Health Inequity among Waged Workers by Employment Status

Bahk, Jin Wook; Han, Yoon Jung; Kim, Seung Sup

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the differences in employment status and self assessed health in Korea. METHODS: We analyzed 4 year follow-up data generated by the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study(KLIPS), which was conducted on 1,207 men and 582 women who had undergone a change in employment status. The study subjects were placed into 1 of the following 4 groups based on their employment history; Non-precarious workers, Precarious to non-precarious workers, Non-precarious to precarious workers and Precarious workers. Logistic regression was then used to examine the relationship between the changes in employment status and self assessed health. RESULTS: When males were considered, self assessed health was better among the precarious to non-precarious workers (OR 1.58, 95% CI=1.57-1.60) and the precarious workers (OR 1.29, 95% CI=1.28-1.30) than in the non-precarious workers, after adjusting for age, socioeconomic status (education level, occupational class, marital status, average equivalent household income and average number of hours worked per week), health behavior (smoking, drinking and exercise) and medical service access (regular medical examination, have chronic disease or hospitalized within 1 year). When female workers were considered, the precarious to non-precarious workers (OR 1.89, 95% CI=1.86-1.92), non-precarious to precarious workers(OR 1.24, 95% CI=1.23-1.26) and precarious workers (OR 1.27, 95% CI=1.25-1.28) all reported poorer health than the non-precarious workers after adjusting for the aforementioned factors. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that changes in employment status were associated with differences in self assessed health among men and women. Specifically, the results of this study showed that a corresponding positive outcome based on self assessed health was greater for employees that changed from precarious to non-precarious jobs and for male employees with precarious jobs, whereas female employees with non-precarious jobs had higher self assessed health. However, additional longitudinal studies on the health effects of employment status should be conducted.