School of Public Finance and Administration, Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin 150001, China.
School of Accounting, Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin 150001, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 May 14;18(10):5211. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18105211.
The mental health status of informal employees is rarely studied in China. Nowadays, new economic forms such as gig economy and platform economy are emerging with the rapid development of information and communication technology, which has brought great changes to the labor market, especially to the informal employment field. Thus, it is of great significance to investigate the depressive symptoms among informal employees in the digital era. Based on the cross-sectional data of CFPS (China Family Panel Studies, 2018), this study takes a quantitative analysis framework to explore and analyze the association between informal employment and depressive symptoms in the Chinese labor market. After screening, a data set of 8893 employees (60.5% male and 39.5% female) was established. Several statistical methods, including the Mann-Whitney test and probit regression model, were used in the sample data analysis. The results show that the prevalence of depressive symptoms among informal employees is significantly higher than that among formal employees. Depressive symptoms are highly related to informal work and other factors, such as education, physical health, household income, etc. The impact of Internet use on informal employees' depressive symptoms is not significant. The mental health inequality between formal and informal employees still exists in the digital era, and corresponding labor market regulations and social policies should be perfected to address this issue.
在中国，非正式员工的心理健康状况很少得到研究。如今，随着信息和通信技术的飞速发展，新的经济形式如零工经济和平台经济正在涌现，这给劳动力市场带来了巨大的变化，尤其是对非正式就业领域。因此，调查数字时代非正式员工的抑郁症状具有重要意义。本研究基于 CFPS（中国家庭追踪调查，2018 年）的横断面数据，采用定量分析框架，探讨和分析了中国劳动力市场中非正式就业与抑郁症状之间的关系。经过筛选，建立了一个包含 8893 名员工（60.5%为男性，39.5%为女性）的数据集。在样本数据分析中使用了几种统计方法，包括曼-惠特尼检验和概率回归模型。结果表明，非正式员工的抑郁症状发生率明显高于正式员工。抑郁症状与非正式工作以及教育、身体健康、家庭收入等其他因素高度相关。互联网使用对非正式员工抑郁症状的影响并不显著。在数字时代，正式员工和非正式员工之间的心理健康不平等仍然存在，应完善相应的劳动力市场法规和社会政策来解决这一问题。
