Precarious Employment and Health: Analysis of the Comprehensive National Survey in Japan

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that unstable employment contracts may affect the health of workers. Many Japanese workers working full time in ostensibly permanent positions actually operate within unstable and precarious employment conditions. We compared the health status of Japanese workers with precarious employment contracts with that of permanent workers using the 2007 Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions of the People on Health and Welfare (n=205,994). We classified their employment status as 'permanent' vs. 'precarious' (part-time, dispatch, or contract/ non-regular) and compared their health conditions. Among both sexes, precarious workers were more likely than permanent workers to have poor self-rated health or more subjective symptoms, with more workers in full-time employment suffering from serious psychological distress (SPD) and more female workers who smoke. Using logistic regression, we identified a positive association between precarious employment and SPD and current smoking among workers engaged in fulltime employment after adjusting for age, marital status, and work-related conditions. This study demonstrates that precarious employment contracts are associated with poor self-rated health, psychological distress, and tobacco use, especially among people working full-time jobs. These results suggest that engagement in full-time work under unstable employment status impairs workers' health.

Precarious employment and the risk of serious psychological distress: a population-based cohort study in Japan

“…Although, to the best of our knowledge, similar longitudinal studies conducted in Japan have not been published so far, our results are also consistent with the findings of several (23,24), but not all (25) cross-sectional studies conducted in Japan indicating that precarious employment is associated with mental health indicators such as fatigue (24) and SPD (23). Cross-sectional approaches are limited in their ability to assess causality; thus, in order to minimize the possibility of reverse causality -that Table 2.…”

Employment situation and risk of death among middle-aged Japanese women

“…Although only a limited number of similar studies have been conducted in Japan, our results are in line with the findings of those studies 26 34. A cross-sectional study with a national representative sample of employees in Japan found an association with poor mental health among women working as temporary contract workers 34.…”

“…The average wage for part-time jobs is the lowest among all employment situations and barely changes regardless of years of work experience 19. Such workers often receive less training, less bonus and no retirement benefits 25 26. Moreover, they usually have short, fixed-term contracts (eg, 1 month) or no employment contract, while full-time employees have open-ended employment contracts 25 27…”

Health and quality of life vs. occupational activity

“…W badaniach przeprowadzonych w populacji japońskiej wykazano, że bez wzglę-du na płeć pracownicy prekaryjni (zwłaszcza ci zatrudnieni w pełnym wymiarze godzin) częściej deklarowali gorszy stan zdrowia oraz częstsze odczuwanie presji psychologicznej niż osoby zatrudnione bezterminowo. Stwierdzono ponadto, że kobiety zatrudnione na warunkach prekaryjnych częściej paliły tytoń [51]. Wykazano również, że pracownicy prekaryjni rzadziej poddawali się kontrolnym badaniom lekarskim [52].…”