Precarious employment and workplace health outcomes in Britain

Haile, Getinet Astatike

Abstract

Rationale: The world of work is changing rapidly, and precarious employment is becoming more prevalent in Britain and elsewhere, particularly since the 2008 financial crisis. This is despite the evidence linking employment precarity to adverse health outcomes, and the policy discourses advocating for high-quality jobs. Objective: I seek to establish empirically the extent and nature of the potential link between employment precarity and health outcomes, which is done chiefly at the workplace level. The research can be vital from the perspective of informing policy, given that the workplace represents the level where key policy levers operate. Methods: I use nationally representative data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey. Four workplace health outcomes (WHOs; viz., injuries, illnesses, job satisfaction, and job anxiety) have been used to examine if organizations with precarious employment arrangements are likely to experience adverse health outcomes. I use alternative econometric approaches to compare organizations that reported to have three types of precarious employment arrangements, viz., shift working, annualised hours, and zero-hours contracts (ZHCs), vis-à-vis their counterparts without such arrangements. Results: The results obtained reveal that workplaces with precarious employment arrangements are significantly unhealthier, and those with the most insecure form of precarious employment perform particularly worst in this respect. Conclusions: Precarious employment may become ever more prevalent as organizations contend with economic fallouts from shocks such as Brexit or Covid-19. This may lead to sub-standard health outcomes. The positive influence of trade unions on working conditions has largely been decimated and the workforce in Britain is ageing. These combinations may pose significant challenges to public health including mental health crises. Public policy ought to help minimise adverse health outcomes linked to employment precarity.

Citation

Haile, G. A. (2023). Precarious employment and workplace health outcomes in Britain. Social Science and Medicine, 320, Article 115694. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115694

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 16, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jan 19, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-03
• Deposit Date: May 9, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: May 9, 2023
• Journal: Social Science and Medicine
• Print ISSN: 0277-9536
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-5347
• Publisher: Elsevier BV
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 320
• Article Number: 115694
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115694
• Keywords: Workplace health, Occupational health & safety, Britain, Precarious employment
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/17372877
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623000497?via%3Dihub
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Precarious employment and workplace health outcomes in Britain; Journal Title: Social Science & Medicine; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115694; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2023 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd.