TY - JOUR
T1 - Psychosocial job characteristics and mental health
T2 - Do associations differ by migrant status in an Australian working population sample?
AU - Liu, Xiaomin
AU - Bowe, Steven J.
AU - Li, Lin
AU - Too, Lay San
AU - LaMontagne, Anthony D.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study is funded by Deakin University Postgraduate Research Scholarship. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This paper uses data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to either DSS or the Melbourne Institute. Its contents, including any opinions, and/or conclusions expressed, are solely those of the authors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - Migrant workers may experience higher burdens of occupational injury and illness compared to native-born workers, which may be due to the differential exposure to occupational hazards, differential vulnerability to exposure-associated health impacts, or both. This study aims to assess if the relationships between psychosocial job characteristics and mental health vary by migrant status in Australia (differential vulnerability). A total of 8969 persons from wave 14 (2014–2015) of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey were included in the analysis. Psychosocial job characteristics included skill discretion, decision authority and job insecurity. Mental health was assessed via a Mental Health Inventory-5 score (MHI-5), with a higher score indicating better mental health. Migrant status was defined by (i) country of birth (COB), (ii) the combination of COB and English/Non-English dominant language of COB and (iii) the combination of COB and years since arrival in Australia. Data were analysed using linear regression, adjusting for gender, age and educational attainment. Migrant status was analysed as an effect modifier of the relationships between psychosocial job characteristics and mental health. Skill discretion and decision authority were positively associated with the MHI-5 score while job insecurity was negatively associated with the MHI-5 score. We found no statistical evidence of migrant status acting as an effect modifier of the psychosocial job characteristic―MHI-5 relationships. With respect to psychosocial job characteristic―mental health relationships, these results suggest that differential exposure to job stressors is a more important mechanism than differential vulnerability for generating occupational health inequities between migrants and native-born workers in Australia.
AB - Migrant workers may experience higher burdens of occupational injury and illness compared to native-born workers, which may be due to the differential exposure to occupational hazards, differential vulnerability to exposure-associated health impacts, or both. This study aims to assess if the relationships between psychosocial job characteristics and mental health vary by migrant status in Australia (differential vulnerability). A total of 8969 persons from wave 14 (2014–2015) of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey were included in the analysis. Psychosocial job characteristics included skill discretion, decision authority and job insecurity. Mental health was assessed via a Mental Health Inventory-5 score (MHI-5), with a higher score indicating better mental health. Migrant status was defined by (i) country of birth (COB), (ii) the combination of COB and English/Non-English dominant language of COB and (iii) the combination of COB and years since arrival in Australia. Data were analysed using linear regression, adjusting for gender, age and educational attainment. Migrant status was analysed as an effect modifier of the relationships between psychosocial job characteristics and mental health. Skill discretion and decision authority were positively associated with the MHI-5 score while job insecurity was negatively associated with the MHI-5 score. We found no statistical evidence of migrant status acting as an effect modifier of the psychosocial job characteristic―MHI-5 relationships. With respect to psychosocial job characteristic―mental health relationships, these results suggest that differential exposure to job stressors is a more important mechanism than differential vulnerability for generating occupational health inequities between migrants and native-born workers in Australia.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097038611&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0242906
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0242906
M3 - Article
C2 - 33253270
AN - SCOPUS:85097038611
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 15
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 11 November
M1 - e0242906
ER -
