Employment conditions and psychosocial risks in salaried work in Chile: social and gender inequalities

Araucaria Survey

Preliminary Results

Centro de Estudios de la Mujer

Proyecto Araucaria

Santiago, enero 2012

“Employment conditions and psychosocial risks in salaried work in Chile: social and gender inequalities”

In Chile, as in many other countries, mental health problems represent one of the principal causes of morbidity in the population (PAHO, 2001). Work is a source of health but can also be a source of illness. Mental health problems in workers are increasing, and this phenomenon can be related to working conditions, employment conditions and the interface between job requirements and workers’ responsibilities to their family and community.

The promotion of greater flexibility in the workforce has led to new forms of excessive wear and tear on workers both because of the intensification of work (Gollac & Volkoff, 1996), the extension and distribution of working time, the erosion of the distinction between work and personal life, (Duxbury & Higgins, 2004; Kristensen, 2006), and the “colonization” of free time with work-related tasks (Yañez, 2004; Díaz, 2004).This creates a work life practically without limits, translating into a deterioration of well-being and quality of life as people are subjected to increasing levels of stress and psychological pressure in the workplace.

Some processes by which work can undermine mental health of workers affect women and men differently (Messing et al, 2003; Messing & Stellman, 2006). In Chile, as in other countries, the incorporation of women into paid labour has not been accompanied by a reduction in their unpaid work as mothers, psychological support providers, and caregivers for the sick and the elderly. This has created particular risks of work overload for women and we hypothesize that this contributes to the deterioration of their mental and physical health

For those reasons this program conducted a survey toidentify occupational factors that affect mental health, particularly in light of new forms of work organization, taking into account the differential and unequal gender division of work, both paid and unpaid

The survey was applied between March and June 2011. It was designed to respond to the following specific objectives:

  • To characterize employment conditions and psychosocial risks of salaried workers in Chile considering social and gender inequalities,
  • To analyze the relationship between the quality of employment and psychosocial risk factors according to gender
  • To analyze unpaid domestic and care-giver work as a psychosocial risk factor
  • To discover the associations between psychosocial risks and some indicators of mental health according to gender
  1. METHODOLOGY APPLIED
  1. The sample

a. Sample size

The sample was composed of 3010 cases, 1,486 female and 1,524 male salaried workers, 20 to 65 years of age, from all socioeconomic levels. The participants were from urban zones in the fifteen regions of the country. Members of the armed forces and law enforcement officers were excluded, as were domestic servants, unpaid family employees, and the self-employed (available upon request).

Women, who represent 34.6% of the labour market, were over-represented in the sample (50.6% men and 49.4% women) owing to interest in obtaining a gender analysis and equivalent samples of the two sexes.

The analysis was weighted by sex according to the respective participation of women and men in the labour market.

b. Sample design

The study was based on a probabilistic sample of homes that was defined in four levels for each region: municipalities, blocks, homes and surveyed persons. The sampling errors were estimated for a confidence level of 95%, with maximum variance, under the assumption of a simple random sample with dichotomous questions.

  1. The information collection instrument was a survey with 77 closed-ended questions.
  1. The issues addressed by the survey were:
  • Sociodemographic data – sex and age of the respondents, number and age of children, marital status, education level, monthly family income, perception of economic hardship and socioeconomic level.
  • Participation in the labour market: area of economic activity, occupation, size of the enterprise or institution (employer).
  • Conditions of employment: existence of a contract, type of contract, duration of contract; subcontracting, employment stability; monthly personal income level; working week, social security and health and employment insurance, union affiliation.
  • Psychosocial dimensions of work: Karasek and Theorell’s demand/control/social support model (1990); Siegrist’s efforts/reward imbalance model ERI test (1996, 2009); dimensions to inquire about physical and verbal violence, psychological and sexual harassment, domestic and care-giving workload and work-family interference.
  • Indicators of mental health: self-perception of general health, depression, anxiety and stress; consumption of psychotropic drugs, alcohol consumption.
  1. Problem encountered:

In applying the survey we encountered a problem that the Centro de Estudios de la Mujer has not had in previous surveys about employment and that we found no record of in other similar studies in Chile. The problem was a rate of refusal to participate that reached 43% among the possible participants. This was a surprisingly high rate of refusal given that the rate in Chile for similar studies has been around 10%, as in the case of the health surveys conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2003 and 2009-2010.

The individuals who refused to participate were replaced by a random process that did not alter the pre-established sampling criteria.

According to the report by the consultant contracted for the fieldwork, the high refusal rate was the result of asking respondents to give their names and to sign letters of informed consent. This provoked a loss of confidence since signing automatically annulled the anonymity that was guaranteed in the very same letter. This problem leads to two reflections, the first being that the persons who refused to participate are the most fearful of being identified, which raises the question of why. It also leads us to reflect on the requirements imposed by research ethics committees from countries with political, economic and employment conditions unlike those of the countries where the survey is to be applied. It is probable that the fear that a significant percentage of Chileans feel about reprisal for their statements about employment conditions and their employers would not be shared by counterparts in Canada or other developed countries.

In hindsight we would do the ethics application differently and not require written consent from participants, as we feel this did not provide any greater protection to the participants but rather made some of them decline to participate because of a perceived increased vulnerability attributable to the written consent requirement.

II. SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC AND EMPLOYMENT CHARACTERIZATION OF THE SAMPLE

1. Age: The sample was 49% women and 51% men between 20 and 65 years of age (23% between 20 and 29; 29% between 30 and 39; 27% between 40 and 49 and 21% 50 years of age and over).

2. Socioeconomic status:

  1. Thirty-seven per cent of the samples live without a life partner (49% women, 30% men).
  2. Twenty eight % of the men and 22% of the women belong to the poorest socioeconomic group; 49% of the men and 51% of the women belong to the middle socioeconomic group; and 16.6% of the men and 19 % of the women belong to the upper-middle socioeconomic group. Some 7% of the sample is part of the high economic group with the highest income level (7% of the men and 7.9% of the women).
  3. Thirty-one percent estimates that family income is insufficient to cover needs and perceives some or major difficulties (35% of the women, 29% of the men)

3. Monthly personal income: The information about monthly personal income reveals that women receive lower income than men, which is consistent with government sources. Forty-four percent of women respondents have the lowest monthly personal income: $ 250,000 pesos or less; 20% earns between 250,001 and 350,000 pesos. That means that 60% of women have very low income. 25 % of male respondents earn 250,000 pesos or less; 22% earn between 250,001 and 350,000 pesos.

4. Level of education: The figures indicate that women in the labour market have higher levels of education than men, which has also been documented by numerous other studies and by statistics provided by government sources. Some 14% of men and 9% of women have basic level education (8 years of schooling); 37% of men and 32% of women completed high school (12 years of schooling); 30% of women and 25% of men have vocational education (14 or 15 years of education) and only 22% of respondents has university level education, which broke down as 24% of women and 21% of men.

5. Distribution of men and women by economic area of their work

Most of the women respondents work in the professional – health and education - and financial services and trade sectors (33%, 26%, and 26% respectively). Men work in the construction and transportation sectors (17%, 8%); 11% work in manufacturing (8% of the women)

6. Distribution of men and women by occupation

There are important differences in the occupations of women and men. Women are concentrated in non-production occupations, such as “office workers” and “service workers”. Men are concentrated in trades related to production such as “operators and machine operators” and there is a lower percentage of men than women in occupations such as “office workers” and “service workers”. There were twice as many men as women in management positions, while there were more women than men among professionals. The occupational distribution of the sample coincides with the distribution of the labour force at the national level according to the National Institute of Statistics of Chile (INE).

  1. PRELIMINARY RESULTS
  1. Part one: Employment conditions

a)General tendencies: social and gender inequalities

A general examination of the employment conditions of men and women employees in Chile suggests a high level of compliance with labour standards. There is a high proportion of workers with a signed contract (90%); with indefinite contract (80%); with social security (92%); directly hired by his/her company (88%); 87% has permanent work.

Nevertheless employment conditions differ according to monthly personal income, occupation and gender.

i. Salaried men and women workers belonging to the poorest economic strata have the poorest quality work.

As monthly personal incomes decrease, there is a decrease in the number of workers that:

- have written contracts, with little difference between men and women

- have indefinite contracts, while the proportion of men with fixed term contracts and women with task-based contracts increases.

- are affiliated to the pension and health insurance systems

As monthly personal incomes decrease, the percentage of men and women that have been unemployed in the last 12 months increases. The period of unemployment is longer for women.

ii. There are inequalities according to occupation and sex, too

The highest percentages of unprotected workers are “unskilled agricultural and manufacturing workers” with fewer written contracts, more temporary contracts, higher unemployment, lower incomes and fewer social security benefits.

The women in this group have fewer indefinite contracts and more than half of them were unemployed in the last 12 months.

A higher percentage of sub-contracted or supplied workers are in the service group, with a higher proportion of women in this group.

There is a high percentage of professionals and service workers with temporary jobs, especially women.

iii. In all the occupational groups women have lower incomes

Part 2. Correspondence Analysis

Up until now, we have analysed independently the relationship between the different variables related to the quality of work (type of contract, social security, unemployment, employment stability and others) with the different dimensions related to social and gender inequality, which allowed us to identify that underlying the global figures on employment are major inequalities according to sex, occupation and income levels. In the second stage of the analysis, we propose to define the position of workers in a virtual line in which one represents the best employment and the other the worst, considering all the dimensions at the same time. For this purpose we will use an analytical resource called “correspondence analysis”.

Correspondence analysis considers all the variables related to the quality of employment of every worker simultaneously and then groups him or her into a cluster according to the proximity to the dimensions used. Supplementary variables were introduced into the groupings to deepen the analysis.

The variables used in the construction of groupings (clusters) were

  • Existence of a contract
  • Type of contract
  • Duration of contract
  • Who does the hiring
  • Permanent or temporary work
  • Length of the working week
  • Unemployment
  • Average personal monthly income
  • Affiliation to the pension system
  • Affiliation to the healthcare system
  • Insurance for work-related illnesses and accidents

The supplementary variables were sex, socioeconomic group, occupation, and age.

Six clusters were identified, each of which grouped individuals with similar employment conditions.

The name of each cluster refers to the most predominant employment feature of that cluster. From the best quality to the most precarious, the following clusters were identified: the “best employment”; the “medium income formal employment”, the “outsourced poorest formal employment”; the “temporary protected workers”; “unprotected verbally contracted employment”, and the “unprotected casual employment”.

The “best employment” represents the best quality employment, characterized by high personal income, stable employment, with indefinite contracts and social security, and without unemployment in the previous year. The succeeding clusters express degrees of deterioration in the quality of employment until reaching the last, characterized by low quality employment, low income, unstable, with temporary contracts, some with verbal contracts, outsourced, less coverage of social security, and with episodes of unemployment in the previous year.

In terms of occupations, the only clear tendencies are: a) persons who occupy management positions and some professionals and technicians are located in the cluster with the best employment and are also in the highest socioeconomic level of the sample. The majority of persons in the best employment cluster are men, and b) the cluster that represents the worst jobs are mostly temporary agricultural and industrial work, service and office workers and machine operators. More women and youth are grouped in this cluster than in any other. Nevertheless, what is noteworthy is that with the exception of management positions, most of the occupations are distributed in most of the clusters; of which 3 represent poor quality employment. This demonstrates the poor quality of employment in the country, and at the same time, the diversity of employment conditions, including qualified jobs that require a relatively high level of education. The lower participation of women in the cluster that represents good quality employment was notable, as was their greater participation in precarious employment.

2. Part Two: Psychological risks in the workplace: social and gender inequalities

For the analysis of the psychological risks in the workplace we use Karasekand Theorell’s model: demand/control/social support (1990); Siegrist’s Model effort/reward imbalance (1996, 2009); and work-family and family-work interference dimensions.

Although there is no agreement among social scientists in this field about the way to define and measure the psychosocial work environment, the demand-control model of Karasek and Theorell (1990) and Siegrist’s effort-reward imbalance model have been used internationally and have provided solid evidence about the associations between the psychosocial dimensions of work and the development of illnesses. Karasek and Theorell’s (1990) model posits that to the degree that individuals perceive high psychological demands accompanied by low control over their work they will experience work-related distress. Social support acts as a moderating factor of this tension and when social support is perceived negatively, the health risks increase. The domestic workload and work-family and family-work interference as psychosocial risk factors for women workers have not been well studied in Chile. We hope that the results of this survey will contribute to understanding and explaining in part the increase of mental health problems among women in Chile, who have the main responsibility for domestic and care-giving work, even when they participate in the labour market. Questions on work-family balance included in the survey were developed from the revision of scales and international studies by, among others, Kristensen, K. 2006; Gutek, B. 2001; Duxbury, L. & C. Higgins. 2005; Blanco, G. & L. Feldman. 2000; Netemeyer, Boles & McMurrian (1996); and ISTAS 21 (2008).

  1. Karasek and Theorell’s model of demand/control/social support

The results of the survey show that most of the women and men workers perceive:

i.High psychological demands

ii.Little control and opportunity to exercise abilities

iii.Low social support from their peers and superiors

iv.High imbalance between efforts and rewards

v.High levels of work-family interference among women

However, we found differences in psychosocial demands/ control/ social support by occupation and sex.

By occupation

  1. Managers and professionals show high psychological demand – high control - high social support. When the control over the work is high and the psychological demands are also high, but not excessive, the predicted effects are learning and growth. This type of work is defined as active and associated with medium psychosocial tension.
  2. Technicians show high psychological demand – high control – high social support like the first group, but in a lesser proportion, which indicates that there is a percentage of technicians in situations of psychosocial risk.
  3. Office, sales, and service workers show less demand, less control and low social support. Work with low demands and low control produce an environment that is not motivating and leads to negative learning.
  4. Unskilled agricultural, manufacturing and transport workers show high demands, low control, low social support; a situation that leads to job strain and can be the precursor of mental health problems.
  5. Unskilled service workers show the lowest demand, low control, and low social support, which represent a situation of negative learning and high psychosocial risk.

By sex: