Employmentweb_low

EmploymEnT, woRk, and hEalTh inEqualiTiEs - a global perspective
2004; portes & sassen-Koob, 1987), the typically dire working
conditions that characterise it, including child labour, slave labour,
and work at lower-than-subsistence compensation levels, are
exacerbated in low- to middle-income countries.
In addition, in both wealthy and middle/low-income countries,
precarious employment relations have reduced the proportion of
unionised workers, especially since the 1980s. These developments
limit the possibility of using indicators such as union density and
collective bargaining coverage to classify labour markets. Therefore,
when the majority of workers cannot rely on collective bargaining,
alternative indicators are needed.
figure 5 contains a diagram of types of employment relations
in a hypothetical labour market. The labour market is made up
of a formal sector and an informal sector. In the formal sector,
there are two types of workers: full-time regular workers and
irregular workers in precarious jobs, the latter having been on
the rise over recent decades. This sector is characterised by
different rules and regulations than the informal sector, and the
limit of their reach serves as a rough boundary between the two
sectors, marking the beginning of a new set of employment
relations.
While the popular notion of an informal economy connotes a
uniform, para-legal "underground" economy with appalling
working conditions and no social security, several empirical
studies have shown that there are at least two unique class
positions in the informal sector: small entrepreneurs and
informal wage earners (portes & schauffler, 1993). since the
income inequality between these two is larger than the
difference between the two dominant positions of the formal
sector, it seems logical that the health implications of working
in the informal sector would reflect this disparity. Therefore, as
there are many more workers than employers, we can predict
that the informal sector's average level of health will be worse
than in the formal sector.
In other words, we expect employment relations and working
conditions in the informal sector to be more hazardous than in the
formal sector. Exacerbating this prediction is the fact that
compensation factors serve to ease the impact of employment
relations on population health. These compensation factors typically
include social security benefits, universal access to health care or
anti-poverty cash supplements. Thus, low wages and weak
unemployment insurance mediate the negative impact of
employment conditions on health.
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