Hierarchical cluster analysis of labour market regulations and population health: a taxonomy of low- and middle-income countries

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Edwin Ng¹  Carles Muntaner²  Haejoo Chung³  Joan Benach⁴ 

[1] Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada;Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada;Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada;Department of Healthcare Management, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea;Health Inequalities Research Group (GREDS), Employment Conditions Network (EMCONET), CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Department of Experimental Sciences and Health, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain;

关键词: Labour Market;    Factor Score;    Population Health;    Collective Bargaining;    Informal Sector;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-12-286

 received in 2011-05-11, accepted in 2012-04-18,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAn important contribution of the social determinants of health perspective has been to inquire about non-medical determinants of population health. Among these, labour market regulations are of vital significance. In this study, we investigate the labour market regulations among low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and propose a labour market taxonomy to further understand population health in a global context.MethodsUsing Gross National Product per capita, we classify 113 countries into either low-income (n = 71) or middle-income (n = 42) strata. Principal component analysis of three standardized indicators of labour market inequality and poverty is used to construct 2 factor scores. Factor score reliability is evaluated with Cronbach's alpha. Using these scores, we conduct a hierarchical cluster analysis to produce a labour market taxonomy, conduct zero-order correlations, and create box plots to test their associations with adult mortality, healthy life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, neonatal mortality, under-5 mortality, and years of life lost to communicable and non-communicable diseases. Labour market and health data are retrieved from the International Labour Organization's Key Indicators of Labour Markets and World Health Organization's Statistical Information System.ResultsSix labour market clusters emerged: Residual (n = 16), Emerging (n = 16), Informal (n = 10), Post-Communist (n = 18), Less Successful Informal (n = 22), and Insecure (n = 31). Primary findings indicate: (i) labour market poverty and population health is correlated in both LMICs; (ii) association between labour market inequality and health indicators is significant only in low-income countries; (iii) Emerging (e.g., East Asian and Eastern European countries) and Insecure (e.g., sub-Saharan African nations) clusters are the most advantaged and disadvantaged, respectively, with the remaining clusters experiencing levels of population health consistent with their labour market characteristics.ConclusionsThe labour market regulations of LMICs appear to be important social determinant of population health. This study demonstrates the heuristic value of understanding the labour markets of LMICs and their health effects using exploratory taxonomy approaches.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Muntaner et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.