Future of work

Main findings

Canadian researchers examined the relationship between employment quality and mortality and found that workers in more precarious jobs face a higher risk of death. As the labour market continues to evolve, these findings are a reminder that job precarity can have consequences beyond labour market outcomes, including on population health and longevity.  

Key takeaways

• Researchers found that employment quality demonstrated a graded association with mortality. 

• This work demonstrates the value of using LMI in the context of health.  

• The research was conducted using the Canadian Census of Health and Environment Cohort linked to the Canadian Vital Statistics Death Database. 

Plain language summary

Jobs that fall outside standard full-time, permanent work—such as temporary, part-time, contract, or gig roles—have long been linked to poorer health. But not all of these jobs are the same. By grouping workers into distinct types of employment based on shared characteristics, this study shows that some forms of non-standard work carry much higher health risks than others. 

To arrive at these findings, researchers grouped workers into five distinct types of employment based on shared job characteristics. They followed more than 2.8 million Canadian adults (aged 18 to 64 years) over time by linking census and mortality data. To do this, they used a 2006 cohort from the Canadian Census of Health and Environment Cohorts linked to the Canadian Vital Statistics Death Database until December 2019 (with support from Statistics Canada).  

The researchers compared mortality rates across employment types, using standard full-time workers as a baseline.  Their findings validate earlier research showing that non-standard employment is linked to poorer health. However, this research takes the idea further, showing that not all non-standard jobs carry the same risk level. Lower-quality forms of non-standard work are associated with worse outcomes, while higher-quality forms are not. 

One striking example is “portfolio employment”—roles that are demanding, but also well-compensated, such as those held by self-employed professionals, contractors, and senior managers. Workers in this category had mortality rates that were similar to those in standard employment. In earlier studies, this group would typically have been grouped with other non-standard workers, masking these differences.  

From an LMI perspective, these findings also have implications for labour market data and policy. Treating all non-standard work as a single category can obscure important differences and overstate the risks for some workers while understating it for others. This highlights the need for more differentiation, granularity, and nuance in LMI.

Why the results matter

The results of this research add new nuances that further our understanding of the impacts of different work arrangements and how these can affect health and mortality. Population health can influence public spending, productivity, and—eventually—the economy and labour market. As the world of work continues to change rapidly, this study is a reminder that how people work affects more than just labour market outcomes.