The Global Expansion of Precarious Employment, Work Disorganization, and Consequences for Occupational Health: A Review of Recent Research

By Michael Quinlan, C. Mayhew, P. Bohle. International Journal of Health Services, 2001

720 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this review of a range of studies on the health and safety effects of precarious employment in industrialized societies published since 1984, the authors examine the overall findings and methodological issues and identify areas in need of further research. Of the 93 published journal articles and monographs/book chapters reviewed, 76 studies found precarious employment was associated with a deterioration in occupational health and safety (OHS) in terms of injury rates, disease risk, hazard exposures, or worker (and manager) knowledge of OHS and regulatory responsibilities. Of the more than 25 studies each on outsourcing and organizational restructuring/downsizing, well over 90 percent find a negative association with OHS. The evidence is fairly persuasive for temporary workers, with 14 of 24 studies finding a negative association with OHS. The evidence is less strong for small business, and a handful of studies on part-time workers found no clear association with negative OHS outcomes (in some cases the reverse). Further research is needed to more clearly link health effects to particular business practices and neoliberal policies and to explore the regulatory implications of the growth of precarious employment. The authors suggest some ways to conceptualize the association between precarious employment and occupational health.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Radiological and Ultrasound Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e86c53d27ec48eb2b8a82a801231c101f86219cc

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In General Health Professions

In Radiological and Ultrasound Technology

M. Olsthoorn

Citations in the corpus

Measuring Precarious Employment: A Proposal for Two Indicators of Precarious Employment Based on Set-Theory and Tested with Dutch Labor Market-Data (2013, positive): “…is implicit in Kalleberg (2009, 2011) and has strong interrelations with the use of non-standard employment contracts as indicators for precarious employment (see for instance: Quinlan et al. 2001) because non-standard contracts might be used to proxy the chance of dismissal.”
Multilevel analyses of organizational change and working conditions in public and private sector (2004, background): “This strengthens the supposition that different strategies for change are employed according to the part of the labour force that they address, and that changes to forms of employment constitute part of such strategies (Quinlan et al., 2001).”
Precarious employment: understanding an emerging social determinant of health. (2014, background): “Research has described associations between the PDR model and job insecurity, low control over the work process and working hours, poor social protection and benefits, low income, and the decoupling of the worker-employer relationship (134).”
Analyzing (2019, background): “Guidance was lacking on the regulation of the employment relationship, a separate debate (ILC, 2006a), or countering austerity, or addressing issues like informality or triangular employment relationships, despite the hazardous nature of these issues (Quinlan et al. , 2001; Benach et al. , 2014).”