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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Economic Crisis, worker’s health and social protection

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Objective The aim of this paper is to analyse the individual and contextual factorsthat could affect worker’s mental and physical health during economic downturn.This paper fills the gap in the literature that addresses the link between crisis,physical and mental health.Methods Bivariate, machine learning method and multi-level regression analysiswere performed to explore the determinants of European Worker’s mental andphysical health. Machine learning method is dedicated to the predictors ofmental and physical health problems based on a classification algorithm,random forest model. Since the respondents of our data come from differentEuropean countries, the database has a hierarchical form with at least two levelsidentified here. Thus, multilevel modelling is used for perfectly take accountsuch data structures where the level 2 effect (country) and level 1 (individuals)are correlated.Findings The 2008 economic crisis has had a significant impact on Europe.Ourstudy, based on three periods (2005,2010 and 2015), examined the relationshipbetween economic crisis, worker’s health and social protection. Our empiricalanalysis reveals that, the mechanisms that could explain the effect of crisis onworker’s health are: (i) the work environment, in this case, working andemployment conditions; (ii) the characteristics of individual workers, notablygender, age, occupation, etc.; (iii) public policies such as the generosity of thesocial protection system.Conclusion The relationship between economic crisis, workers’ health and socialprotection is complex and related to various factors. However, the effect of 2008economic crisis on european workers mental health can be mitigated orintensified by public policies. In addition, increased social spending on activelabour market programs (ALMPs) could help retain and reintegrate workersinto their jobs, thereby mitigating some adverse health effects of the economicrecession.