Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
Volume 190, Issue 2, Pages 207-215Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwaa038
Keywords
anxiety; depression; fixed effects; job insecurity; job security; mental health
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Funding
- Victorian Health and Medical Research Fellowship (Melbourne, Australia)
- Deakin University Faculty of Health Thinker in Residence grant
- Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS)
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This study, based on a large panel study in Australia, found that improvements in job security were strongly associated with improvements in mental health, particularly for men. The results suggest that interventions to enhance job security could have significant benefits for population mental health.
We examined whether job security improvements were associated with improvements in mental health in a large, nationally representative panel study in Australia. We used both within-person fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE) regression to analyze data from 14 annual waves covering the calendar period of 2002-2015 (19,169 persons; 106,942 observations). Mental Health Inventory-5 scores were modeled in relation to self-reported job security (categorical, quintiles), adjusting for age, year, education, and job change in the past year. Both FE and RE models showed stepwise improvements in Mental Health Inventory-5 scores with improving job security, with stronger exposure-outcome relationships in the RE models and for men compared with women. The RE coefficients for improvements in job security in men were 2.06 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.67, 2.46) for 1 quintile, steadily increasing for 2- (3.94 (95% CI: 3.54, 4.34)), 3- (5.82 (95% CI: 5.40, 6.24)), and 4-quintile (7.18 (95% CI: 6.71, 7.64)) improvements. The FE model for men produced slightly smaller coefficients, reaching a maximum of 5.55 (95% CI: 5.06, 6.05). This analysis, with improved causal inference over previous observational research, showed that improving job security is strongly associated with decreasing depression and anxiety symptoms. Policy and practice intervention to improve job security could benefit population mental health.
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