Effort-reward imbalance and its association with health among permanent and fixed-term workers

Shinobu Tsurugano,Mariko Nishikitani,Mariko Inoue,Eiji Yano

doi:10.1186/1751-0759-4-16

Abstract

BackgroundIn the past decade, the changing labor market seems to have rejected the traditional standards employment and has begun to support a variety of non-standard forms of work in their place. The purpose of our study was to compare the degree of job stress, sources of job stress, and association of high job stress with health among permanent and fixed-term workers.MethodsOur study subjects were 709 male workers aged 30 to 49 years in a suburb of Tokyo, Japan. In 2008, we conducted a cross-sectional study to compare job stress using an effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model questionnaire. Lifestyles, subjective symptoms, and body mass index were also observed from the 2008 health check-up data.ResultsThe rate of job stress of the high-risk group measured by ERI questionnaire was not different between permanent and fixed-term workers. However, the content of the ERI components differed. Permanent workers were distressed more by effort, overwork, or job demand, while fixed-term workers were distressed more by their job insecurity. Moreover, higher ERI was associated with existence of subjective symptoms (OR = 2.07, 95% CI: 1.42-3.03) and obesity (OR = 2.84, 95% CI:1.78-4.53) in fixed-term workers while this tendency was not found in permanent workers.ConclusionsOur study showed that workers with different employment types, permanent and fixed-term, have dissimilar sources of job stress even though their degree of job stress seems to be the same. High ERI was associated with existing subjective symptoms and obesity in fixed-term workers. Therefore, understanding different sources of job stress and their association with health among permanent and fixed-term workers should be considered to prevent further health problems.

Highlights

In the past decade, the changing labor market seems to have rejected the traditional standards employment and has begun to support a variety of non-standard forms of work in their place
The same proportion of permanent and fixed-term male workers was at high-risk for job stress as measured by the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) questionnaire
We found that these two types of employees experience different sources of occupational stress

Summary

Introduction

The changing labor market seems to have rejected the traditional standards employment and has begun to support a variety of non-standard forms of work in their place. To overcome recession and a high unemployment rate, national labor market policy began to support work sharing, deregulation of employment, and flexibility of work in developed countries [1] These non-standard forms of work are known as precarious employment (or contingent work, firstly introduced by Freedman [2]). Among the workforce in Japan, with the exception of managers and self-employed people, 33.7% were categorized as precarious workers in 2009 compared to 20.2% in 1990 [7] This increase was based on the deregulation of non-regular employees and lack of regular employment opportunities for new graduates during the recession period in late 1990s and 2000s. Precarious workers were employed as a convenient labor force, which means that the number of employees can be adjusted depending on the job demand in the company, which is quite unstable This situation is currently threatening Japanese workers’ mental health [8]

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