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Do Different Patterns of Employment Quality Contribute to Gender Health Inequities in the U.S.? A Cross-Sectional Mediation Analysis

Trevor Peckham (tpeckham@uw.edu), Noah Seixas, A. B. de Castro and Anjum Hajat
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Trevor Peckham: Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County, Seattle, WA 98104, USA
Noah Seixas: Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
A. B. de Castro: School of Nursing, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Anjum Hajat: Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 18, 1-18

Abstract: Compared to recent generations, workers today generally experience poorer quality employment across both contractual (e.g., wages, hours) and relational (e.g., participation in decision-making, power dynamics) dimensions within the worker–employer relationship. Recent research shows that women are more likely to experience poor-quality employment and that these conditions are associated with adverse health effects, suggesting employment relations may contribute to gender inequities in health. We analyzed data from the General Social Survey (2002–2018) to explore whether the multidimensional construct of employment quality (EQ) mediates the relationship between gender and health among a representative, cross-sectional sample of U.S. wage earners. Using a counterfactually-based causal mediation framework, we found that EQ plays a meaningful role in a gender–health relationship, and that if the distribution of EQ among women was equal to that observed in men, the probability of reporting poor self-reported health and frequent mental distress among women would be lower by 1.5% (95% Confidence Interval: 0.5–2.8%) and 2.6% (95% CI: 0.6–4.6%), respectively. Our use of a multidimensional, typological measure of EQ allowed our analysis to better account for substantial heterogeneity in the configuration of contemporary employment arrangements. Additionally, this study is one of the first mediation analyses with a nominal mediator within the epidemiologic literature. Our results highlight EQ as a potential target for intervention to reduce gender inequities in health.

Keywords: gender inequities in health; employment quality; precarious employment; mediation analyses; latent class analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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