Investigating mechanisms between precarious employment and workers’ mental health. A longitudinal approach

2019-2023 | EUTOPIA PhD project (VUB & Warwick University)

Summary:

Precarious employment has been linked to adverse mental health but the need to further analyse this association in a longitudinal manner has been pointed out as an important gap to be filled in the literature. Furthermore, several channels have been theorised through which precarious employment can affect workers’ health, but quantitative evidence thus far is scarce. This project will therefore focus on two main objectives. The first objective entails gaining a better understanding of directions of causality between precarious employment and mental health among salaried employees, disentangling to what extent health selection or causation dominates. The second objective relates to assessing whether and to what extent household-level material deprivation can mediate/buffer the relationship between low-quality employment and mental health. The PhD project will focus on Belgium, the UK, and will also aim to carry out a comparative analysis, and will derive data from various secondary longitudinal datasets. The project will adopt a multidimensional conceptualisation of precarious employment, and will pay special attention to gender differences. The findings will provide input to evidence-based policy-making aiming to alleviate work-related health inequalities.