Precarious employment in Sweden : methodological development and health associations

Precarious employment (PE), representing a multidimensional construct of (poor) employment conditions, has been found associated with several health outcomes. However, there is a lack of a recognized definition of PE and studies have varied greatly in their assessment of PE. In addition, previous studies have been limited in their design, the impact of labor market mobility among PEs has seldomly been explored, and a range of health outcomes are yet understudied. Further, in Sweden, response rates to national surveys have continuously decreased, calling for alternative sampling strategies. The aim of this thesis was hence two-fold: 1) to explore, develop and apply novel sampling- and exposure-assessment methods to study precarious employment in the Swedish labor market, and by its application, 2) study associations between precarious employment and health. In Study I, the aim was to assess the performance of web-based respondent driven sampling among non-standard, precarious, employees in Stockholm County. The method was implemented between November 2016 and May 2017, and the resulting sample size (n=415), response rate (62%) and wave depth (1-15 waves) were considered acceptable. Equilibrium was reached for the variables assessed and estimations could be performed. In Study III, the aim was to operationalize PE with a typological and summative scale approach in register-data. PE was operationalized through five items and three dimensions in the Swedish working population of 2014, by the means of labor market data (LISA) (n=4,349,322). Through the typological approach, assessed by means of latent class analysis, one PE-type (“PER”) as well as five other employment types emerged. In the summative scale approach, scores ranged between -10 and +2 and >80% of individuals in the PER-type fell beneath the 25th percentile. The PER-type was generally associated with sociodemographic and occupational characteristics previously recognized as overrepresented in PE. In Study II