Various forms of temporary employment has been on the rise in OECD countries since the late 1980’s. It’s been argued that temporary work set individuals in economic insecurity and poor working conditions. Therefore, temporary work is thought to be negative for health. However, findings are inconclusive. Whereas some studies do report worse health among temporary than non-temporary workers others report the opposite. Differences in findings might be explained by the fact that some studies considers socioeconomic position and job characteristics whereas others don’t. It’s also been argued that a key explanation for inconsistent findings might be differences in welfare policy across countries. The aim of this study is to investigate the association between temporary work, working conditions, welfare policy and self-rated health and well-being. This is done in a cross-sectional multi-level analysis of the 5th wave of European Working Conditions Survey including 22 European countries with control for proportion of GDP spent on active (ALMP) and passive (PLMP) labour market policy respectively.

The results show no significant association between type of employment, ALMP, PLMP and self-rated health. Working conditions and socioeconomic position are significantly associated with self-rated health. There is a significant negative association between type of employment and well-being such that those in temporary employment report lower well-being than non-temporary employees. A positive interaction between PLMP and temporary employment means that PLMP is positively associated with well-being for those who have a temporary contract. The strength of the association between temporary work and well-being decreases after adjustment for working conditions and socioeconomic position. ALMP is not significantly associated with well-being.

Conclusion: Temporary work is negatively associated with well-being, but not with health. PLMP buffer the possible negative impact from temporary employment whereas ALMP do not seem to have the same importance. However, the cross-sectional design calls for further studies