Impact of Work Value Perception on Workers’ Physical and Mental Health: Evidence from China

Abstract

Research on the effect of work value perception on workers’ health, especially in emerging economies, is scarce. This study, therefore, explored how work value perception affects the physical and mental health of workers in China. We also examined the mediating role of life satisfaction in the relationship between work value perception and health. Taking a random sample of 16,890 individuals in China, we used ordered probit regression and instrumental variable ordered probit regression to test the links between work value perception and workers’ health based on existence, relatedness, and growth (ERG) theory. The results showed that work value perception significantly affected both the physical and mental health of workers; the results remained robust after solving the endogeneity problem. The subsample regression results showed that work value perception significantly affected the physical and mental health of female, male, married, unmarried, religious, and nonreligious workers. Furthermore, life satisfaction mediated the effect of work value perception on workers’ health. These results shed light on the relationship between work value perception and health and thus have implications for improving workers’ physical and mental health. This study can provide a reference for both governmental and corporate policymakers in emerging economies.

Adolescent Self-Control and Individual Physical and Mental Health in Adulthood: A Chinese Study

“…The explained variables in this study involve physical and mental health. For the variable of physical health, we used self-rated health to measure it ( Yang et al, 2021 ). The respondents were asked, “How would you rate your current physical health status?” The answers were assigned 1–5 on a five-point Likert scale, from “very unhealthy” to “very healthy.”…”

“…For the variable of mental health, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale was adopted to measure respondents’ mental health status ( Radloff, 1977 ). The CES-D scale has been verified to be valid for the assessment of depression and mental health status in a Chinese context ( Tang et al, 2019 ; Yang et al, 2021 ). The total score of the CES-D scale ranges from 20 to 80, and the higher the CES-D score, the deeper the depression, and the worse the mental health status.…”

“…To obtain accurate conclusions, we controlled general factors affecting individual health incorporating gender (male = 1; female = 0), age, education, religion (with religion = 1; non-religion = 0), marriage (with marriage = 1; non-marriage = 0), logarithm of income in 2015, lifestyles (having habit of smoking / drinking / exercise = 1; otherwise = 0) ( Smith, 1999 ; Zhang et al, 2018 ; Jiang et al, 2020 ; Yang and Jiang, 2020 ; Yang et al, 2021 ), and regional effects.…”

“…“Ensuring healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages” is one of the 17 sustainable development goals and targets in Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development released by United Nations (2015) . The influencing factors of individual health have always been the focus of academic attention, and relevant research has extended from the material level such as diet, physical exercise, and climate environment to the psychological and spiritual fields such as work and life stress ( Hammer and Sauter, 2013 ; Mosadeghrad, 2013 ; Jiang et al, 2020 ; Yang et al, 2021 ).…”

How Does Clean Energy Consumption Affect Women’s Health: New Insights from China

“…The response variable WH in this paper is an ordered multi-categorical variable, and for this type of data, a commonly used econometric model is the Ordered Probit model [35][36][37]. Hence, this paper constructs Ordered Probit (O-Probit) models (Equations ( 1) and ( 2)) on CHE and WH and used Stata v 15.0 software for empirical analysis.…”