RESEARCH AGENDA

Precarious employment and health

Precarious employment and health: developing a research agenda

J Benach¹, C Muntaner²

¹ Health Inequalities Research Group, Occupational Health Research Unit, Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
² Social Equity and Health Section, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
J Benach
Health Inequalities Research Group, Occupational Health Research Unit, Department of Health and Experimental Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C/Dr Aiguader, 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain; joan.benach@upf.edu

---

New types of work arrangements can be as dangerous as traditional unemployment for workers’ health

---

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Since at least the late 1970s, "flexible production" has commonly been considered as a positive and necessary innovation to ensure sustainable economic growth.^1,2 The need to be "flexible" has been proposed for workplace technical systems, schedules and salaries, and "flexibility" has even been recognised as a positive feature of a worker’s personality. Increasing labour flexibility means reducing the constraints on the movement of workers into and out of jobs previously constrained by labour laws, union agreements, training systems or labour markets that protect workers’ income and job security.³

Within this context, one of the best-known outcomes of labour market flexibility has been the growth of "atypical" forms of employment and the decline of the "standard" full-time, permanent jobs. Thus, the standard full-time permanent job with benefits is now often replaced with different forms of non-standard work arrangements such as contingent, part-time contract, unregulated underground work or . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

In this issue

Carlos Alvarez-Dardet, John R Ashton
J Epidemiol Community Health 2007 61: 273. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Lewchuk, W., Clarke, M., de Wolff, A. (2008). Working without commitments: precarious employment and health. Work Employment Society 22: 387-406 [Abstract]  
• Friel, S., Chopra, M., Satcher, D. (2007). Unequal weight: equity oriented policy responses to the global obesity epidemic. BMJ 335: 1241-1243 [Full Text]