Precarity – Can you measure it?

Alejandra Vives Vergara and her co-researchers have developed the Employment Precariousness Scale (EPRES). This scale is important because it connects precariousness with health outcomes. Their research, published in the Occupational & Environmental Medicine (OEM) journal in 2010, sampled almost 7000 temporary and permanent workers in Spain to create a theory-based tool  that measures the multi-dimensional effects of precariousness. The EPRES scale since been adapted to study precariousness in other countries such as Chile and Sweden.

I emailed Alejandra, and she kindly took the time to answer my questions before voting in the Chilean Presidential Election. If anyone is especially interested in this research, you can access Alejandra’s presentation on the development of the EPRES here.

What did your research show, in layman’s terms? What is new about your research?

Our research shows that precarious employment is toxic for well-being and health. Workers in precarious jobs are more likely to have worse mental health, poor self-perceived health, a higher risk of occupational injuries, more presenteeism (working while ill), poorer training, and to lack personal safety or protective equipment. During the pandemic, we have also seen workers in non-precarious employment being sent home to tele-work while being replaced by workers in precarious employment conditions who do the in-person part of the job.

What is new in our research is that we are using a conceptually sound multidimensional instrument, especially devised to measure employment precariousness; an instrument that acknowledges the true multi-dimensionality and extent of precariousness of employment. For example, it can assess a job that is not only temporary or insecure, but precarious in many other critical dimensions relative to everyday life and well-being.

It is also critical that we are able to measure and study the effects of precariousness on health irrespective of the type of contract, and therefore be able to capture the spillover of precariousness onto permanent jobs.

Why was there a need for a tool to measure employment precariousness?  Why use ‘precariousness’ instead of ‘precarity’? And why do you frame precariousness as a health issue?

The purpose of having a scale was to have the ability to do research on employment precariousness and health, moving from qualitative to quantitative methods and reaching broader populations via surveys. A multidimensional instrument like the EPRES, based on a solid conceptual framework, was necessary to move beyond studies that cannot account for the multiple dimensions of employment affected by precarisation; and further, that cannot capture the precarisation of permanent jobs. This results in an underestimation of the prevalence of precarious employment as well as an underestimation of the associations with health outcomes, and also a misunderstanding of where precariousness lies in flexible labour markets which is, potentially, in all kinds of jobs.

Why precariousness instead of precarity? I don´t think there is a special reason but I do know that we don’t use “precarious employment” because we understand that there are different forms of precariousness across jobs.

Your scale talks about precariousness as a multi-dimensional construct consisting of temporariness, disempowerment, wages, and rights – but also of vulnerability and exercise rights. Could you say a little about the last two categories? 

We understand vulnerability and exercise rights to be dimensions that reflect everyday workplace power relations in the context of precarious employment; the psycho-social dimensions of employment precariousness as experienced in the workplace.

Vulnerability has to do with the defencelessness that results from having an insecure contract and an individualized employment relationship; that is, one not backed by a union that can provide support in terms of protection of worker rights or against arbitrary, unjust or discriminatory treatment. Exercise rights is the capacity or incapacity of workers to exercise their workplace rights. Workers in precarious employment often don’t exercise their workplace rights out of fear of the consequences (of taking sick leave, for example), organizational limitations (taking a day off during a period of under-staffing), or lack of knowledge about their rights and how to exercise them.

Your research also indicated, surprisingly, the precarious employment status of permanent workers – which would seem to indicate that no worker is safe from precarity. Can you say a little about this?

This is the spillover effect I referred to earlier. Many mechanisms help to explain why permanent employment is also affected by precariousness. For one, when precarious forms of employment expand, permanent employment also becomes more precarious because workers are faced with the threat of growing precariousness of employment. Therefore, they are forced to negotiate poorer working conditions in order to retain their jobs and not lose them to more precarious forms of employment that are legal and which companies use in order to adapt to market conditions and reduce labour force costs.

This often happens during economic downturns. Labour regulation may be “flexibilized” (sometimes called deregulation, but is actually a different form of regulation) by cutting down or limiting rights for some or for all workers. Countries may weaken labour unions and collective agreements, or weaken the social safety net which is increasingly common. For example, if you are unemployed and are entitled to unemployment compensation, you will not take any job you are offered. But if you don’t have unemployment compensation, or it is very limited, you will not be in a position to refuse a precarious job. This can affect permanent jobs too, especially if you regulate to facilitate hiring and firing at the discretion of the employer.

How do you hope that the (EPRES) scale will be used in the future? Do you hope that policy-makers will make use of the EPRES, or research based on it?

We hope that we can contribute to policy making in other sectors beyond the health sector by providing evidence of how much well-being is being lost, how much suffering is being produced and how population health is affected by policies devised to serve purposes other than health.

Personally, I also think it is critical that we understand how employment affects well-being and health given the centrality of work in our societies and our personal lives. 

As someone who researches precarity, what are the emerging areas of research in this field? In essence, what remains to be done?

Much remains to be done. I live and carry out research in Chile, in Latin America, where we have a large proportion of the working population in informal employment and own-account work. Regulatory protection of the workforce has never reached the standards that exist in the global north. Together with that, we face the double burden of old and new forms of precarious and informal employment, like platform work, which the pandemic has expanded without any form of health or social protection. We also have an ageing population which needs to continue doing precarious low-wages jobs because pensions are insufficient, and there is a growing numbers of migrants facing severe difficulties, as well as needing a job in order to obtain their legal papers. There is much to be done in this rapidly changing world of work.

Are there any concrete government (or non-governmental) policies that you think could help reduce precariousness among workers?

I think guaranteeing a minimum income, be it through universal forms of unemployment compensation or the guarantee of a universal income, could help overcome many of the problems associated with precarious employment.

Many thanks to Alejandra again for taking the time to answer these questions.

Further Reading

Divided unions, continuing precarity for Spain’s teachers

TEFL Workers Union Facebook Group

TEFL Workers Union Website

Key Concept in ELT: Precarity