Health Status, Type of Contract and Labour Force Participation.

Abstract

Background: Health status, type of contract, education and age might affect labour force participation (LFP). We investigated possible factors associated with LFP among European countries.

Methods: European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data of 149,798 individuals were used and the odds ratios were calculated in logistic regression analyses.

Results: LFP rates were higher among those in good health. Self-perceived poor health frequencies were higher in people with temporary contracts than in those with permanent contracts in Bulgaria, Finland, and Hungary, while they were lower in Republic of Serbia. Multivariate analyses revealed that having temporary contract, poor health, oldest age group, and lower educational level were associated with lower probability of being in paid employment in the total study population. Poor health was stronger driver of lower LFP than temporary contracts in Austria, Hungary, Iceland, Netherlands. Temporary contracts were stronger driver of lower LFP than poor health in Greece, Spain, Finland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia and total study population.

Conclusion: Both poor health and temporary contracts were associated with lower LFP. The magnitude of these associations varied among countries. Worker's health status differed by type of contract in Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland and Serbia.