Informal employment, unpaid care work, and health status in Spanish-speaking Central American countries: a gender-based approach

María Lopez-Ruiz (), Fernando G. Benavides, Alejandra Vives and Lucía Artazcoz
Additional contact information
María Lopez-Ruiz: CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP)
Fernando G. Benavides: CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP)
Alejandra Vives: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, CEDEUS (Conicyt/Fondap/15110020), ACCDiS (Conicyt/Fondap/15130011)
Lucía Artazcoz: CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP)

International Journal of Public Health, 2017, vol. 62, issue 2, No 5, 209-218

Abstract: Abstract Objectives To assess the relationship between paid work, family characteristics and health status in Central American workers; and to examine whether patterns of association differ by gender and informal or formal employment. Methods Cross-sectional study of 8680 non-agricultural workers, based on the First Central American Survey of Working Conditions and Health (2011). Main explicative variables were paid working hours, marital status, caring for children, and caring for people with functional diversity or ill. Using Poisson regression models, adjusted prevalence ratios of poor self-perceived and mental health were calculated by sex and social security coverage (proxy of informal employment). Results A clear pattern of association was observed for women in informal employment who were previously married, had care responsibilities, long working hours, or part-time work for both self-perceived and mental health. No other patterns were found. Conclusions Our results show health inequalities related to unpaid care work and paid work that depend on the interaction between gender and informal employment. To reduce these inequalities suitable policies should consider both the labor (increasing social security coverage) and domestic spheres (co-responsibility of care).

Keywords: Informal employment; Gender; Family characteristics; Care; Social factors; Central America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00038-016-0871-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:ijphth:v:62:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s00038-016-0871-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/00038

DOI: 10.1007/s00038-016-0871-3

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Thomas Kohlmann, Nino Künzli and Andrea Madarasova Geckova

More articles in International Journal of Public Health from Springer, Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().