts have become much more common. This paper analyses the impact of temporary contracts and job insecurity on well-being among younger Italian employees. We use the "Health Conditions and Use of the Health Service Survey" carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics in conjunction with the Bank of Italy's Survey on Households Income and Wealth (SHIW). We consider four dimensions of individual well-being: physical health, mental health, self-assessed health and happiness. To account for individual heterogeneity we match each temporary worker with a permanent worker using propensity score matching. Well-being of matched individuals is compared to estimates of the average effect of working with a temporary as opposed to a permanent contract. Our analysis reveals a negative relationship between psychological well-being, happiness and having a temporary job and is particularly marked for males
9 citations
"Employment status and perceived hea..." refers methods in this paper
...The sample conditional See Chamberlain (1980) and Baetschmann et al....
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