Abstract
To investigate inequalities in personal health conditions and in the utilization of healthcare services according in relation to the individual's status in the labor market. This study was based on 39,925 males aged 15 to 64 years living in 10 Brazilian metropolitan regions, who took part in the 1998 National Household Survey. They were classified as formal labor, informal labor, unemployed or outside of the labor market. Each category was compared with formal labor regarding sociodemographic characteristics, health status indicators and healthcare utilization. This analysis was by means of Pearson's Chi-square test. Multinomial logistic regression was used to investigate independent associations between labor market status, health status indicators and healthcare utilization. The classification of the participants' status was that 52.2% were formal labor, 27.7% informal labor, 10% unemployed and 10.2% were outside of the labor market. There were significant differences between these categories with respect to age, schooling, household income, household status and region of residence. Independent of the sociodemographic characteristics, unemployment, informal labor status and, especially, exclusion from the labor market remained associated with poor health status. The individual's status in the labor market is expressed through a gradient of inequality in health conditions. These findings reinforce the need to also consider the individual's status in the labor market in studies on healthcare inequalities.
Highlights
In Brazil, from the 1990s onwards, restructuring of production systems has caused profound changes in their technical and organizational basis.[5]
The dependable variable was the status in the labor market, composed of four independent categories: www.fsp.usp.br/rsp formal labor; informal labor; unemployed; outside of the labor market
The proportional distribution according to status in the labor market showed that 52.2% of the men aged between 15 and 64 years living in Brazilian metropolitan regions in 1998 were classified as formal labor, 27.7% as informal labor, 10% as unemployed and 10.2% as individuals outside of the labor market
Summary
In Brazil, from the 1990s onwards, restructuring of production systems has caused profound changes in their technical and organizational basis.[5] Both the greater flexibility of production structures and the organization and social division of labor have defined enormous changes in the nature, meaning and content of work. With the new labor configuration, guaranteed social rights are the privilege of a restricted group of workers, while precarious contracts have proliferated along with unemployment. Unemployment is probably the main factor leading to social exclusion.[13] Workers who are excluded from the formal economy are forced to earn their living by means of precarious occupations or, after long periods without work, are stricken by exclusion, descending a slope from inclusion to precarious inclusion and, exclusion.
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