One of the great things about working at the ANU is that I get access to a whole range of research that I probably wouldn’t see otherwise. Today, this really interesting piece appeared in my inbox. It’s closely related to something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while and also gives me an opportunity to link to my work’s website, which I’m sure must mean I’m doing my job well.
Poor job as bad for mental health as no job.
For those of you who don’t want to read the actual story, the summary is quite simple. Researchers have found that people who have ‘bad working conditions’ have just as bad mental health issues as those people who have no job at all. This research, which was conducted in England, backs up previous research done in Australia earlier this year that said pretty much the same thing.
This is an issue I want to write a longer post on in the future, so I will keep it short for the moment.
For me this reflects really interestingly on the ‘jobs debate’ we’ve seen over the past few years. I have noticed that, probably since the GFC, much of our debate about the economy and workplace relations, has been focused solely on ‘jobs’ (of course this has always been a dominant issue, but it seems to have really crowded out everything else recently). It’s about the Government fostering an economy that adds jobs, and people having access to these jobs, at the cost of all else (the environment, workplace rights etc.).
Interestingly, we’ve seen that many on the left have played a major role in this process. We can see unions in Australia for example, who are now focusing much of their work on ‘jobs for their members’ above all else. In the United States, Democrats having been running for years on ‘jobs’, and it played a large part in the 2012 campaign (remember Barack Obama’s ‘jobs bill’). If you go back through much of the commentary for the past two years, you will see lots of Democratic criticism of the GOP having not introduced one ‘jobs bill’.
Now, I’m not saying that meaningful employment is not important for people’s well-being. But within all of this debate, we seem have lost that key word, ‘meaningful’. The jobs debate seems to have pushed aside the quality of life part of the debate. As this research shows, at least in the mental health arena, such a ‘jobs push’ may not actually have a real positive impact. People may have jobs, but that doesn’t mean a positive impact on their well-being.
Anyway, food for thought. Am going to do some more research on this one and try and write something up that is a bit more comprehensive, particularly looking at what the left’s engagement in this area means. Watch this space.