Well-Being and Mental Health in the Gig Economy

Abstract

and a musician. With Sally-Anne Gross he authored the two-part study nationwide study 'Can Music Make You Sick?'.

Can Music Make You Sick? Measuring the Price of Musical Ambition

“…This is particularly crucial given the current employment environment in the UK -a feature highlighted recently in debates about who should receive 'furlough' support, and how much, in the wake of Covid-19 -where the number of self-employed workers increased by 1 million between and 2015(ONS, 2016, and where, according to the Office for National Statistics (2018b): 'the number of self-employed reporting themselves as working on their own, or with a partner but no employees, has increased between 2001 and 2016, while those who report themselves as having employees has fallen over the same period. ' We have also grappled with the concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) (Gross, Musgrave and Janciute, 2018), suggesting that those who are currently engaged in a debate around the rationale for such a scheme on ethical, moral, economic or civic engagement grounds (Fuchs, 2008) might also want to consider the artistic, cultural and therefore social benefits of such a scheme (see Downes (2018) for a more detailed overview of UBI). The question of the value society puts on artistic production needs to include how and who is remunerated for artists' endeavours.…”

“…Indeed, as Attali (1977Attali ( , 2014 predicted there are millions of people making and enjoying music but there will only ever be a very tiny proportion who will make money directly from musical work. There are of course political ramifications to this and as our work on the gig economy suggests there will need to be policy changes going forward (Gross, Musgrave and Janciute, 2018). In addition, and this is something we consider central, our courses need to meaningfully straddle both the professional (the 'how') and the critical (the 'why').…”

Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Informal Employees in the Digital Era

“…Informal employment and entrepreneurship have become the voluntary choices of many college students. Researchers hold different views on the influences of informal employment in new economic forms [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. Supporters claim that employees may have high levels of flexibility and autonomy and low intensity of physical labor, which will increase their income and improve their working conditions and occupational health, while opponents state that there is no essential distinction in the digital forms from traditional informal employment.…”

Fit to Perform: A Profile of Higher Education Music Students’ Physical Fitness

“…While this study's relevance in providing anthropomorphic and range of motion estimates is undisputed, further information is needed on how musicians compare with published norms on standardized measures. Also, there is currently a lack of insight into the physical and fitness characteristics of advanced music students, those in higher education who are in the midst of intensive training to enter a demanding music profession mostly characterized by a portfolio of self-managed roles in a gig economy (Bennett, 2016;Gross et al, 2018).…”