A conceptual model for measuring the health associations of precarious employment in Post-Fordist labour markets

In western labour markets standard employment has declined in favour of various non-standard employment arrangements. Adverse consequences for health and well-being resulting from non-standard employment arrangements were shown previously. However, it is often difficult to conceptualise non-standard employment conditions appropriately. So far, research has followed largely two approaches: studying the health consequences of specific types of non-standard arrangements (fixed-term, agency or part-time contracts); or focussing on the psychosocial consequences of violated psychological contracts in terms of employment security or organisational fairness. Both approaches have conceptual limitations when studying employment as an objective condition.
We present employment precariousness as a multidimensional conceptual alternative, rooted in the theoretical framework of the regulation school. It refers to a departure from ideal-typical features of the "standard employment contract" that resulted from the Fordist compromise between workers and employers and comprises: employment stability; income sustainability; (collective) participation of employees regarding work organisation and compensations; entitlement to workers' rights and benefits; and vulnerability to authoritarian and discriminatory treatment due to lacking (collective) protection.
Four pathways link employment precariousness to health: a reproductive pathway, via material deprivation caused by unsustainable income; higher exposure to hazardous physical and psychosocial working conditions in the production process; adverse psychosocial effects related to violated expectations regarding (future) employment; and the decreased quality of social relations of precarious workers with co-workers, supervisors and within teams.
The proposed conceptual framework aims to inform future quantitative and qualitative empirical research regarding the health effects of contemporary (precarious) employment conditions.