The labour market is conceived as largely a marketplace for labour; where agents transact their labour in exchange of pay. However, this is a rather simplistic and narrow view. On closer examination we know that the labour market is comprised of people from a very diverse socio-demographic background with different characteristics -such as education- and skills, interacting with imbalanced bargaining power and dynamics. All these conditions combined, can be seen as ideal fertilisers for the (re)production of social and health inequalities. When digging deeper into labour market outcomes, very soon one realises that there is a health inequalities element associated with all labour market outcomes. However, this is largely overlooked, especially in non-health related research fields. Paradoxically, the concept of a ‘healthy labour market’ refers primarily to its economic performance and the actual health and workplace wellbeing of the workforce is largely left out or treated as an element exogenous to how labour market operates. In this presentation the relationship between higher education and labour market outcomes, including employability, job quality, return to education and occupational mismatch, particularly in periods of economic crisis and during the COVID-19 pandemic, is explained. Then, the focus shifts to research that investigates the relationship between mental health and labour market outcomes of income, employment status, poverty, work-life balance and quality of work, before examining differential effects by particular subgroups and demographic characteristics. Some of these subgroups include occupation, industry , social class classification, trade union participation, and even parenthood status. Finally, implications for policy and future research are discussed.
Presented by:
Dr Theocharis Kromydas
Date & time:
13 Mar 2024 12:30 pm - 13 Mar 2024 13:30 pm
Venue:
Online - to join us online, please contact the seminar series organisers at iserseminars@essex.ac.uk)
External seminars home