Precarious Work as Risk Factor for 5-Year Increase in Depressive Symptoms

Yucel Demiral, Tobias Ihle, Uwe Rose, Paul Maurice Conway and Hermann Burr
Additional contact information
Yucel Demiral: Department of Public Health, Medical Faculty, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir 35340, Turkey
Tobias Ihle: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA), 10317 Berlin, Germany
Uwe Rose: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA), 10317 Berlin, Germany
Paul Maurice Conway: Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, 1165 Copenhagen, Denmark
Hermann Burr: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA), 10317 Berlin, Germany

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: Objectives: The aim was to investigate the longitudinal relationship between precarious work and depressive symptoms in a representative cohort of employees in Germany. Methods: In the German Study on Mental Health at Work (S-MGA) ( n = 2009), depressive symptoms were assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ−9). Precarious work was measured through baseline (2012) self-reported job insecurity, marginal part-time, fixed-term contract, hourly wage and—during follow-ups 2012–2017—unemployment. Among employees without depressive symptoms at baseline (2012), we ran logistic regression analyses stratified by gender with depressive symptoms at follow-up in 2017 as the dependent variable, adjusting for baseline (2012) age, gender, socioeconomic position and partner status. Results: Among men, job insecurity (OR: 2.47; 95% 95% CI: 1.37–4.48) and low wage (3.79; 1.64–8.72) at baseline were significantly associated with depressive symptoms at follow-up. Among women, indicators of precarious work were not associated with depressive symptoms at follow-up. Among men, a cumulative exposure index of precarious work was significantly associated with the development of depressive symptoms (one indicator: 1.84; 0.94–3.60, ≥two indicators: 7.65; 3.30–17.73). This index was not associated with depressive symptoms among women. The population attributable fraction of precarious work due to depressive symptoms among men was approximately 30%. Conclusions: Among employees in Germany, precarious work seems to be a risk factor for the subsequent development of depressive symptoms among men, but not among women. Research on precarious employment in different countries is needed.

Keywords: precarious work; non-standard work; mental health; prospective analyses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3175/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3175/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:6:p:3175-:d:766477

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().