This article presents an overview of the recent work on precarious employment and employment quality in relation to workers’ health and well-being. More specifically, the article mainly reviews the work performed in the E.U. 7th Framework project, SOPHIE. First, we present our overarching conceptual framework. Then, we provide a compiled overview of the evidence on the sociodemographic and European cross-country distribution of employment quality and employment precariousness. Subsequently, we provide the current evidence regarding the relations with health and broader worker well-being indicators. A final section summarizes current insights on the pathways relating precarious employment and health and well-being. The article concludes with a plea for further data collection and research into the longitudinal effects of employment precariousness among emerging groups of workers. Based on the evidence compiled in this article, policymakers should be convinced of the harmful health and well-being effects of employment precariousness and (further) labor market flexibilization.

Objectives The aims of this position paper are to (i) summarize research on precarious employment (PE) in the context of occupational health; (ii) develop a theoretical framework that distinguishes PE from related concepts and delineates important contextual factors; and (iii) identify key methodological challenges and directions for future research on PE and health. Methods This position paper is the result of a working group consisting of researchers from the EU, Turkey and the USA, who have discussed the issue over the course of six months (October 2018–April 2019), meeting both online and face-to-face on several occasions. Results The lack of a common theoretical framework of PE hinders it from becoming an established part of occupational and public health research. There are also issues regarding operationalization in surveys and registers. Further, previous research on PE and health suffers from methodological limitations including inadequate study designs and biased assessments of exposure and outcomes. PE is highly dependent on contextual factors and cross-country comparison has proven very difficult. We also point to the uneven social distribution of PE, ie, higher prevalence among women, immigrants, young and low educated. We propose a theoretical framework for understanding precarious employment as a multidimensional construct. Conclusions A generally accepted multidimensional definition of PE should be the highest priority. Future studies would benefit from improved exposure assessment, temporal resolution, and accounting for confounders, as well as testing possible mechanisms, eg, by adopting multi-level and intersectional analytical approaches in order to understand the complexity of PE and its relation to health.

Background: Nurses and midwives play a critical role in the provision of care and the optimization of health services resources worldwide, which is particularly relevant during the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, they can only provide quality services if their work environment provides adequate conditions to support them. Today the employment and working conditions of many nurses worldwide are precarious, and the current pandemic has prompted more visibility to the vulnerability to health-damaging factors of nurses’ globally. This desk review explores how employment relations, and employment and working conditions may be negatively affecting the health of nurses in countries such as Brazil, Croatia, India, Ireland, Italy, México, Nepal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Main body: Nurses’ health is influenced by the broader social, economic, and political system and the redistribution of power relations that creates new policies regarding the labour market and the welfare state. The vulnerability faced by nurses is heightened by gender inequalities, in addition to social class, ethnicity/race (and caste), age and migrant status, that are inequality axes that explain why nurses’ workers, and often their families, are exposed to multiple risks and/or poorer health. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, informalization of nurses’ employment and working conditions were unfair and harmed their health. During COVID-19 pandemic, there is evidence that the employment and working conditions of nurses are associated to poor physical and mental health. Conclusion: The protection of nurses’ health is paramount. International and national enforceable standards are needed, along with economic and health policies designed to substantially improve employment and working conditions for nurses and work–life balance. More knowledge is needed to understand the pathways and mechanisms on how precariousness might affect nurses’ health and monitor the progress towards nurses’ health equity.

To show the prevalence of precarious employment in Catalonia (Spain) for the first time and its association with mental and self-rated health, measured with a multidimensional scale. A cross-sectional study was conducted using data from the II Catalan Working Conditions Survey (2010) with a subsample of employed workers with a contract. The prevalence of precarious employment using a multidimensional scale and its association with health was calculated using multivariate log-binomial regression stratified by gender. The prevalence of precarious employment in Catalonia was high (42.6%). We found higher precariousness in women, youth, immigrants, and manual and less educated workers. There was a positive gradient in the association between precarious employment and poor health. Precarious employment is associated with poor health in the working population. Working conditions surveys should include questions on precarious employment and health indicators, which would allow monitoring and subsequent analyses of health inequalities.