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The Impact of Precarious Employment on Mental Health: the Case of Italy

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  • Moscone, Francesco
  • Tosetti, Elisa
  • Vittadini, Giorgio

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the impact of precarious employment on mental health using a unique dataset that matches information on mental health with labour characteristics for a set of employees in Italy. We examine the causal effect of temporary contracts, their duration and the number of contract changes during the year on psychotropic medication prescription. To this end, we estimate a dynamic probit model, and deal with the potential endogeneity of regressors by adopting a control function approach, recently advanced by Wooldridge (2014). Our results show that the probability of psychotropic medication prescription is higher for workers under temporary job contracts. More days of work under temporary contract as well as more changes in temporary contracts significantly increase the probability of being depressed. We also find that moving from permanent to temporary contracts increases depression; symmetrically, although with a smaller effect in absolute value, moving from temporary to permanent contracts tends to reduce it. An exploratory data analysis corroborates the hypothesis that depression developed after a movement to precarious employment may permanently affect future job trajectories. One lesson to learn from our empirical work is that policies aimed at enhancing the flexibility of the labour market to boost firms' competitiveness, if increasing the precariousness of employment, may also produce sides effects on the wellbeing and mental health of employees, ultimately having consequences on firms' productivity and health care costs.

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  • Moscone, Francesco & Tosetti, Elisa & Vittadini, Giorgio, 2015. "The Impact of Precarious Employment on Mental Health: the Case of Italy," MPRA Paper 61405, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:61405
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    5. Janki Shankar & Lun Li & Shawn Tan, 2021. "Work Experiences and Challenges to Employment Sustainability for People With Mental Illness in Supported Employment Programs," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, July.
    6. Bertoni, Marco & Brunello, Giorgio & Da Re, Filippo, 2022. "Pension Reforms, Longer Working Horizons and Depression. Does the Risk of Automation Matter?," IZA Discussion Papers 15700, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Eduardo Ignacio Polo-Muro, 2021. "The effect of labor market shocks on mental health outcomes: evidence from the Spanish Great Recession," Working Papers 21.08, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    8. Megan Woods & Rob Macklin & Sarah Dawkins & Angela Martin, 2019. "Mental Illness, Social Suffering and Structural Antagonism in the Labour Process," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(6), pages 948-965, December.
    9. Zazdravnykh, Evgeniy & Rodionova, Tatiana & Taraskina, Elena & Garipova, Farida, 2023. "The effects of occupational hazards and health-related behavior on workers’ health: A multivariate probit approach," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 71, pages 76-98.
    10. Farina, Egidio & Green, Colin P. & McVicar, Duncan, 2020. "Is Precarious Employment Bad for Worker Health? The Case of Zero Hours Contracts in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 13116, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Bénédicte Apouey & Mark Stabile, 2022. "The effects of Uber diffusion on the mental health of drivers," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1468-1490, July.
    12. Anthony Lepinteur, 2021. "The asymmetric experience of gains and losses in job security on health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 2217-2229, September.
    13. Koomson, Isaac & Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa, 2022. "Employment precarity and energy poverty in post-apartheid South Africa: Exploring the racial and ethnic dimensions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    14. 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.
    15. Bertoli, Paola & Grembi, Veronica & Nguyen, The Linh Bao, 2020. "Birth in Hard Times When You Belong To Minorities," GLO Discussion Paper Series 729, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. Di Novi, Cinzia & Paruolo, Paolo & Verzillo, Stefano, 2023. "Does labour protection influence mental-health responses to employment shocks? Evidence on older workers in Europe," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    17. Abdullah Erkul & İbrahim Külünk, 2022. "Vulnerable employment in developing economies: The case of sub‐Saharan African countries," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(3), pages 381-394, September.
    18. Paola Bertoli & Veronica Grembi & The Linh Bao Nguyen, 2023. "Birth outcomes in hard times among minority ethnic groups," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(1), pages 263-294, January.
    19. Barili, Emilia & Grembi, Veronica & Rosso, Anna C., 2023. "Mental health between present issues and future expectations," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 42-48.
    20. Nurul Iman Abdul Jalil & Soon Aun Tan & Nur Shakila Ibharim & Anisah Zainab Musa & Siew Hui Ang & Wustari L. Mangundjaya, 2023. "The Relationship between Job Insecurity and Psychological Well-Being among Malaysian Precarious Workers: Work–Life Balance as a Mediator," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-14, February.
    21. Kronenberg, Christoph & Boehnke, Jan R., 2019. "How did the 2008-11 financial crisis affect work-related common mental distress? Evidence from 393 workplaces in Great Britain," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 193-200.
    22. Daniela Campos Ugaz, 2022. "Time precarity at work: nonstandard forms of employment and everyday life," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 164(2), pages 969-991, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Precarious employment; mental health; prescriptions.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

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