by I Ahlinder, BA candidate, Sociology Department at Umeå University
The impact of labour market insecurity on immigrants’ mental health is understudied. This current study investigated whether labour market insecurity, as measured by different employment arrangements, has detrimental impact on immigrants’ depression, and if so, how it compares to the role of unemployment. Furthermore, this study investigated whether labour market insecurity had more detrimental impact on immigrants than non-immigrants. Data from the seventh wave of the European Social Survey (2014/2015) was divided into three separate immigrant groups; first-generation immigrants, second-generation immigrants and non-immigrants. The results shows that labour market insecurity among immigrants had detrimental impact on mental health. The effects were not restricted to the first-generation immigrants’ mental health, but they were also observed in the second-generation immigrants and among non-immigrants. The results presented in this thesis show that not only unemployment, but also insecure employment arrangement have negative impact on mental health, both among immigrants and non-immigrants population groups.
