Research on health and wellbeing and quality of employment

A study of over 1000 unemployed adults by Tarani Chandola, Professor of Medical Sociology at The University of Manchester, compared health and stress levels of those remaining unemployed and different quality jobs. The study revealed evidence that runs contrary to the assumption that taking any job is better for a person’s health and wellbeing than being unemployed. The study found that:

• Mental health outcomes of adults in poor-quality work are often no different to those who remain unemployed; yet those in good quality work see increases in their mental health;
• Health and wellbeing outcomes for people with two or more adverse job measures are worse than peers who remain unemployed;
• The importance of ensuring good quality work should be high on the government’s agenda following the publication of Matthew Taylor’s review of modern work practices.

The paper “Re-employment, job quality, health and allostatic load biomarkers: prospective evidence from the UK Household Longitudinal Study” by Tarani Chandola and Nan Zhang was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, dyx150 .

http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/posts/2017/08/is-having-any-job-at-a...