Associations between COVID-19-related changes in the psychosocial work environment and mental health.

BACKGROUND: Individuals' lives have been substantially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to describe changes in psychosocial work environment and mental health and to investigate associations between job insecurity and mental ill-health in relation to changes in other psychosocial work factors, loneliness and financial worries. METHODS: A sub-sample of individuals from the eighth Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health answered a web-based survey in early 2021 about current and pandemic-related changes in health, health behaviours, work and private life. We investigated participants working before the pandemic (N=1231) in relation to standardised measures on depression, anxiety and loneliness, together with psychosocial work factors, in descriptive and logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: While 9% reached the clinical threshold for depression and 6% for anxiety, more than a third felt more worried, lonelier or in a low mood since the start of the pandemic. Two per cent had been dismissed from their jobs, but 16% experienced workplace downsizings. Conditioning on socio-demographic factors and prior mental-health problems, the 8% experiencing reduced job security during the pandemic had a higher risk of anxiety, but not of depression, compared to employees with unaltered or increased job security. Loneliness and other psychosocial work factors explained more of the association than objective measures of job insecurity and financial worries. CONCLUSIONS: Reduced job security during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have increased the risk of anxiety among individuals with a strong labour market attachment, primarily via loneliness and other psychosocial work factors. This illustrates the potentially far-reaching effects of the pandemic on mental health in the working population.

Substance Use Patterns and Their Association with Depression and Social Factors During COVID-19 Among Harlem Residents in New York City.

This study aimed to identify the prevalence of substance use before and during COVID-19; and examined its association with depression and social factors among 437 residents from the neighborhood of Harlem in Northern Manhattan, New York City. Over a third of respondents reported using any substance before COVID-19, and initiating/increasing substance use during COVID-19. The most common substances used before COVID-19 and initiated/increased during COVID-19 were smoking (20.8% vs. 18.3%), marijuana (18.8% vs. 15.3%), and vaping (14.2% and 11.4%). The percentages of any hard drug use were 7.3% and 3.4%, respectively. After adjustment, residents with mild (Prevalence Ratio [PR] = 2.86, 95% CI 1.65, 4.92) and moderate (PR = 3.21, 95% CI 1.86, 5.56) symptoms of depression, and housing insecurity (PR = 1.47, 95% CI 1.12, 1.91) had at least a 47% greater probability of initiating and/or increasing substance use. Conversely, respondents with employment insecurity (PR = 0.71, 95% CI 0.57, 0.88) were 29% less likely to report such patterns. No association was found between substance use initiation and/or increase and food insecurity. High prevalence of substance use during COVID-19 may lead residents to turn to substance use as a coping mechanism for psychosocial stressors. Thus, it is essential to provide accessible and culturally sensitive mental health and substance use services.

Telework After COVID: A "Silver Lining" for Workers with Disabilities?

Purpose The COVID pandemic was a severe blow to all workers, but it may ultimately have a silver lining for some workers with disabilities if it makes work from home easier and more acceptable. In addition, the pandemic is shaking up traditional workplace structures and causing employers to rethink how essential tasks can be done, which may broaden their views of workplace accommodations. We assess the potential for the pandemic to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Methods This article analyzes pre-COVID data on disability and home-based work from three representative data sources-the American Community Survey, American Time Use Survey, and Current Population Survey. We employ both cross-tabulations and regressions to predict work at home. Results We find that workers with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities both to work primarily from home and to do any work at home. This is true for both employees and self-employed workers. Workers with disabilities face similar wage gaps in on-site and home-based work, indicating that while increased availability of home-based work may create more employment opportunities for workers with disabilities, it is unlikely to erase wage disparities. While workers with disabilities are currently more likely to be working primarily from home, only 34% are in occupations with high potential for home-based work, compared to 40% of workers without disabilities. Conclusions Workers with disabilities are currently more likely to work from home and many may benefit from expanded work-at-home opportunities, but the types of jobs they hold constrain this potential. Research is needed to see how home-based work evolves as the economy recovers from the pandemic over the next several years.

Before the Accommodation Principle: Disability and Employment Among Union Army Veterans.

Purpose This article examines the impact on veteran employment of the U.S. government's pension benefit provisions for Union soldiers following the Civil War. Methods To do so, it draws on both Union army pension records and U.S. census returns as well as information derived from the Union army samples designed by the Center for Population Economics at the University of Chicago ("CPE") and census samples from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series ("IPUMS"). Results We find that, although twentieth-century Progressive reformers contended otherwise, these nineteenth-century Americans wanted what their twenty-first-century counterparts want-work at a meaningful occupation. Conclusions Our findings evidence the complex and contradictory impact on occupational rehabilitation and employment resulting from the public-private partnerships established for Union army veterans. These partnerships were based on substantially different notions of disability needs and rights than those underlying the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and its central accommodation principle.

Employment insecurity and employees' health in Denmark.

We use register data for Denmark (IDA) merged with the Danish Work Environment Cohort Survey (1995, 2000, and 2005) to estimate the effect of perceived employment insecurity on perceived health for a sample of Danish employees. We consider two health measures from the SF-36 Health Survey Instrument: a vitality scale for general well-being and a mental health scale. We first analyse a summary measure of employment insecurity. Instrumental variables-fixed effects estimates that use firm workforce changes as a source of exogenous variation show that 1 additional dimension of insecurity causes a shift from the median to the 25th percentile in the mental health scale and to the 30th in that of energy/vitality. It also increases by about 6 percentage points the probability to develop severe mental health problems. Looking at single insecurity dimensions by naïve fixed effects, uncertainty associated with the current job is important for mental health. Employability has a sizeable relationship with health and is the only insecurity dimension that matters for the energy and vitality scale. Danish employees who fear involuntary firm internal mobility experience worse mental health.

The end of mass homeownership? Changes in labour markets and housing tenure opportunities across Europe.

With continued economic growth and expanding mortgage markets, until recently the pattern across advanced economies was of growing homeownership sectors. The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) has however, undercut this growth resulting in the contraction of homeownership access in many countries and the revival of private renting. This paper argues that these tenure changes are not solely a consequence of the GFC, and therefore, reversible once long-term growth returns. Rather, they are the consequences of more fundamental changes especially in labour markets. The very financialisation that fuelled the growth of homeownership has also led to a hollowing out of well-paid, secure jobs-exactly those that fit best with the taking of housing loans. We examine longer-term declines in labour market security across Europe from before the GFC, identifying an underlying correlation between deteriorated labour market conditions and homeownership access for young adults. While variations exist across European countries, there is evidence of common trends. We argue that the GFC both accelerated pre-existing labour insecurity dynamics and brought an end to offsetting such dynamics through the expansion of credit access with the likelihood of a return to an era of widespread homeownership growth starkly decreased.

Class habitus and perception of the future: recession, employment insecurity and temporality.

This paper examines the consequences of the recent economic downturn and UK government spending cuts, as exacerbations of prevailing trends in neoliberal employment policy, on temporal perception, specifically as it relates to the adaptation of subjective anticipations of and projections into the future to objective prospects of unemployment by class. Grounded in a phenomenologically-minded Bourdieusian conceptualization of class and time and contextualized by statistics on chances of job loss, it draws on qualitative research with 57 individuals from across the class structure to chart differing dispositions toward the future. In particular, it distinguishes three orientations - the future as controllable, the future as uncontrollable and the future as reasonably controllable - which appear to correspond with resources possessed.

Parenthood and Life Satisfaction in Stratified Labor Market: Evidence From Korea.

This study analyzes the effect of parenthood on life satisfaction with a stratified labor market using the Korean Labor and Income Study. For regular female workers at large companies, the decrease in life satisfaction due to parenthood is higher compared to that for men in a similar position due to the high opportunity cost of a career break following childbirth. For men who are non-regular employees at Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the effect of parenthood on life satisfaction is negative because they are the income earners of the family but earn a relatively low income at SMEs. Based on the results, the job characteristics of a stratified labor market have a significant influence on life satisfaction regarding parenthood. To enhance parental life satisfaction and raise the fertility rate, the structure of the stratified labor market needs to be changed so that the labor market becomes more flexible and includes a solid social safety net.

Aged care employment and the productivity commission: Fixing the data gaps may be the most useful thing it can do.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the gaps and anomalies in Australia's national aged care workforce data with a particular focus on casualisation and insecure employment in residential aged care. METHODS: Secondary analysis of data from the National Aged Care Workforce Census and Surveys, the Aged Care Workforce Census and the Australian Bureau of Statistics Characteristics of Employment Survey. RESULTS: There are significant and disturbing gaps in our knowledge of the aged care workforce deriving from disruptions to the time series as a result of methodological changes, reduced reliability resulting from declining response rates and the historical weighting system. Scope is also a critical factor due to data inadequacies relating to a non-Pay As You Go (non-PAYG) workforce and regarding the use of minimum hours contracts. This reduces our understanding of insecure employment. CONCLUSIONS: Australia needs better quality and more reliable data on its aged care workforce if the labour shortages confronting the sector are to be better understood and addressed. There is a critical need to determine the optimum strategy to obtain such data, whether by specific research projects of sufficient scale to accurately document the scale and scope of these issues, or in creative strategies to make use of automatically generated data.

The Effect of Psychological Anxiety Caused by COVID-19 on Job Self-Esteem and Job Satisfaction of Airline Flight Attendants.

This study aimed to investigate how psychological anxiety caused by COVID-19 has influenced airline cabin crew job self-esteem and job satisfaction. A questionnaire based on prior research was developed to identify factors of psychological anxiety among cabin crews as a result of COVID-19. The survey sample was limited to current cabin crews who experienced leave of absence due to COVID-19, and questionnaires were distributed to 201 crew members from 15 February to 15 April 2021. As a result of the analysis, the hypothesis that salary reduction, career stagnation, social perception, and employment insecurity have a significant effect on job self-esteem and job satisfaction was supported, while perceived infection risk and benefit reduction were rejected. This study found that psychological anxiety caused by COVID-19 affected cabin crew's self-esteem and job satisfaction. These findings could aid in the development of strategies for effective airline human resource management to prevent psychological anxiety from creating stress and negatively affecting work. Furthermore, since the alert for the emergence of new viruses will not be eased in the future, this study will prevent psychological anxiety among cabin crews to cause job self-esteem and job dissatisfaction.

The 'double precarity' of employment insecurity and unaffordable housing and its impact on mental health.

This paper describes who is most likely to experience household employment insecurity and housing affordability stress - double precarity - and estimates the degree to which housing affordability mediates the effect of employment insecurity on mental health. We use a cohort of 24,201 participants in 2016 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey (6.2 repeated measures on average). We estimate the likelihood of onset of household employment insecurity, housing affordability stress and change in housing costs using longitudinal regression analyses for socio-demographic groups. We assess mediation by estimating how much exposure variable coefficients attenuate with inclusion of a mediator in fixed effects regression models. We also apply causal mediation methods to fixed-effects regression models to better account for exposure-mediator interaction and meet strict model assumptions. If people's households become insecurely employed, there are five times greater odds of them also experiencing housing affordability stress (OR 4.99 95%CI 4.21-5.90). Key cohorts within the population are shown to be especially vulnerable to double precarity - notably single parents (OR 2.91, 95%CI 1.94-4.35) and people who live alone (OR 4.42, 95% CI 3.03-6.45) (compared to couples), and people who are recently separated or divorced (OR 2.59, 95%CI 1.81-3.70). Mediation analysis confirms that household employment insecurity has a small, negative effect on mental health (Beta -0.24, 95%CI -0.38-0.11 on a 1 to 100-point scale with 10-point standard deviation). Estimates from casual mediation analyses suggest housing affordability accounts for 20% of the total effect; likely concentrated in the lowest and highest strata of income. Employment and housing insecurity represent a form of double precarity for people in households with a single income. When we consider the impact on mental health, we find evidence of a causal relationship between insecure employment onset and mental health, around one fifth of which is mediated by changing housing cost and onset of affordability stress.

What Happened to the Employed During the Great Recession? A U.S. Population Study of Net Change in Employee Insecurity, Health, and Organizational Commitment.

This study explored the effects of the Great Recession on U.S. workers who remain employed. The first goal was to assess net population change in job and employment insecurity, physical and mental health, and affective organizational commitment. The second goal was to explore job and employment insecurity as parallel mediators of the associations between the Great Recession and the health and affective organizational commitment outcomes. Data came from two national surveys of U.S. workers that occurred before the recession (N = 2,354) and during the recession (N = 2,322). The results show that the recession was associated with a net increase in both job and employment insecurity, though the increase in employment insecurity was 3.4 times larger than the increase in job insecurity. The recession was associated with a net decrease in physical and mental health and affective organizational commitment. Finally, job and employment insecurity partially mediated the association of the recession with physical health and fully mediated its association with mental health. Job insecurity, but not employment insecurity, partially mediated the association of the recession with affective organizational commitment. The results underscore the importance of research that furthers our understanding of how macroeconomic events affect those who remain employed, and that takes a broad view of employee insecurity regarding continuity of employment.

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

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: A growing body of scientific literature highlights the negative consequences of employment insecurity on several life domains. This study focuses on the young adult labour force in Italy, investigating the relationship between employment insecurity and mental health and whether this has changed after years of economic downturn. It enhances understanding by addressing differences in mental health according to several employment characteristics; and by exploring the role of respondents' economic situation and educational level. DATA AND METHODS: Data from a large-scale, nationally representative health survey are used to estimate the relationship between employment insecurity and the Mental Health Inventory (MHI), by means of multiple linear regressions. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrates that employment insecurity is associated with poorer mental health. Moreover, neither temporary workers nor unemployed individuals are a homogeneous group. Previous job experience is important in differentiating the mental health risks of unemployed individuals; and the effects on mental health vary according to occupational status and to the amount of time spent in a condition of insecurity. Further, the experience of financial difficulties partly explains the relationship between employment insecurity and mental health; and different mental health outcomes depend on respondents' educational level. Lastly, the risks of reporting poorer mental health were higher in 2013 than in 2005.

El impacto del 18-O en las condiciones laborales en Chile / The impact of 18-O on labor conditions in Chile

El trabajo se constituye no sólo en una fuente de ingresos con los cuales las personas pueden financiar su estilo de vida, sino que además genera una manera de funcionar, donde se aplican las capacidades y habilidades de cada trabajador, constituyéndose en un elemento que promueve la calidad de vida y la salud mental. Sin embargo, las manifestaciones que se han observado desde octubre de 2019 en Chile, no sólo ha despertado la conciencia acerca de las desigualdades que se aprecian en un país aparentemente estable económicamente, sino que ha generado un incremento en los niveles de cesantía y ha estancado la economía nacional, provocando además efectos en la salud mental de las personas que no se habían previsto inicialmente y que, probablemente, generará cambios duraderos en la fuente laboral de los individuos.

Work constitutes not only a source of income with which people can finance their lifestyle, but also generates a way of functioning, where the capacities and abilities of each worker are applied, becoming an element that promotes quality of life and mental health. However, the demonstrations that have been observed since October 2019 in Chile have not only raised awareness about the inequalities that are seen in an apparently economically stable country, but have also generated an increase in unemployment levels and have stagnated the national economy, also causing effects on the mental health of people that were not initially foreseen and that, probably, will generate lasting changes in the labor source of individuals.