Association Between Informal Employment and Health Status and the Role of the Working Conditions in Spain. (April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Montero-Moraga, Jose M.; Benavides, Fernando G.; Lopez-Ruiz, Maria
• Is Part Of: International journal of health services. Volume 50:Number 2(2020)
• Page Start: 199
• Page End: 208
• Publication Date: 2020-04
• Subjects: informal employment -- working conditions -- employment conditions -- occupational health; Medical care -- Periodicals; 362.1
• DOI: 10.1177/0020731419898330
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0020-7314

Abstract

Informal employment is an employment condition in which workers are not protected by labor regulations. It has been associated with poor health status in middle- and low-income countries, but it is still a neglected issue in high-income countries. Our aim was to estimate the association between health status and employment profiles in Spain, attending to the role of workplace risk factors. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 8, 060 workers from the Seventh Spanish Working Conditions Survey (2011). We defined 4 employment profiles and estimated the associations between them and poor self-perceived health using Poisson regression models. All analyses were stratified by sex. The prevalence of the informal profile was 4% for women and 1.5% for men. Differences in self-perceived health status among employment profiles were negligible. Only women engaged in informal employment had poorer self-perceived health than those in the reference profile. This difference disappeared after adjusting models for psychosocial risk factors. In conclusion, we did not find differences in self-perceived health status between employment profiles, except for women in informal employment. Efforts should be made to improve the psychosocial risk factors in women in informal employment.