Mental Health Consequences of Changing Employment Relations: Challenges and Opportunities

Submission Deadline: 18 June 2023 (closed)

Guest Editors

Summary

It is well established that in contemporary societies paid work plays a fundamental role in individual identity, mental health and wellbeing by providing material and psychosocial benefits such as income, time structure, enforced activity, social contact, collective purpose and status. However, the recent decades have witnessed dramatic changes in employment relations and working conditions all over the world. Various social forces including periodic economic crises, demographic changes, technological advancement as well as COVID-19 pandemic all have contributed to the changes in employment relations and working conditions such as precarious employment, shorter working hours, gig economy, flexible working arrangements. These changing employment relations have brought about both challenges and opportunities to workers’ mental health status.

Under these circumstances, this special issue is an opportunity for scholars to evaluate the mental health consequences of the changing employment relations and working conditions. We invite researchers from across disciplines and countries to contribute to the understanding of work and mental health in different institutional contexts and demonstrate how we can design a better labour market environment to reduce the risks of mental health problems for workers and improve their labour market experience. Any studies focusing on work, employment and mental health either in a single country or across national contexts, either using qualitative or quantitative methods, are welcome.

The topics of interest for the special issue include, but not limited to, the following:

Work-related mental health during and after Covid-19

Gig economy and mental health

Flexible working and mental health

Teleworking and mental health

Shorter working hours and mental health

Self-employment and mental health

Job quality and mental health

Precarious employment and mental health