Risking one’s life to save one’s livelihood: Precarious work, presenteeism, and worry about disease exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

The present study advances research on the negative consequences of precarious work experiences (PWE), which include perceptions of threats to one's job and financial security as well as a sense of powerlessness and inability to exercise rights in the workplace. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a backdrop, we examine how PWE relate to sickness presenteeism and worry about work-related COVID-19 exposure. In a 12-week, four-wave study of workers working fully in-person, perceptions of powerlessness and job insecurity were associated with presenteeism (e.g., general presenteeism as well as attending work with known or possible COVID-19 infection) and concerns about disease exposure at work. Whereas powerlessness primarily operated at the between-person level of analysis, job insecurity's effects emerged at both levels of analysis. A sense of powerlessness at work also predicted sending children to school/daycare sick. In sum, the findings suggest that precarity related to being able to keep one's job and a sense of powerlessness at work contribute to concerns about the risk of COVID-19 exposure at work and, simultaneously, behaviors that may contribute to the health risks faced by others. This research provides added support to the argument that precarious work should be addressed in order to improve both worker well-being and public health.

The Psychology of Precarity: A Critical Framework

“…Specifically, in the context of neoliberalism, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of authoritarian movements, and the mainstreaming of global white supremacy (Grzanka et al, 2019), people engulfed in precarity are striving to find solutions that offer some support and resistance to the dominance of markets and hyper-individualism. The COVID-19 pandemic evoked pervasive vulnerability, lack of safety and security, and threats to survival (Bazzoli et al, 2022;Blustein et PSYCHOLOGY OF PRECARITY al., 2022;Shoss et al, 2023); indeed, the particularly pernicious impact that COVID-19 has on people with minimal, if any, access to power and privilege illustrates the link between external events and structural sources of oppression and marginalization that characterizes precarity (Blustein et al, 2022;Fine, 2023). One of the more disconcerting trends during this period of growing precarity since at least 2008 is the rise of populism and nationalism, co-mingled with white nationalism, which has been more pronounced in some communities caught up in precarious economic, social, and psychological circumstances (Adam-Troian et al, 2023;Lorey, 2015;Standing, 2011).…”

“…One of the more disconcerting trends during this period of growing precarity since at least 2008 is the rise of populism and nationalism, co-mingled with white nationalism, which has been more pronounced in some communities caught up in precarious economic, social, and psychological circumstances (Adam-Troian et al, 2023;Lorey, 2015;Standing, 2011). Regardless, the increase in mental health problems and demand for services, particularly during the pandemic, may represent a psychological consequence of growing precarity (Blustein et al, 2022;Shoss et al, 2023). The entrenched nature of social oppression, particularly against people of color and Indigenous peoples, sexual and gender minorities, older and disabled people, people in poverty, and other oppressed communities, also reflects an aspect of precarity that is devastating for certain social groups and the broader social fabric.…”

“…Though many perspectives have proposed a more "upstream" approach to thinking about public health and the causes of (mental) health inequities (e.g., Link & Phelan, 2001), precarity offers unique capacities for advancing an intersectional and structurally sensitive approach for a psychology invested in understanding and addressing 21st century social problems. While precarity as an explanatory framework may be relatively nascent in the psychological literature (Coultas et al, 2023;Fine, 2023), recent work across the discipline corroborates the need for a unifying framework that can act as a viable heuristic when addressing the economic conditions of suffering, the political economy 5 of neoliberalism, and the collusion of white supremacy and intersecting social forces in the production and maintenance of oppression (e.g., Bazzoli et al, 2022;Brewster & Molina, 2021;French et al, 2020;Shoss et al, 2023). As such, we expand upon the work of Coultas et al (2023) in their foundational special issue of the British Journal of Social Psychology on the role of social psychology in the applications of precarity to social justice/liberatory practices and scholarship to consider how to PSYCHOLOGY OF PRECARITY apply the interdisciplinary insights of precarity theorists to psychological research, theory development, and critical praxis, in and beyond social psychology.…”

The psychology of precarity: A critical framework.

“…Though many perspectives have proposed a more “upstream” approach to thinking about public health and the causes of (mental) health inequities (e.g., Link & Phelan, 2001), precarity offers unique capacities for advancing an intersectional and structurally sensitive approach for psychology invested in understanding and addressing 21st-century social problems. While precarity as an explanatory framework may be relatively nascent in the psychological literature (Coultas et al, 2023; Fine, 2023), recent work across the discipline corroborates the need for a unifying framework that can act as a viable heuristic when addressing the economic conditions of suffering, the political economy 5 of neoliberalism, and the collusion of white supremacy and intersecting social forces in the production and maintenance of oppression (e.g., Bazzoli et al, 2022; Brewster & Molina, 2021; French et al, 2020; Shoss et al, 2023). As such, we expand upon the work of Coultas et al (2023) in their foundational special issue of the British Journal of Social Psychology on the role of social psychology in the applications of precarity to social justice/liberatory practices and scholarship to consider how to apply the interdisciplinary insights of precarity theorists to psychological research, theory development, and critical praxis, in and beyond social psychology.…”

“…Specifically, in the context of neoliberalism, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of authoritarian movements, and the mainstreaming of global white supremacy (Grzanka et al, 2019), people engulfed in precarity are striving to find solutions that offer some support and resistance to the dominance of markets and hyperindividualism. The COVID-19 pandemic evoked pervasive vulnerability, lack of safety and security, and threats to survival (Bazzoli et al, 2022;Blustein et al, 2022;Shoss et al, 2023); indeed, the particularly pernicious impact that COVID-19 has on people with minimal, if any, access to power and privilege illustrates the link between external events and structural sources of oppression and marginalization that characterizes precarity (Blustein et al, 2022;Fine, 2023). One of the more disconcerting trends during this period of growing precarity since at least 2008 is the rise of populism and nationalism, comingled with white nationalism, which Patrick R. Grzanka has been more pronounced in some communities caught up in precarious economic, social, and psychological circumstances (Adam-Troian et al, 2023;Lorey, 2015;Standing, 2011).…”