Temporary Workers' Skipping of Meals and Eating Alone in South Korea: The Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2013-2016.

Ji-Sook Kong,Jin-Young Min,Kyoung-Bok Min

doi:10.3390/ijerph16132319

Abstract

Available evidence suggests that social disadvantages are inextricably linked to unhealthy eating behaviors. Given that temporary workers face insecure employment and uncertainty in their work’s terms and conditions, issues relevant to maintaining healthy eating behavior are likely to be affected. This study investigated the association between temporary employments and, specifically, the status and frequency of meal skipping and of eating alone among temporary and permanent Korean workers. We used data from the 2013–2016 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. A total of 5912 working people were included as the study population. We classified them as temporary workers (n = 3036) and permanent workers (n = 2876). Eating behaviors included meal skipping and eating alone. The rate and frequency of meal skipping and eating alone were higher in temporary workers. After adjustment for potential confounders, the likelihoods for temporary workers’ skipping lunch was twice as high (OR = 1.95, 95% CI 1.45–2.63) as for permanent workers. In particular, temporary workers had four-fold-increased odds (OR = 4.12, 95% CI 2.29–7.41) of eating alone three times per day relative to permanent workers. We found that temporary workers were more likely to skip meals and eat alone than were permanent workers.

Highlights

Over the past three decades, globalization, financial crises, and the global economy’s restructuring have promoted labor market ‘flexibility’ and entailed changes to work arrangements, especially in terms of the growth of temporary employment [1]
We found that temporary workers were more likely to skip meals and eat alone than were permanent workers
Many studies have noted that temporary workers are more likely than standard workers to have poor health outcomes [6,7,8], experience absenteeism caused by work-related injury or sickness [9], and choose unhealthy lifestyles [10]

Summary

Introduction

Over the past three decades, globalization, financial crises, and the global economy’s restructuring have promoted labor market ‘flexibility’ and entailed changes to work arrangements, especially in terms of the growth of temporary employment [1]. Temporary jobs encompass a wide and diverse range of occupations and sectors, they tend to offer low wages and diverse poor working conditions (e.g., less access to paid vacations, sick leave, and unemployment insurance) relative to permanent jobs [3]. These detrimental aspects of temporary employment result in psychological morbidity and socioeconomic disadvantages for temporary workers [4,5]. Temporary workers are more likely to have more difficulties accessing healthcare [11] and developing friendships in the workplace than are standard workers

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion