Underemployment and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study

Research has established that certain forms of underemployment relate to poorer mental health, but no studies have examined which components of underemployment are uniquely related to mental health over time. To address this gap in the literature, we longitudinally examined how multiple subjective underemployment constructs (i.e., underpayment, status, involuntary temporary work, field, poverty-wage employment, involuntary part-time work, and overqualification) predicted symptoms of distress in a large sample of working adults in four waves over 9 months. We also identified group differences in underemployment. Results revealed that involuntary part-time work, involuntary temporary work, and poverty-wage employment fluctuated with distress over the course of the study, but only involuntary temporary work predicted greater symptoms of distress over time. Group differences also revealed that gender, age, level of education, and subjective social class predicted various forms of subjective underemployment. Findings encourage researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to consider involuntary temporary work as potentially harmful to mental health and inform the future examination of mental health inequities for marginalized groups. Public Significance Statement This study found that workers with certain forms of underemployment are vulnerable to depression, anxiety, and stress over time, particularly workers with temporary contracts. These results can inform how to support people with poor-quality work or how to consider people's work situations when ameliorating mental health concerns.