Job insecurity and mental health

To what extent is job insecurity, understood from a multidimensional perspective, associated with poor mental health? Recent research has found the answer to this question.

The research group on Social Determinants of Health and Demographic Change at the University of the Basque Country (Opik) has shown that job insecurity in the Basque Country, regardless of other economic factors, has a clear impact on the mental health of working people; mainly, the salary level in general, and vulnerability in the case of women. The conclusions of the study can be extrapolated to other regions of Spain and other nations.

The study carried out by the Opik group has analyzed the relationship between job insecurity and the mental health of men and women employees in the Basque Country from a multidimensional perspective. “We believe that it is necessary to address job insecurity from that perspective; because, if not, you can leave out many things that could be job insecurity and are not being analyzed”, says Erika Valero Alzaga, researcher of the group.

Thus, in order to know the relative importance of each one of the dimensions that make it up, the research has been based on the EPRES job insecurity scale, which consists of six dimensions: temporality, wages, disempowerment, vulnerability, rights and capacity to exercise rights. . In this way, each of the dimensions has been analyzed separately, to identify those that potentially have the greatest impact on health, based on a sample from the 2018 Basque Autonomous Community Health Survey.

According to the conclusions of this study, job insecurity is significantly associated with poor mental health, both in men and women. “We have seen that there are some dimensions that seem to have more impact on mental health than others,” says Valero. Salary level, in both sexes, or vulnerability, among women, seem to be significantly and independently related to a worse state of mental health. “Curiously, one of the most notable characteristics of the Spanish labor market is temporary employment. We see that, if we neutralize the effect of other variables, such as educational level or socioeconomic position, this variable per se does not seem to affect mental health”, comments the researcher. “This may be due to the fact that, in some sectors with high casualty rates in our context, such as part of the public sector, this situation is not always experienced with a high degree of uncertainty about job continuity, which It does not mean that efforts should not be made to stabilize the workforce”.

Erika Valero. (Photo: Unai Zorriketa / Communications Office of the UPV/EHU)

Socioeconomic and political transformations “have resulted in a significant deterioration in the quality of employment and a transfer of risks and insecurity from employers to workers. In addition, job insecurity is not evenly distributed among the working population”, says Valero. Women tend to hold lower-quality jobs, have fewer permanent contracts than men, earn lower wages, and are overrepresented in part-time jobs. Similarly, job insecurity is more concentrated among young people and those with a worse socioeconomic position. “Precariousness has very important negative effects on mental health, so considering the impact that work in general (paid work and domestic and care work) has on people’s lives should be a priority at the political level. Valero continues. Until now, the concern was to end unemployment, since it has also been seen to have a negative impact on health; but it is not only necessary to guarantee access to employment, but also to guarantee access to decent employment and with adequate salary levels”.

In the researcher’s opinion, “the results of this study, based on a large and representative sample of the salaried population in the Basque Country (a total of 3,345 people: 1,636 women and 1,709 men), can help identify the most unfavorable aspects of job insecurity for mental health and, in this way, launch different socio-political measures to deal with them”. However, the researcher acknowledges that it is a cross-sectional study that “prevents establishing a principle of causality between job insecurity and mental health”, and stresses the need to “promote new research that adapts and analyzes the EPRES scale in working people self-employed, as well as in people who do not have an employment contract.

The study is entitled “How do the different dimensions of job insecurity affect mental health?”. And it has been published in the academic journal Gaceta Sanitaria. (Source: UPV/EHU)