Globalization Health
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The "gig" economy connects consumers with contractors (or workers) through online platform businesses to perform tasks (or "gigs"). This innovation in technology provides businesses and consumers access to low-cost, on-demand labour, but gig workers' experiences are more complex. They have access to very flexible, potentially autonomous work, but also deal with challenges caused by the nature of the work, its precariousness, and their relationships with the platform businesses. Workers in the Global North and South may also experience these challenges very differently. Based on our report "Towards an Understanding of Canadian Workers in the Global Gig Economy", we present a commentary on the implications of a globalized online platform labour market on the health of gig workers in Canada and globally. ⋯ We propose that the experience of gig workers around the world must be understood in the context of neoliberalism, which has increased both the globalization and precaritization of work. While gig workers share some vulnerabilities, which have important negative consequences on their health, with other workers, the platform-specific vulnerabilities of workers require further inquiry. In particular, the specific health and overall experience of gig workers in different regions of the world - with different labour policies and sociopolitical contexts for work - must be disentangled as workers in the Global North and South experience this work very differently.
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Globalization Health · Dec 2018
Exploring motivations behind pollution-mask use in a sample of young adults in urban China.
Wearing a pollution mask is an effective, practical, and economic way to prevent the inhalation of dangerous particulate matter (PM). However, it is not uncommon to observe negligence in adopting such behaviour, and this especially among young segments of the population. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as conceptual framework, this study explores the role of socio-cognitive factors that affect the decision of wearing a pollution mask in the context of young educated people. This is done by selecting a sample of college students in urban China, a country that has seen air quality as one of the major challenges in the last decades. While young urban college students might be expected to be receptive to standard attempts to be influenced through reason-based cognitive stimuli, it is often found that this is not the case. The empirical analysis was articulated it in two steps. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was first used to examine the relationships among the conceptual constructs derived from the TPB conceptual model, and second Step-Wise Ordinary Least Squares Regressions (SWOLS) were employed to observe the partial effect played by each item on the decision to wear a mask. ⋯ While tackling pollution requires multiple and synergic approaches, encouraging self-prevention using pollution mask is a simple and effective action, implementable at negligible costs. Resistance among younger, well-educated cohorts to wear masks can be overcome by stressing the social desirability of action and the sense of empowerment derived from its usage. This study has the potential to inform policies aimed at changing suboptimal behavioural attitudes by identifying triggers for change, and it could serve in improving the tailoring of health promotion messages aimed at nudging healthy behaviour.