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Understanding the health outcomes of the work pattern transformation in the age of gig economy: an investigation of the association between multiple-job holding and health status in the United States and China

  • Original Article
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Abstract

Objective

The Slash (multiple-job holders) become increasingly prevalent in the labor force under the context of fast-developing gig economy and other emerging employment forms active on platforms. However, health outcomes of multiple-job holding have not received sufficient research treatment and is far from reaching consensus. This study provides an empirical investigation on the influence of multiple-job holding on individual health.

Method

This study uses data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS-2015 survey) which covers 28 provinces/municipalities in China and tracks work and health status of the population aged over 45 years using stratified random sampling (N = 12,659–16,526 for examinations of different types of health status (i.e., chronic conditions/body aches/depression, in study 1), and from the Survey of Household Economics and Decision-making (SHED-2019) which is conducted by the Federal Reserve Board of the United States and documents economic behavior and related risks of the population aged over 18 years (N = 6603 for baseline model and N = 10,718 for supplementary test, in study 2). To address the potential endogeneity of multiple-job holding, the instrumental variable (IV) regressions are conducted to ensure the validity of results. The implementation of Study 1 and 2 in different national context could help test the generalization of research results.

Results

Compared with non-multiple jobs holding, multiple-job holding with only one additional job is associated with better health status (i.e., less chronic conditions and body aches, a lower level of depression shown in study 1, and better self-assessed general health shown in study 2), however, multiple-job holding with at least two additional jobs turns to be associated with worse health status (shown in both study 1 and 2). These results show that the optimal level of multiple-job holding could be featured with one additional job besides the primary job.

Conclusion

Multiple-job holding, with different structures, has both bright and dark side for health outcomes. To maintain an optimal level of multiple-job holding could benefit individual health.

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Availability of data and materials

The data used in this study are open source and publicly available. The data were available upon reasonable request via online application to the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) research program. The data of SHED-2019 were published, available to the public and open for research use, analysis, and policymaking on consumer finances and household issues.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thanked the CHARLS research team, Open Research Data Platform, Institute for Social Science Survey, National School of Development, Peking University who conducted the national random stratified sampling and publicized their research data. We appreciated the SHED research team of Federal Reserve Board of the United States for share the research data to the public. We also thanked participants of seminars for providing valuable advices to improve this manuscript.

Funding

This study does not receive external funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Bocong Yuan & Junbang lan

  2. Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China

    Jiannan Li

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Contributions

YB conceptualized the manuscript and was responsible for the formal analysis; LJ was responsible for the writing—original article, LJ was responsible for writing—review and editing; all authors have read and approved the submission.

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Correspondence to Jiannan Li.

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Conflict of interest

Authors of this study had no competing interest to declare.

Ethical approval and informed consent

The ethical approval and informed consent were not necessary as this study used publicly available data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) and authors had no contact to human-related materials. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applied to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Besides, the CHARLS research team obtained ethics approval (license numbers: IRB00001052–11015, IRB00001052–14030, and IRB00001052–17053) from the institutional review board of the Peking University National School of Development. All respondents provided written informed consent. If the respondent was illiterate, he/she would press the fingerprint after the interviewer dictated the content of the informed consent. Besides, SHED-2019 was initiated and conducted by the Federal Reserve Board of the United States for the purpose of learning more about the financial wellbeing and economic perceptions of the American people. The survey was approved by the Board of governors of the Federal Reserve System.

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Yuan, B., lan, J. & Li, J. Understanding the health outcomes of the work pattern transformation in the age of gig economy: an investigation of the association between multiple-job holding and health status in the United States and China. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 95, 737–751 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-021-01799-4

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