Literature
Challenges in Work, Health and Well-being
(201800084)
,Literature Challenges in Work, Health and Well-being .................................................................... 1
Work as an inclusive part of population health inequities, research and prevention ............................ 3
Preface: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs ................................................................................ 8
Applying the Job Demands-Resources model: A ‘how to’ guide to measuring and tackling work
engagement and burnout ...........................................................................................................11
The Sociology of Emotional Labour .............................................................................................16
Employee exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect in response to dissatisfying organisational situations: it
depends on supervisory relationship quality .................................................................................24
Integrating collective voice within Job Demands-Resources Theory .................................................30
Ethical considerations of worksite health promotion: an exploration of stakeholders’ views ...............34
Human resource management and employee well-being: towards a new analytic framework ............41
Robots in the workplace: a threat to- or opportunity for- meaningful work?.......................................48
Sustainable employability- definition, conceptualisation, and implications: a perspective based on the
capability approach...................................................................................................................54
Cultural schemas, social class, and the flexibility stigma ...............................................................61
Digitalisation and the remaking of the ideal worker ........................................................................66
The ideal worker and digitalisation ..............................................................................................67
The menopause taboo at work: examining women’s embodied experiences of menopause in the UK
police service ...........................................................................................................................75
“I can never be too comfortable”: race, gender, and emotion at the hospital bedside ........................83
,Work as an inclusive part of population health inequities, research and
prevention
Ahonen et al. (2018)
Introduction
Work has not been explored in most health inequity research in the US which creates a
blind spot in our understanding of how inequities are created and impedes our progress
toward health equity. This paper:
- Describes why work is vital to our understanding of observed societal-level
health inequities
- Outlines challenges to incorporate work in the study of health inequities:
o The complexity of work as a concept
o Work’s overlap with socioeconomic position, race, ethnicity and gender
o The development of a parallel line of inquiry into occupational health
inequities
o The dearth of precise data with which to explore the relationships between
work and health status
- Summarizes opportunities for advancing health equity and monitoring progress
that could be achieved if researchers and practitioners more robustly include
work in their efforts to understand and address health inequities
→ Leaving work out of a broader health inequities inquiry has important consequences
for research and practice, namely fragmentation of thinking and resources, incomplete
understanding of inequitable patterns, and less effective strategies to intervene them.
Therefore, a careful consideration of work in public health research and practice can
advance health equity.
Terms used in this paper
- Employment is the legal relationship between employers and workers, which
defines their rights and responsibilities.
- Occupation refers to socially recognized groups of jobs that involve similar skills
and tasks.
- Working conditions include how and where a job is done, its schedule, and any
physical, chemical, biological, or social exposures. Job characteristics are
specific demands closely tied to the tasks themselves.
- The terms work or job refer to the full combination of the above elements.
- “Disparity,” “inequality,” and “inequity” are different concepts, with “inequity”
referring to unfair differences, making it most relevant when discussing health
equity.
The importance of work
Most adults, and many adolescents and children, worldwide spend a great proportion of
their time at work or seeking work. Work can influence health in multiple ways, for
example, through its physical demands, forms of employment, compensation and
benefits, exposure to hazards, and availability of psychosocial resources. Work also
, influences things that place workers and their families into social hierarchies and that
are considered fundamental causes of health status: power, money, prestige and social
connectedness. Conditions of work and employment, and how work shapes other
determinants of health, may further accumulate across population groups over time to
affect health inequities.
Race, ethnicity and gender are often seen as fundamental causes of health inequities.
Because of similar intertwining of work with recognised fundamental causes, work can
also be considered among them. Examining work is a concrete way to focus the study of
fundamental causes, because it provides a concrete social location where these causes
materialize. Additionally, work can serve as a point of articulation for the relationships
between people and structural and social institutions.
From a research perspective, if social and occupational class determine one’s place in a
social hierarchy, work is the underlying measure of inequality in any definition of socio-
economic health inequalities. Yet we do not know the full influence of work on aspects
of ill health or its total contribution to health and well-being and observed patterns of
health inequities as most research on the social production of health and disease in the
US does not consider work. Failing to consider it in research creates a blind spot about
the role of work that impedes our full understanding of how health inequities come to
be.
Challenges to incorporate work in the study of health inequities
Work as a complex concept
Work is a complex concept that is difficult to define as a study variable which may partly
explain its absence from research on health inequities. It may be relatively easy to
identify whether a person is working for pay and to determine some aspects of the
employment relationship (e.g. seasonal vs permanent work), but other classifications
raise complications.
Work is also complex in its relationships to health: work and health influence each other
and work can have both health-damaging and health-enhancing effects at the same
time on workers. For example, physically demanding jobs with high likelihood of toxic
substance exposure can also be a source of stable income, pleasure and social
connection. Furthermore, work and other domains of life have porous boundaries and
can interact with each other, leading to poor health and quality of life.
→ Population health research has not adequately addressed the dynamic and complex
relationships between work and health to date: researchers do include segments of
work (e.g., occupational group, working or not), but they rarely truly explain its complex
role.
→ Werk is moeilijk om te meten. Werk is niet alleen “heeft iemand een baan of niet?”.
Het gaat ook om: werkzekerheid, arbeidsvoorwaarden, fysieke + psychosociale risico’s,
autonomie, stress, werktijden, sociale rol en identiteit. Omdat werk zóveel verschillende
aspecten heeft, is het lastig te bestuderen. Veel studies maken het daarom te simpel, en
dan mis je het echte effect.
Challenges in Work, Health and Well-being
(201800084)
,Literature Challenges in Work, Health and Well-being .................................................................... 1
Work as an inclusive part of population health inequities, research and prevention ............................ 3
Preface: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs ................................................................................ 8
Applying the Job Demands-Resources model: A ‘how to’ guide to measuring and tackling work
engagement and burnout ...........................................................................................................11
The Sociology of Emotional Labour .............................................................................................16
Employee exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect in response to dissatisfying organisational situations: it
depends on supervisory relationship quality .................................................................................24
Integrating collective voice within Job Demands-Resources Theory .................................................30
Ethical considerations of worksite health promotion: an exploration of stakeholders’ views ...............34
Human resource management and employee well-being: towards a new analytic framework ............41
Robots in the workplace: a threat to- or opportunity for- meaningful work?.......................................48
Sustainable employability- definition, conceptualisation, and implications: a perspective based on the
capability approach...................................................................................................................54
Cultural schemas, social class, and the flexibility stigma ...............................................................61
Digitalisation and the remaking of the ideal worker ........................................................................66
The ideal worker and digitalisation ..............................................................................................67
The menopause taboo at work: examining women’s embodied experiences of menopause in the UK
police service ...........................................................................................................................75
“I can never be too comfortable”: race, gender, and emotion at the hospital bedside ........................83
,Work as an inclusive part of population health inequities, research and
prevention
Ahonen et al. (2018)
Introduction
Work has not been explored in most health inequity research in the US which creates a
blind spot in our understanding of how inequities are created and impedes our progress
toward health equity. This paper:
- Describes why work is vital to our understanding of observed societal-level
health inequities
- Outlines challenges to incorporate work in the study of health inequities:
o The complexity of work as a concept
o Work’s overlap with socioeconomic position, race, ethnicity and gender
o The development of a parallel line of inquiry into occupational health
inequities
o The dearth of precise data with which to explore the relationships between
work and health status
- Summarizes opportunities for advancing health equity and monitoring progress
that could be achieved if researchers and practitioners more robustly include
work in their efforts to understand and address health inequities
→ Leaving work out of a broader health inequities inquiry has important consequences
for research and practice, namely fragmentation of thinking and resources, incomplete
understanding of inequitable patterns, and less effective strategies to intervene them.
Therefore, a careful consideration of work in public health research and practice can
advance health equity.
Terms used in this paper
- Employment is the legal relationship between employers and workers, which
defines their rights and responsibilities.
- Occupation refers to socially recognized groups of jobs that involve similar skills
and tasks.
- Working conditions include how and where a job is done, its schedule, and any
physical, chemical, biological, or social exposures. Job characteristics are
specific demands closely tied to the tasks themselves.
- The terms work or job refer to the full combination of the above elements.
- “Disparity,” “inequality,” and “inequity” are different concepts, with “inequity”
referring to unfair differences, making it most relevant when discussing health
equity.
The importance of work
Most adults, and many adolescents and children, worldwide spend a great proportion of
their time at work or seeking work. Work can influence health in multiple ways, for
example, through its physical demands, forms of employment, compensation and
benefits, exposure to hazards, and availability of psychosocial resources. Work also
, influences things that place workers and their families into social hierarchies and that
are considered fundamental causes of health status: power, money, prestige and social
connectedness. Conditions of work and employment, and how work shapes other
determinants of health, may further accumulate across population groups over time to
affect health inequities.
Race, ethnicity and gender are often seen as fundamental causes of health inequities.
Because of similar intertwining of work with recognised fundamental causes, work can
also be considered among them. Examining work is a concrete way to focus the study of
fundamental causes, because it provides a concrete social location where these causes
materialize. Additionally, work can serve as a point of articulation for the relationships
between people and structural and social institutions.
From a research perspective, if social and occupational class determine one’s place in a
social hierarchy, work is the underlying measure of inequality in any definition of socio-
economic health inequalities. Yet we do not know the full influence of work on aspects
of ill health or its total contribution to health and well-being and observed patterns of
health inequities as most research on the social production of health and disease in the
US does not consider work. Failing to consider it in research creates a blind spot about
the role of work that impedes our full understanding of how health inequities come to
be.
Challenges to incorporate work in the study of health inequities
Work as a complex concept
Work is a complex concept that is difficult to define as a study variable which may partly
explain its absence from research on health inequities. It may be relatively easy to
identify whether a person is working for pay and to determine some aspects of the
employment relationship (e.g. seasonal vs permanent work), but other classifications
raise complications.
Work is also complex in its relationships to health: work and health influence each other
and work can have both health-damaging and health-enhancing effects at the same
time on workers. For example, physically demanding jobs with high likelihood of toxic
substance exposure can also be a source of stable income, pleasure and social
connection. Furthermore, work and other domains of life have porous boundaries and
can interact with each other, leading to poor health and quality of life.
→ Population health research has not adequately addressed the dynamic and complex
relationships between work and health to date: researchers do include segments of
work (e.g., occupational group, working or not), but they rarely truly explain its complex
role.
→ Werk is moeilijk om te meten. Werk is niet alleen “heeft iemand een baan of niet?”.
Het gaat ook om: werkzekerheid, arbeidsvoorwaarden, fysieke + psychosociale risico’s,
autonomie, stress, werktijden, sociale rol en identiteit. Omdat werk zóveel verschillende
aspecten heeft, is het lastig te bestuderen. Veel studies maken het daarom te simpel, en
dan mis je het echte effect.
