Last year I looked at the positive impact the gig economy could have on the mental health of those involved. The article was based upon INSEAD research that showed self-employed workers having better mental health than their salaried peers. What’s more, they also drank less, had higher confidence and showed less signs of stress.
“We find a strong and positive effect of these types of employment on mental health, consistent across a variety of specifications,” the authors explain.
Of course, the gig economy is an all encompassing term that has little practical use, as there is so little that binds a cycling delivery rider to a highly skilled consultant flitting from gig to gig as to make attributing characteristics to this itinerant workforce very hard.
Being underemployed
This was highlighted by a second study from the University of Stirling, which looked at the mental impact of the underemployment that can often result from the inherently uncertain nature of gig work. The paper highlights how for many people on zero hours contracts, their working hours have stayed pretty stable since the 2007 recession, despite employment rates improving for the rest of the workforce.
The authors remind us that underemployment is often accompanied by a lack of control over one’s hours, stress from reduced income levels and generally reduced wellbeing from the uncertainty that is a fundamental part of this lifestyle.
The researchers began by defining underemployment as any work that involves fewer than 30 hours per week and when the individual would like to work more. They then used the 12-point General Health Questionnaire to assess the distress felt by individuals who met this criteria.
The analysis found that wanting to work more hours than you were actually able to was clearly linked to psychological distress, with those workers in this category significantly more stressed than their full-time peers.
They also explored the British Household Panel Survey to understand just how influential it was to move from underemployment to full-time employment. This showed that the transition from a period of full-time work to that of underemployment was linked with an increase in stress levels, and this was consistent across all 18 years of the Surveys operation. Indeed, so significant was the effect of underemployment on our mental wellbeing, that the researchers liken it to being unemployed.
Show me the money
On a slightly more positive note, they do believe that the effects of underemployment are clearly reversible, via the somewhat obvious route of finding full-time employment. What is perhaps interesting about this, is that it’s probably not the lack of things to do that is the problem, as previous research has shown that underemployment in full-time jobs is actually very common, with levels typically ranging from 17% to around the 60% mark across Asia, Europe and North America.
In other words, most of those in full-time work actually spend large chunks of it doing very little, but, of course, the employer picks up the tab for that underemployment in a way that those who are purely paid for their productive hours do not.
This is perhaps confirmed by a study I wrote about last year, which found that we only really need 8 hours work to enjoy the various mental health benefits that work provides us.
Interestingly, there seemed to be no real boost from working more than 8 hours, with those working a standard 40 hour work week showing no real difference in either their mental health or their life satisfaction levels. As such, the authors believe that we can get all we need from work (in health terms at least) by engaging in just 8 hours of it per week.
Removing the uncertainty
As such, perhaps the most important thing to provide gig workers is a degree more certainty than they currently enjoy. Research from the University of Oxford highlights the fundamental uncertainty inherent in gig work today. They suggest that the very practice of hiring people through sites like Freelancer.com may create instability in the working lives of millions in the developing world.
“Our findings demonstrate that companies such as Uber and Deliveroo are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to potential concerns around the gig economy,” they explain. “In developing countries vast numbers of people are being hired to do outsourced tasks by people in countries such as the U.K. and the U.S. who have no idea about local employment regulations and their application.”
All of which doesn’t necessarily mean that gig work is inherently bad. After all, research from Villanova University found that gig workers were happier than most other forms of worker, due in large part to the autonomy and flexibility mentioned previously.
A report from the financial services firm Prudential found that we have very different needs at different stages of our life. It found that gig work was most popular among Millennials who could fit the flexible work around their lifestyle. Gig workers in the Baby Boomer and Gen-X age groups however tended to be forced into gig work because they lost their full-time job.
For them, the lack of stability and uncertain income was a major concern as they were more likely to have mortgages to pay and families to support. This contributed to the perilous financial situation of 63% of the Gen-X gig workers Prudential spoke to, who said they were struggling financially.
While there have been various policy proposals, ranging from underemployment insurance to universal basic income, to try and mitigate the risks involved in a gigging lifestyle, perhaps the first hurdle to overcome is that beholden in classifying all itinerant workers in the same way. The studies highlighted above indicate a clear need for nuance that is largely absent from the policy debate taking place today, and as such, those in most need of help are largely deprived of it.
