Could Better-Quality Employment Improve Population Health? Findings From a Scoping Review of Multi-Dimensional Employment Quality Research and a Proposed Research Direction

BACKGROUND

Precarious employment, a specific part of the conceptual spectrum of employment quality (EQ), has been established as an important risk to individual and population health and well-being when compared to a standard employment circumstance. There remains a need, however, to explore whether and how EQ might be used as a tool to not only protect but also advance population health and well-being.

METHODS

The purposes of this scoping review were to assess the analytic treatment of the multiple dimensions of EQ and the stances researchers take to characterize the state of knowledge of EQ that supports the idea that better EQ is a health-promoting factor. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods primary studies that included at least three of the seven conceptually-informed EQ dimensions were eligible. Studies were assessed for EQ dimensions represented, how dimensions were treated analytically, the pathogenic, ambivalent, or salutogenic stances used by investigators, and what each might tell us about how to leverage aspects of better-quality employment to improve population health.

RESULTS

A total of 78 studies were included; 54 of these treated EQ dimensions in an interrelated way. Of the analytically interrelated studies, none had an explicit salutogenic stance. Some evidence suggests that a handful of EQ types might present an equal or reduced risk of poor health than the standard employment relationship, frequently used as a historic gold standard.

CONCLUSION

Research with a salutogenic stance might build our understanding of whether and how employment could be used to advance our collective well-being.

The Impact of Hospitality Work Environment on Employees' Turnover Intentions During COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Work-Family Conflict

Employees' turnover intentions and work-family conflict as a result of the hospitality work environment are considered the major global challenges confronted by hospitality organizations, especially in the era of COVID-19. This study aims at identifying the impact of the hospitality work environment on work-family conflict (WFC), as well as turnover intentions and examining the potential mediating role of WFC in the relationship between work environment and turnover intentions, during the COVID-19 pandemic in a sample of three- and four-star resorts in Egypt. A total of 413 resorts employees from Egyptian destinations (Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada) participated in the study. The findings of the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) revealed that the hospitality work environment significantly and positively affects employees' turnover intentions and WFC. In the context of the mediating role of WFC, results illustrated that WFC significantly partially mediates the relationship between the hospitality work environment and turnover intentions. Upon these findings, the study suggests that to prevent WFC and eliminate turnover intentions among resorts' employees, an urgent need to create a better work environment is vitally important. limitations and future research directions have been discussed.

Maternal exposure to work schedule unpredictability and child behavior

Objective

This article estimates the association between maternal exposure to unpredictable work schedules in the service sector and child internalizing and externalizing behavior.

Background

Precarious work is widespread and characterized by low wages, few benefits, and nonstandard schedules. But working parents, especially in the service sector, contend with unpredictable work schedules as well. These schedules have negative consequences for workers, but may also perpetuate inequality across generations by negatively affecting children.

Method

This article takes advantage of novel survey data from The Shift Project, covering 2,613 mothers (surveyed 2017-2019) working in the service sector with children (mean child age of 7.5), to examine the association between maternal work schedules and child behavior as well as the mediators of this relationship.

Results

Maternal exposure to unpredictable work schedules is associated with children's externalizing and internalizing behavior. Mediation analysis shows that for parents with the most unpredictable schedules, this aspect of job quality operates on children's behavior by increasing household economic insecurity, reducing developmental parenting time, and diminishing maternal well-being.

Conclusion

These results demonstrate that work scheduling conditions may have consequences not just for workers themselves but also for their children.

Association between split shift work and work-related injury and disease absence

Background

Shift work (particularly split shifts) has been noted among the working conditions that hinder sustainable work. However, little is known regarding the effects of split shifts on health. This study aimed to investigate the association between split shift work and work-related injury and disease absence.

Methods

This study used data from the fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey and included 4,042 paid shift workers. Shift work type and self-reported work-related injury and disease absence were investigated using a questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between split shift work and work-related absence with rotating shift worker as the reference group.

Results

Of the 4,042 shift workers, 980 (24.3%) were split shift workers. The adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of split shift for absence due to work-related injury was high at 2.94 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.85-4.68) and the aOR of split shift for absence due to work-related disease was also high at 1.58 (95% CI: 1.09-2.29) compared to rotating shift.

Conclusions

Split shift work leads to an increased risk of absences due to work-related injury and disease.

Improving health and economic security by reducing work schedule uncertainty

Work schedules in the service sector are routinely unstable and unpredictable, and this unpredictability may have harmful effects on health and economic insecurity. However, because schedule unpredictability often coincides with low wages and other dimensions of poor job quality, the causal effects of unpredictable work schedules are uncertain. Seattle's Secure Scheduling ordinance, enacted in 2017, mandated greater schedule predictability, providing an opportunity to examine the causal relationship between work scheduling and worker health and economic security. We draw on pre- and postintervention survey data from workers in Seattle and comparison cities to estimate the impacts of this law using a difference-in-differences approach. We find that the law had positive impacts on workers' schedule predictability and stability and led to increases in workers' subjective well-being, sleep quality, and economic security. Using the Seattle law as an instrumental variable, we also estimate causal effects of schedule predictability on well-being outcomes. We show that uncertainty about work time has a substantial effect on workers' well-being, particularly their sleep quality and economic security.

Association Between Unpredictable Work Schedules and Depressive Symptoms in Korea

Backgrounds

Irregular and unpredictable work schedules have become more common in most societies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between unpredictable work schedules and depressive symptoms in Korea.

Methods

Data from 34,486 workers who participated in the Korean Working Condition Survey in 2017 were used. Unpredictable work schedules were measured by questions about the frequency of changes in work schedule and limited advanced notice. Depressive symptoms were assessed by a single item asking if the participants had depressive symptoms over the last 12 months. Multivariable-adjusted logistic regression analysis was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) for high depressive symptoms.

Results

The OR for depressive symptoms was significantly higher in the workers with unpredictable work schedules compared to those with predictable work schedules after controlling for age, sex, education, salary, marital status, occupation, contract period, full-time versus part-time, shift work, weekly working hours, and having a child under the age of 18 years (OR = 2.43, 95% confidence interval 1.93–3.07).

Conclusion

Unpredictable work schedules were associated with depressive symptoms controlling for the other dimensions of precarious employment in a representative working population in Korea.

Sense of security when new at work: a thematic analysis of interviews with young adult retail workers in Sweden

Purpose

Positive examples of situations in which young adults new at work experience feeling secure in the role as novice in the work force are here focused. The aim is to analyze how young adults who are new to the labor market express having a sense of security in the workplace. The long-term goal is to strengthen the conditions for the health and wellbeing of workers entering the retail labor market.

Design/methodology/approach

Thirteen individual in-depth telephone/video-interviews were conducted with young adults (aged 18–28) working within the retail sector in Sweden. Using a thematic interview schedule, the interviews focused how the interviewees contextualizing stories on being novice at the labor market. The study is based on those parts of the material in which stories on feeling secure was expressed.

Findings

The analysis resulted in two themes: A sense of security is related to carrying out work safely and a sense of security is related to receiving support. The first theme illuminates how work is structured and safety training respectively contributes to a sense of security and the latter reveal how social support from a variety of sources (managers, colleagues and others outside the work environment) contributes to a sense of security when new at work.

Originality/value

Using a health promoting perspective, the study complements the existing perspectives of challenges faced by novices as they enter working life. Also, the study highlights the importance of including relations outside the workplace when searching for the understanding of the experiences of being new at work. The study indicates that focusing on the sense of security by well-structured work, safety training and social support might contribute to the strive for a sustainable working life for young adults.

COVID-19 and mental health of food retail, food service, and hospitality workers

The coronavirus pandemic has taken a detrimental toll on the lives of individuals globally. In addition to the direct effect (e.g., being infected with the virus), this pandemic has negatively ravaged many industries, particularly food retail, food services, and hospitality. Given the novelty of the disease, the true impact of COVID-19 remains to be determined. Because of the nature of their work, and the characteristics of the workers, individuals in the food retail, food service, and hospitality industries are a group whose vulnerability is at its most fragile state during this pandemic. Through this qualitative study, we explored workers' perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 on their mental health and coping, including screening for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder symptoms. Twenty-seven individual interviews were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Four key themes emerged: being infected and infecting others, the unknown, isolation, and work and customer demands. Considering the many uncertainties of COVID-19, workers in these three industries were experiencing heightened levels of mental distress because of where they worked and the already existing disparities they faced on a daily basis before the pandemic started. Yet they remained hopeful for a better future. More studies are needed to fully understand the magnitude, short-term, and long-term effects of COVID-19. Based on this study's findings, programs are critically needed to promote positive coping behaviors among at-risk and distressed workers. Recommendations for employers, occupational health and safety professionals, and policy stakeholders to further support these service workers are discussed.

Consequences of Routine Work-Schedule Instability for Worker Health and Well-Being

Research on precarious work and its consequences overwhelmingly focuses on the economic dimension of precarity, epitomized by low wages. But the rise in precarious work also involves a major shift in its temporal dimension, such that many workers now experience routine instability in their work schedules. This temporal instability represents a fundamental and under-appreciated manifestation of the risk shift from firms to workers. A lack of suitable existing data, however, has precluded investigation of how precarious scheduling practices affect workers' health and well-being. We use an innovative approach to collect survey data from a large and strategically selected segment of the U.S. workforce: hourly workers in the service sector. These data reveal that exposure to routine instability in work schedules is associated with psychological distress, poor sleep quality, and unhappiness. Low wages are also associated with these outcomes, but unstable and unpredictable schedules are much more strongly associated. Precarious schedules affect worker well-being in part through the mediating influence of household economic insecurity, yet a much larger proportion of the association is driven by work-life conflict. The temporal dimension of work is central to the experience of precarity and an important social determinant of well-being.

The Determinants and Outcomes of Absence Behavior: A Systematic Literature Review

This research aims to identify and analyze the frequency of the researched determinants and outcomes of absenteeism and thus create an extensive pool of knowledge that can be used for further research. A systematic review, based on Tranfield, Denyer, and Smart’s guidelines of 2003, was used. An electronic search of the Scopus database led to the inclusion of 388 peer-reviewed research articles. Finally, 100 top-quality articles were analyzed using content analysis. This article provides several starting points for practitioners and researchers when investigating absenteeism and its potential determinants and outcomes. It also shows that there is an evident imbalance between empirical research dealing with determinants and research dealing with absenteeism outcomes. Employee attitudes stand out among the most repetitive absenteeism causes, while turnover, organizational health, and loss of productivity are some of the most researched absenteeism outcomes. Most research takes place in the manufacturing industries, followed by hospitals and other public service organizations, banks, and insurance companies. This systematic literature review is the first known attempt of this kind of review of the causes and consequences of absence behavior. It covers a wide range of literature published from 1969 until today and includes more than 150 different absenteeism determinants and outcomes.

Precarious Employment and Difficult Daily Commutes

Precarious employment is on the rise in Canada, increasing by nearly 50% in the last two decades. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which it can impact upon geographical mobility. Employment-related geographical mobility refers to mobility to, from and between workplaces, as well as mobility as part of work. We report on a qualitative study conducted among 27 immigrant men and women in Toronto that investigates the relationship between precarious employment and daily commutes while exploring the ways in which gender, class and migration structure this relationship.

Interview data reveal that participants were largely unable to work where they lived or live where they worked. Their precarious jobs were characterized by conditions that resulted in long, complex, unfamiliar, unsafe and expensive commutes. These commuting difficulties, in turn, resulted in participants having to refuse or quit jobs, including desirable jobs, or being unable to engage in labour market strategies that could improve their employment conditions (e.g. taking courses, volunteering, etc.). Participants’ commuting difficulties were amplified by the delays, infrequency, unavailability and high cost of public transportation. These dynamics disproportionately and/or differentially impacted certain groups of workers.

Precarious work has led to workers having to absorb an ever-growing share of the costs associated with their employment, underscored in our study as time, effort and money spent travelling to and from work. We discuss the forces that underlie the spatial patterning of work and workers in Toronto, namely the growing income gap and the increased polarization among neighbourhoods that has resulted in low-income immigrants increasingly moving from the centre to the edges of the city. We propose policy recommendations for public transportation, employment, housing and child care that can help alleviate some of the difficulties described.

Towards an Industry-Tailored Management Approach: A Study of Retail Employee Attitudes

The ubiquity of retail employment makes it one of the most important sectors in the economy but economic downturn, foreign competition, and looming technological developments threaten to diminish the employment opportunities it offers. In consideration of the workforce-related adjustments that retail businesses are likely to experience from changes in the sector, this study examines attitudinal differences between retail employees and the general workforce. The theoretical perspective of this study is that employees from different industries have unique attitudes toward the work environment, given industry-specific environmental and situational influences. The empirical analysis uses data obtained from a survey of over 6000 Australian workers to test attitudinal work environment variables between retail employees and non-retail employees. The findings reveal that retail employee attitudes are dissimilarfrom that of the general workforce, which implies that employee attitudinal profiles differ between industries, and general management programmes and practices should therefore be tailored accordingly.

Precarious employment, working hours, work-life conflict and health in hotel work

Precarious or temporary work is associated with adverse outcomes including low control over working hours, work-life conflict and stress. The rise in precarious employment is most marked in the service sector but little research has been done on its health effects in this sector. This study compares permanent and temporary workers in the hotel industry, where working hours are highly variable. Survey data from 150 workers from eight 3-Star hotels in urban and regional areas around Sydney were analyzed. Forty-five per cent were male and 52 per cent were female. Fifty four per cent were permanent full-time and 46 per cent were temporary workers. The effects of employment status on perceived job security, control over working hours, and work-life conflict are investigated using PLS-Graph 3.0. The effects of control over working hours, on work-life conflict and subsequent health outcomes are also explored. Temporary workers perceived themselves as less in control of their working hours, than permanent workers (β = .27). However, they also reported lower levels of work intensity (β = .25) and working hours (β = .38). The effects of low hours control (β = .20), work intensity (β = .29), and excessive hours (β = .39) on work-life conflict (r² = .50), and subsequent health effects (r² = .30), are illustrated in the final structural equation model.

Retaining nurses in their employing hospitals and in the profession: effects of job preference, unpaid overtime, importance of earnings and stress

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of job preference, unpaid overtime, importance of earnings, and stress in retaining nurses in their employing hospitals and in the profession. Data come from our survey of 1396 nurses employed in three teaching hospitals in Southern Ontario, Canada. Data are analyzed first for all nurses, then separately for full-time, part-time, and casual nurses. Results show that the key to understanding the effects of these variables may be to pay attention to the work status of nurses. With regards to retaining nurses in their hospitals, working in their preferred type of job is important, particularly for part-time nurses. Working unpaid and longer than agreed hours is also a factor for increasing the likelihood of part-time nurses to leave the profession. All nurses are less inclined to leave as the importance of their earnings for the family increases, but it is particularly important for part-time nurses. Stress is an ongoing concern for retaining nurses in their hospitals and within the profession. We suggest managers and policy makers pay attention to employing nurses in jobs they prefer, decrease unpaid overtime, and consider the importance of earnings for them and their families in developing policies and programs to retain nurses. More importantly, stress levels should be lowered to retain nurses.