Is precarious employment more damaging to women's health than men's?

Employment insecurity and mental health during the economic recession: An analysis of the young adult labour force in Italy

“…Some studies have found no sex differences in the impact of flexible employment on health (Kivimaki et al, 2003;Ferrie, Shipley, Stansfeld, & Marmot, 2002). However, other scholars have found smaller effects on women (Ferrie et al, 1995;Ferrie, 1998), while still others have argued that women's health may be disproportionately affected by temporary employment (Menendez, Benach, Muntaner, Amable, & O'Campo, 2007;Pirani & Salvini, 2015). The empirical analyses presented in this study have shown that, all other things being equal, women are more likely than men to report having mental health problems.…”

Is temporary employment damaging to health? A longitudinal study on Italian workers

“…When a gender perspective has been adopted, some studies revealed that the relationship between health and temporary work is shaped differently for men and women. Menendez et al (2007), reviewing research referring to different countries from Europe to United States and Canada, outlined that the health of women is disproportionally affected by employment flexibility. Women work under temporary contracts more frequently than men, and temporary employment is more likely to have an adverse effect on them, for example in terms of mental and self-rated health (Artazcoz et al, 2007;Campos Serna et al, 2013), as well as of anxiety and depression (Callea et al, 2012).…”

“…Beside the most relevant social stratifiers, like individuals' class location or migrant status (Benach et al, 2014;Menendez et al, 2007), temporary contracts are not equally distributed according to demographic characteristics like gender and age (Eurofound, 2013;Eurostat, 2002). The proportion of employees with temporary contracts is generally higher for women than for men.…”

“…Regardless of their employment status, Italian women are often obliged to suffer the greatest burden of domestic labor and childcare (Del Boca et al, 2012); these roles make it very hard for them to balance work and family responsibilities (Saraceno and Naldini, 2011). Women in precarious jobs tend to suffer constant variations of work schedules and their major concern is simply to have enough hours of work (Menendez et al, 2007). This strong (and double) burden, joined with the concerns of job insecurity, may have serious consequences on their psychological and physical health.…”

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

“…(7) Findings on the health consequences of nonstandard employment are unclear and one explanation advanced for this is that outcomes might be worse for those working in such arrangements 'involuntarily' (usually those with greater disadvantage) versus 'voluntarily'. (4) Internationally, nonstandard employment follows the social gradient (8), concentrated among the female workforce (3,9,10) and other groups experiencing disadvantage, such as migrants. (4) Structural factors constraining workers' agency may thus include characteristics of the workers themselves (e.g.…”