More than mirror images: Health associations of transitions between formal and informal employment
Liwen Chen, Kun Liu · 2026
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Description
Chen and Liu studied in 2026 how moves between formal and informal jobs relate to health among non-farm workers in China. Informal work lacks the protections of formal contracts, and most past work treated entry and exit as mirror images. Using national panel data from 2014 to 2020, the team tracked workers who crossed in each direction and compared their self-rated health before and after.
Chen found moving from formal to informal work came with a clear drop in self-rated health, while leaving informal work showed a smaller gain that was not statistically firm. Extra checks showed the health drop began around the move itself, not before it. The harm was about twice as strong in workers over 45 and in those with less schooling, and it was not significant in younger or better-educated workers. The authors urge cutting forced moves into informal work and widening protection.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Liwen Chen, Kun Liu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 82 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |