‘This just isn't sustainable’: Precarious employment, stress and workers' health

Precarious Employment: Understanding an Emerging Social Determinant of Health

“…Qualitative evidence gathered in Spain among Spanish (3) and immigrant workers (128) supports this finding. This pattern has also been described in Canada (46). The use of a multidimensional concept of employment precariousness allows us to assess the precarization of employment and its association with health among both permanent and temporary workers (166), as well as to capture the impact of employment relationships (18).…”

“…Temporary workers also report having less information about their work environment and receiving less training for performing their tasks, are seldom represented in health and safety committees, and have less access to safety equipment (70,134,133). Correspondingly, temporary workers are more at risk of occupational injuries (4,29,134), which is also attributed to their shorter job tenures and resulting lack of experience (29,76), less OHS training (5,46,134), and poorer working conditions (4) as compared with permanent employees. Also, some organizational characteristics of the places where temporary workers are more frequently employed, such as establishment size and economic activity, may be at play (4).…”

“…Another repeatedly reported health risk in precarious workers concerns suboptimal OHS prevention, including less qualitative protective gear or lack of training about occupational risks and necessary precautions to decrease those risks (102). Moreover, precarious workers tend to experience less-advantageous social relations and lack of support at work in their relations with both superiors and permanent coworkers (2,46,55,103,170). These adverse social experiences can be explicitly linked to the precarious employment status itself (2).…”

“…Second, precarious jobs may limit workers' control over their professional and personal lives, leading to psychosocial stress. Precarious employment can be related to experiences of job insecurity, feelings of betrayal and injustice as a consequence of breaches in the psychological contract with the employer, feelings of powerlessness and being out of control, lack of future opportunities, or denial of a professional identity, which is an essential social role (46,50,104,146). These experiences have been identified as powerful social stressors (115), which in turn can be linked to outcomes of adverse health and well-being (123).…”

Deliberately Casual? Workers' Agency, Health, and Nonstandard Employment Relations in Australia

“…(16) The limited qualitative data documenting workers' experiences of nonstandard employment internationally is dominated by narratives of marginalisation, job insecurity and income variability, leading to stress and physical and emotional health problems impacting on work and other domains of life. (18,19) Australian studies have highlighted the importance of nonstandard workers' lack of control over their working time, along with perceptions of less power and respect at work. (20)(21)(22) …”