IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v75y2012i3p439-451.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of unequal employment status on workers’ health: Results from a Japanese national survey

Author

Listed:
  • Nishikitani, Mariko
  • Tsurugano, Shinobu
  • Inoue, Mariko
  • Yano, Eiji

Abstract

This study assesses the possibility of a period effect on Japanese workers’ health and its association with historical changes in the work environment. We used multi-year national cross-sectional surveys, the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions for 2001, 2004, and 2007, and estimated the period effect on the health of employed workers aged 18–65 years. The prevalence of ill-health indicators (poor self-rated health status, subjective symptoms, and the number of respondents receiving consultations from medical doctors and other health professionals) significantly increased during this period. Deteriorating trends in these health indicators persisted after adjusting for age and cohort effects and for individual factors such as employment, marital, and child-rearing status. Furthermore, after adjusting for income level as an individual factor, deteriorating trends remained for the poor self-rated health status of male employees, subjective symptoms of female employees, and receiving medical consultations for both genders. The health status of employed workers in Japan deteriorated, especially from 2004 to 2007, regardless of age and cohort effects. After taking individual socio-economic factors and the effects of the recession on society into consideration, we hypothesized a posteriori that the increase in precarious non-regular work may be the main factor underlying this period effect and may be the cause of the deterioration in workers’ health.

Suggested Citation

  • Nishikitani, Mariko & Tsurugano, Shinobu & Inoue, Mariko & Yano, Eiji, 2012. "Effect of unequal employment status on workers’ health: Results from a Japanese national survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 439-451.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:3:p:439-451
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.11.039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612000597
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.11.039?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bardasi, Elena & Francesconi, Marco, 2004. "The impact of atypical employment on individual wellbeing: evidence from a panel of British workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(9), pages 1671-1688, May.
    2. Lahelma, Eero & Rahkonen, Ossi & Huuhka, Minna, 1997. "Changes in the social patterning of health? The case of Finland 1986-1994," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 789-799, March.
    3. Burgard, Sarah A. & Brand, Jennie E. & House, James S., 2009. "Perceived job insecurity and worker health in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 777-785, September.
    4. Rodriguez, Eunice, 2002. "Marginal employment and health in Britain and Germany: does unstable employment predict health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 963-979, September.
    5. Emi Sato & Kiyohide Fushimi, 2009. "What has influenced patient health‐care expenditures in Japan?: variables of age, death, length of stay, and medical care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(7), pages 843-853, July.
    6. László, Krisztina D. & Pikhart, Hynek & Kopp, Mária S. & Bobak, Martin & Pajak, Andrzej & Malyutina, Sofia & Salavecz, Gyöngyvér & Marmot, Michael, 2010. "Job insecurity and health: A study of 16 European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(6), pages 867-874, March.
    7. Kagamimori, Sadanobu & Gaina, Alexandru & Nasermoaddeli, Ali, 2009. "Socioeconomic status and health in the Japanese population," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 2152-2160, June.
    8. Ariel Kalil & Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest & Louise C. Hawkley & John T. Cacioppo, 2009. "Job Insecurity and Change Over Time in Health Among Older Men and Women," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 65(1), pages 81-90.
    9. Sekine, Michikazu & Chandola, Tarani & Martikainen, Pekka & Marmot, Michael & Kagamimori, Sadanobu, 2009. "Socioeconomic inequalities in physical and mental functioning of British, Finnish, and Japanese civil servants: Role of job demand, control, and work hours," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1417-1425, November.
    10. Harding, David J., 2009. "Recent advances in age-period-cohort analysis. A commentary on Dregan and Armstrong, and on Reither, Hauser and Yang," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1449-1451, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. SangJune Kim & Jee Hey Song & Yoo Min Oh & Sang Min Park, 2018. "Disparities in the utilisation of preventive health services by the employment status: An analysis of 2007-2012 South Korean national survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Minelli, Liliana & Pigini, Claudia & Chiavarini, Manuela & Bartolucci, Francesco, 2014. "Employment status and perceived health condition: longitudinal data from Italy," MPRA Paper 55788, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Alice Sanwald & Engelbert Theurl, 2014. "Atypical Employment and Health: A Meta-Analysis," Working Papers 2014-15, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    4. Kachi, Yuko & Inoue, Mariko & Nishikitani, Mariko & Tsurugano, Shinobu & Yano, Eiji, 2013. "Determinants of changes in income-related health inequalities among working-age adults in Japan, 1986–2007: Time-trend study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 94-101.
    5. Thomas, Robert D. & Davis, John W. & Cuccaro, Paula M. & Gemeinhardt, Gretchen L., 2022. "Assessing associations between insecure income and US workers’ health: An IPUMS-MEPS analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kim, Il-Ho & Muntaner, Carles & Vahid Shahidi, Faraz & Vives, Alejandra & Vanroelen, Christophe & Benach, Joan, 2012. "Welfare states, flexible employment, and health: A critical review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 99-127.
    2. Devillanova, Carlo & Raitano, Michele & Struffolino, Emanuela, 2019. "Longitudinal employment trajectories and health in middle life: Insights from linked administrative and survey data," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1375-1412.
    3. Elena Cottini & Paolo Ghinetti, 2018. "Employment insecurity and employees' health in Denmark," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 426-439, February.
    4. Pirani, Elena & Salvini, Silvana, 2015. "Is temporary employment damaging to health? A longitudinal study on Italian workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 121-131.
    5. Eve Caroli & Mathilde Godard, 2016. "Does job insecurity deteriorate health?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 131-147, February.
    6. Elena Cottini & Claudio Lucifora, 2013. "GINI DP 86: Inequalities at work Job quality, Health and Low pay in European Workplaces," GINI Discussion Papers 86, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    7. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13646 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Italo A. Gutierrez & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2017. "Whistle While You Work: Job Insecurity and Older Workers’ Mental Health in the United States," CIRANO Working Papers 2017s-21, CIRANO.
    9. Hiyoshi, Ayako & Fukuda, Yoshiharu & Shipley, Martin J. & Brunner, Eric J., 2014. "Health inequalities in Japan: The role of material, psychosocial, social relational and behavioural factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 201-209.
    10. Chris Dawson & Michail Veliziotis & Benjamin Hopkins, 2017. "Temporary employment, job satisfaction and subjective well-being," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 38(1), pages 69-98, February.
    11. Lee, Y-W.;, 2019. "Effects of Parental Job Loss and Insecurity on Children’s Health: Evidence from Korea," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. Ahmed Rashad & Mesbah Sharaf, 2018. "Does Precarious Employment Damage Youth Mental Health, Wellbeing, and Marriage? Evidence from Egypt Using Longitudinal Data," Working Papers 1200, Economic Research Forum, revised 27 May 2018.
    13. Jong Ju Seon & Yu Jin Lim & Hae Won Lee & Jae Moon Yoon & Sang June Kim & Seulggie Choi & Ichiro Kawachi & Sang Min Park, 2017. "Cardiovascular health status between standard and nonstandard workers in Korea," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-11, June.
    14. Eve Caroli & Mathilde Godard, 2013. "Does Job Insecurity Deteriorate Health ? A Causal Approach for Europe," Working Papers 2013-13, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    15. Xavier Bartoll & Joan Gil & Raul Ramos, 2018. "“Has the economic crisis worsened the work-related stress and mental health of temporary workers in Spain?”," AQR Working Papers 201808, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Oct 2018.
    16. Nakamura, Sayaka, 2014. "Parental income and child health in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 42-55.
    17. Wolfgang Auer, 2018. "Empirical Essays on the Socioeconomic Consequences of Economic Uncertainty," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 79.
    18. Maite Blázquez & Ana I. Moro Egido, 2020. "Financial insecurity and subjective well-being. Europe in crossnational perspective," ThE Papers 20/07, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    19. Richardson, Susan (Sue) & Lester, Laurence Howard & Zhang, Guangyu, 2011. "NILS Working paper no 166. Are casual and contract terms of employment hazardous for mental health in Australia?," NILS Working Papers 26069, National Institute of Labour Studies.
    20. Yong‐Woo Lee, 2022. "How do changes to parental job insecurity affect children's health?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 5-24, January.
    21. Sara Rellstab & Marco Pecoraro & Alberto Holly & Philippe Wanner & Karine Renard, 2016. "The Migrant Health Gap and the Role of Labour Market Status: Evidence from Switzerland," IRENE Working Papers 16-14, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:3:p:439-451. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.