Canadian study links job quality to 'deaths of despair’

Compared to those in standard employment, workers in precarious jobs are more than three times as likely to die from drug poisoning and nearly twice as likely to die from alcohol-related causes. The risk of suicide is also markedly higher—2.4 times greater for women and 1.7 times greater for men in precarious work, reports Shane Mercer, based on a webinar presentation by IWH associate scientist Dr. Faraz Vahid Shahidi. The findings challenge the notion that having any job is enough to safeguard health, instead pointing to job quality as a critical, and often overlooked, determinant of life expectancy.