Association Between Informal Employment and Health Status and the Role of the Working Conditions in Spain

Abstract

Informal employment is an employment condition in which workers are not protected by labor regulations. It has been associated with poor health status in middle- and low-income countries, but it is still a neglected issue in high-income countries. Our aim was to estimate the association between health status and employment profiles in Spain, attending to the role of workplace risk factors. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 8,060 workers from the Seventh Spanish Working Conditions Survey (2011). We defined 4 employment profiles and estimated the associations between them and poor self-perceived health using Poisson regression models. All analyses were stratified by sex. The prevalence of the informal profile was 4% for women and 1.5% for men. Differences in self-perceived health status among employment profiles were negligible. Only women engaged in informal employment had poorer self-perceived health than those in the reference profile. This difference disappeared after adjusting models for psychosocial risk factors. In conclusion, we did not find differences in self-perceived health status between employment profiles, except for women in informal employment. Efforts should be made to improve the psychosocial risk factors in women in informal employment.

Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Informal Employees in the Digital Era

“…The results of this study are basically consistent with most previous studies in China and abroad [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 34 ]. A typical exception is stated in [ 11 ]. The authors do not find differences in self-perceived health (psychosocial risk factors included) status between employment profiles in Spain, except for women engaged in informal employment.…”

“…Informal employment is usually related to low income and social insurance coverage, poor working conditions, and limited safety protection, which will affect the physical and mental health of employees in many aspects. Except for few individual cases, the vulnerability of informal employment has been verified in a number of literatures based on data from different countries [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. A systematic review covering 12 studies in four WHO (World Health Organization) regions (Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, Int.…”

Is informality a barrier to sustainable development?

“…Women are more likely to be exposed to such OHS problems, as they are disproportionately employed in monotonous, rapid‐pace jobs “that require static postures and place static loads on muscles” (Lund & Mariott, 2011, p. 5). Similarly, Montero‐Moraga, Benavides, and Lopez‐Ruiz (2020) showed that female informal workers in Spain had poorer health status compared to a reference group, but that this difference disappeared after adjusting for psychosocial risk factors. Finally, a bidirectional causality between poverty and health has been noted.…”

Sickness absence trajectories following labour market participation patterns: a cohort study in Catalonia (Spain), 2012–2014

“…Furthermore, the administrative registers do not record a worker's status when they are without contact with Social Security. Individuals could be unemployed without benefits and actively seeking a job, jobless and not seeking a job (i.e., outside the labour force or inactive), or in informal employment (i.e., working off the record, without a contract or social protection), and we do not know how these situations affect their health [53].…”