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KMID : 0904520070220010205
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Health and Medical Sociology
2007 Volume.22 No. 1 p.205 ~ p.224
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The Effect of Occupation and Employment Status upon Perceived Health in South Korea
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Shin Soon-Cheuol
Kim Mun-Cho
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Abstract
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This study attempts to examine the effect of socioeconomic status upon health, with reference to the effect of employment status. According to the analysis of the pooled time series regression of Korean Labor Panel Data, conventional socia-demographic factors including sex, age, residence and marital status show a high predictive power on subjective health condition. The effect of socio-economic factors such as number of schooling, income and employment status upon the subjective health tum out to be significant as well.
In addition, controlling for the effects of the other socio-demographic and socio-economic variables, employment status maintains a significant influence upon the individual subjective health condition. This indicates that job stability in the labor market is taken to be a crucial factor for healthy life. Particularly, due to the long-term economic stagnation characterized by high unemployment rate and economic stagnation since "IMF Foreign Exchange Crisis" of late 1997, the stable employment status, i.e., holding a regular full-time job enabling to pursue one’s career or not, is the utmost element that guarantees healthy life. Thus, the expansion of job opportunities becomes one of the most emergent policy agenda not just for better life, but for personal survival.
In case of female employees, part-time contract workers appear to be in a higher health condition than regular full-time workers. Thesis of ’obscured patriarchy’ taking account of the enduring pressure of career duality for married female workers and remaining sexual concentration in terms of sectors or occupational hierarchy can be proposed as a plausible answer to the unexpected result of the female sample.
In conclusion, the findings that subjective health condition tends to differentiate both in terms of one’s employment status and sex suggest that health is no more a personal characteristic of an individual but becomes a part of the "social fact’ closely associated with the stratums of a society.
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KEYWORD
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Employment Status, Health, Patriarchy, Polarization
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