Life-course trajectories of employment quality and health in the U.S.: A multichannel sequence analysis

Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot, Trevor Peckham, Sarah B. Andrea, Vanessa Oddo, Noah Seixas and Anjum Hajat

Social Science & Medicine, 2020, vol. 264, issue C

Abstract: The organization of employment in the U.S. has changed dramatically since the 1970s, causing decreased power and security for workers across many dimensions of the employment relationship. Multidimensional employment-quality (EQ) measures can be used to capture these changes and test their association with health. However, most public-health EQ studies have used cross-sectional, unidimensional data. We addressed these limitations using a longitudinal, multidimensional EQ measure and data on 2779 1985–2017 Panel Study of Income Dynamics respondents. First, using a multichannel sequence-analysis approach, we identified gender-specific clusters of mid-career (ages 29–50) EQ trajectories based on respondents’ employment stability, material rewards, working-time arrangements, collective organization, and power relations. Next, we examined cross-cluster variation in respondent characteristics. Finally, we estimated the gender-specific associations between cluster-membership and post-sequence-analysis-period prevalence of poor/fair self-rated health (SRH) and moderate mental illness (Kessler-K6≥5). We identified five clusters among women and seven among men. Respondents in poor-EQ clusters were disproportionately people of color and less-educated; they also tended to report worse health. For example, among women, the prevalence of poor/fair SRH and moderate mental illness was lowest among standard-employment-relationship-like-non-union workers and the becoming self-employed, and greatest among minimally-attached, returning-to-the-labor-force, and precariously-employed workers. Meanwhile, among men, the prevalence of the outcomes was lowest among stably-high-wage workers and the wealthy self-employed, and greatest among exiting-the-labor-force and precariously-employed workers. Given the potential role of EQ in health inequities, researchers and practitioners should consider EQ in their work.

Keywords: United States; Employment quality; Work quality; Health inequities; Health disparities; Precarious employment; Precariousness; Sequence analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113327

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