Relationship between low-quality jobs and health

Low-quality work can be just as bad for health as unemployment. This can be due to workplace hazards and conditions, but also to the stress and anxiety that can be caused by a lack of control or autonomy, job insecurity, or insufficient income due to low pay.

This chart shows how different aspects of low-quality work affect employees’ health. Each individual’s experiences at work are assessed according to five aspects of job quality: job satisfaction, job wellbeing, job autonomy, job security and pay. 

• In every category, more people with a measure of low job quality report having worse health than people without one.
• Employees with low job wellbeing are more than 2.5 times as likely to report less than good health (28.2%) than people who do not experience low job wellbeing (11.2%).
• Employees with low job satisfaction are also more than twice as likely to report less than good health than those without low job satisfaction – 25.6% compared to 12.2%.
• Employees with low job security are 80% more likely to report less than good health (23.1%) than those without low job security (12.7%). 
• Having low pay has the smallest impact on whether an employee reports poor or fair health – 17.4% for employees with low pay compared to 12.9% for employees without low pay.

• This indicator adapts measures used by Chandola and Zhang and is based on available data from Understanding Society.
• Aspects of low-quality work are measured as follows:
  • low job satisfaction – employees who report feeling somewhat, mostly or completely dissatisfied with their job
  • low job autonomy – across five dimensions of job autonomy (autonomy over job tasks, work pace, work manner, task order, work hours), an average score indicating a little or no autonomy
  • low job wellbeing – across six measures of emotional perceptions of jobs (whether it inspires feelings of tension, unease, worry, depression, gloom or misery), an average score indicating that someone experiences these feelings some, most or all of the time
  • low job security – perception that job loss is either likely or very likely in the next 12 months
  • low pay – earnings are below two-thirds of median UK hourly pay. 
• Self-rated health is measured on a five-point scale from ‘very good’ to ‘very bad’. Other options include ‘good’, ‘fair’ and ‘bad’.
• The data presented is only for employees aged 18–55 years old (self-employed people are excluded).

Source: Health Foundation analysis of University of Essex – Institute for Social and Economic Research, Understanding Society, UK, 2020–21