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Insecure, Sick and Unhappy? Well-Being Consequences of Temporary Employment Contracts

Factors Affecting Worker Well-being: The Impact of Change in the Labor Market

ISBN: 978-1-78441-150-3, eISBN: 978-1-78441-149-7

Publication date: 10 November 2014

Abstract

This paper investigates the influences of temporary contracts along several dimensions of well-being (physical and mental health, self-assessed health and happiness) for young Italian workers. Our paper contributes to the literature exploring some new aspects of the relationship between temporary jobs and well-being in a country not frequently analysed in previous literature. We focus on the gender gap in the well-being consequences of non-permanent jobs, the influence of financial support by family in reducing well-being effects caused by temporary contracts and the interaction between gender gap and family support. We find that temporary contracts are damaging in terms of psychological health and happiness mostly for young men and individuals without family economic support. On the other hand, women’s mental health is not affected by temporary contracts and they are even better off in terms of their mental health and well-being when receiving family economic support.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

An earlier draft of this paper was presented at a Centre for Health Economics seminar at the University of York, UK. This paper was also presented at the annual meeting of the Italian Society of Economists, Matera, Italy, at the annual meeting of the Italian Society of Public Economics, Pavia, Italy and at the annual meeting of the Italian Health Economics Association, Rome, Italy. The authors wish to thank the participants for useful comments received. We also thank Giovanni Pica, Lorenzo Sacconi, Pedro Rosa Dias and Maarten Lindeboom for useful suggestions as well as two anonymous referees. The usual disclaimer applies.

Citation

Carrieri, V., Novi, C.D., Jacobs, R. and Robone, S. (2014), "Insecure, Sick and Unhappy? Well-Being Consequences of Temporary Employment Contracts", Factors Affecting Worker Well-being: The Impact of Change in the Labor Market (Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 40), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 157-193. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0147-912120140000040006

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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