10 results on '"MacEachen, Ellen"'
Search Results
2. Self-employment, illness, and the social security system: a qualitative study of the experiences of solo self-employed workers in Ontario, Canada
- Author
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Khan, Tauhid Hossain, MacEachen, Ellen, Premji, Stephanie, and Neiterman, Elena
- Published
- 2023
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3. New and small firms in a modern working life: how do we make entrepreneurship healthy?
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Klofsten, Magnus, MacEachen, Ellen, and Ståhl, Christian
- Published
- 2021
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4. Laws, Policies, and Collective Agreements Protecting Low-wage and Digital Platform Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Author
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MacEachen, Ellen, de Rijk, Angelique, Dyreborg, Johnny, Fassier, Jean-Baptiste, Fletcher, Michael, Hopwood, Pamela, Koivusalo, Meri, Majowicz, Shannon, Meyer, Samantha, Ståhl, Christian, Welti, Felix, RS: CAPHRI - R4 - Health Inequities and Societal Participation, Sociale Geneeskunde, Tampere University, and Health Sciences
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Employment ,social security policy ,Salaries and Fringe Benefits ,COVID-19 ,Public Policy ,General Medicine ,OCCUPATIONAL-SAFETY ,digital platform gig work ,self-employment ,low wage ,occupational health ,Juridik och samhälle ,3142 Public health care science, environmental and occupational health ,Humans ,HEALTH ,Law and Society ,Pandemics ,Uncategorized - Abstract
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this commentary describes and compares shifting employment and occupational health social protections of low-wage workers, including self-employed digital platform workers. Through a focus on eight advanced economy countries, this paper identifies how employment misclassification and definitions of employees were handled in law and policy. Debates about minimum wage and occupational health and safety standards as they relate to worker well-being are considered. Finally, we discuss promising changes introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic that protect the health of low-wage and self-employed workers. Overall, we describe an ongoing "haves" and a "have not" divide, with on the one extreme, traditional job arrangements with good work-and-health social protections and, on the other extreme, low-wage and self-employed digital platform workers who are mostly left out of schemes. However, during the pandemic small and often temporary gains occurred and are discussed. Funding Agencies|Canadian Institutes of Health Research [VR5-172687]
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- 2022
5. 'You are free to set your own hours': governing worker productivity and health through flexibility and resilience
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MacEachen, Ellen, Polzer, Jessica, and Clarke, Judy
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Labor productivity -- Research ,Occupational health and safety -- Research ,Work -- Influence ,Work environment -- Health aspects ,Health ,Social sciences - Abstract
Flexible work is now endemic in modern economies. A growing literature both praises work flexibility for accommodating employees' needs and criticizes it for fueling contingency and job insecurity. Although studies have identified varied effects of flexible work, questions remain about the workplace dimensions of flexibility and how occupational workplace health is managed in these workplaces. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of how managers in the computer software industry situate workplace flexibility and approach worker health. In-depth interviews were conducted with managers (and some workers) at 30 firms in Ontario, Canada. Using a critical discourse analysis approach, we examine managers' optimistic descriptions of flexibility which emphasize how flexible work contributes to workers' life balance. We then contrast this with managers' depictions of flexibility work practices as intense and inescapable. We suggest that the discourse of flexibility, and the work practices they foster, make possible and reinforce an increased intensity of work that is driven by the demands of technological pace and change that characterize the global information technology and computer software industries. Finally, we propose that flexible knowledge work has led to a re-framing of occupational health management involving a focus on what we call 'strategies of resilience' that aim to buttress workers' capacities to withstand intensive and uncertain working conditions. Keywords: Workplace health; Flexible work; Managers; Discourse analysis; Canada
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- 2008
6. Workplace injury or 'part of the job'?: towards a gendered understanding of injuries and complaints among young workers
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Breslin, F. Curtis, Polzer, Jessica, MacEachen, Ellen, Morrongiello, Barbara, and Shannon, Harry
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Work-related injuries -- Demographic aspects ,Work-related injuries -- Research ,Work-related injuries -- Risk factors ,Occupational health and safety -- Demographic aspects ,Occupational health and safety -- Research ,Discourse analysis -- Usage ,Focus groups -- Usage ,Youth -- Employment ,Youth -- Health aspects ,Youth -- Research ,Health ,Social sciences - Abstract
Epidemiological studies have found that teenage workers have higher occupational injury rates than adult workers, and that young males are a particularly high-risk subgroup. However, there have been few studies to date that have explored qualitatively young workers' everyday understandings and experiences of occupational health risks. Based on focus groups conducted with Canadian urban and suburban teenagers aged 16-18 years, this paper explores young workers' understandings and experiences of occupational health risks, and their gendered nature. The respondents were employed in a diverse range of jobs. The findings suggest that young workers experience a number of minor injuries and physical complaints related to their work. These injuries were typically seen as 'part of the job' because they happened frequently and were of low severity. Also, the experience of these injuries as 'part of the job' was informed by the young workers' perceived lack of control to improve or alter the conditions of their work. Furthermore, young workers' complaints and concerns were systematically discounted and this happened in a gendered fashion. Whereas the females emphasized how their complaints were actively disregarded by their superiors, males (and some females in male-dominated work settings) described how they stifled their complaints in order to appear mature among their (older) co-workers. Comparisons with qualitative studies of adult workers suggest that accepting some risks and injuries as ''part of the job' is not peculiar to young workers. The implications of these findings for improving workplace safety for young workers are discussed. Keywords.' Canada; Occupational health; Risk; Gender; Young workers; Focus groups; Discourse analysis
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- 2007
7. Self-employment, work and health: A critical narrative review.
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Khan, Tauhid Hossain, MacEachen, Ellen, Hopwood, Pamela, and Goyal, Julia
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PSYCHOLOGY information storage & retrieval systems ,CINAHL database ,ONLINE information services ,SELF-employment ,EMPLOYEE attitudes ,SOCIAL support ,WORK ,SYSTEMATIC reviews ,SELF-perception ,SOCIOECONOMIC factors ,HEALTH ,EMPLOYEES' workload ,RESEARCH funding ,WOUNDS & injuries ,OCCUPATIONAL health services ,REHABILITATION ,MEDLINE ,ACUTE diseases ,PSYCHOLOGICAL stress - Abstract
BACKGROUND: Self-employment (SE) is a growing precarious and non-standard work arrangement internationally. Economically advanced countries that favor digital labor markets may be promoting the growth of a demographic of self-employed (SE'd) workers who are exposed to particular occupational diseases, sickness, and injury. However, little is known about how SE'd workers are supported when they are unable to work due to illness, injury, and disability. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to critically review peer-reviewed literature focusing on advanced economies to understand how SE'd workers navigate, experience, or manage their injuries and illness when unable to work. METHODS: Using a critical interpretive lens, a systematic search was conducted of five databases. The search yielded 18 relevant articles, which were critically examined and synthesized. RESULTS: Five major themes emerged from the review: (i) conceptualizing SE; (ii) double-edged sword; (iii) dynamics of illness, injury, and disability; (iv) formal and informal health management support systems; and (v) occupational health services and rehabilitation. CONCLUSION: We find a lack of research distinguishing the work and health needs of different kinds of SE'd workers, taking into consideration class, gender, sector, and gig workers. Many articles noted poor social security system supports. Drawing on a social justice lens, we argue that SE'd workers make significant contributions to economies and are deserving of support from social security systems when ill or injured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2021
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8. Social insurance literacy: a scoping review on how to define and measure it.
- Author
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Ståhl, Christian, Karlsson, Elin A., Sandqvist, Jan, Hensing, Gunnel, Brouwer, Sandra, Friberg, Emilie, and MacEachen, Ellen
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DATABASES ,SYSTEMATIC reviews ,SOCIAL security ,HEALTH literacy ,LITERATURE reviews - Abstract
Sickness insurance and workers' compensation systems decide on peoples' eligibility for benefits, and are commonly based on medical certificates and assessments of work ability. Systems differ in the extent to which they preserve clients' dignity and right to fair assessments. In this article, we define a new concept for studying interactions between individuals and systems: social insurance literacy, which concerns how well people understand the different procedures and regulations in social insurance systems, and how well systems communicate with clients in order to help them understand the system. The concept was defined through a scoping literature review of related concepts, a conceptual re-analysis in relation to the social insurance field, and a following workshop. Five related concepts were reviewed for definitions and operationalizations: health literacy, financial/economic literacy, legal capability/ability, social security literacy, and insurance literacy. Social insurance literacy is defined as the extent to which individuals can obtain, understand and act on information in a social insurance system, related to the comprehensibility of the information provided by the system. This definition is rooted in theories from sociology, social medicine and public health. In the next step, a measure for the concept will be developed based on this review. Social insurance literacy is a new concept that is based on theories in sociology, social medicine and public health. It provides conceptual orientation for analyzing factors that may influence different outcomes of peoples' contacts with social insurance systems. The concept is of relevance for rehabilitation professionals since it focuses on how interactions between individuals and systems can influence the rehabilitation process. The study will in the next step develop a measure of social insurance literacy which will have practical applications for rehabilitation professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2021
- Full Text
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9. The demise of repetitive strain injury in sceptical governing rationalities of workplace managers
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MacEachen, Ellen
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Human resource management -- Methods ,Human resource management -- Comparative analysis ,Occupational health and safety -- Management ,Cumulative trauma disorders -- Prevention ,Overuse injuries -- Prevention ,Repetitive stress injury ,Company business management ,Health ,Sociology and social work - Abstract
Research suggests that the downward trend in the number of repetitive strain injuries is due in part to management skepticism regarding the legitimacy of RSI claims. By viewing RSI as more indicative of a certain type of employee instead of certain types of work environments, management curbed the burgeoning of RSI as a significant occupational health issue.
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- 2005
10. Health and the social relations of work: a study of the health-related experiences of employees in small workplaces.
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Eakin, Joan M. and MacEachen, Ellen
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EMPLOYEES , *INDUSTRIAL hygiene , *HEALTH , *DISEASES , *WORK environment , *INTERPERSONAL relations - Abstract
On the basis of a qualitative study of health in small enterprises, this paper attempts to theorise the social production of illness and injury in the workplace. Particular features of working life in small workplaces, especially their personalised social relations and low polarisation of employer-employee interests, shape workers' perceptions of the employment relationship and of health in relation to work. Strained authority relations at work can form a key social context in which health and injury are constructed. In situations of conflictful supervisory relations, bodily experiences can become 'problematised'. Meanings attributed to health conditions and the quality of the employment relationship are transformed and merged, prompting a questioning of the legitimacy of power asymmetries in the workplace and recognition of the conflicting interests of labour and capital. Bodily experiences and ill-health offer possibilities for resistance and become mediators of broader social tensions. Unheeded illness claims deepen feelings of distrust and blame, further causing labour relations to deteriorate, and re-producing the social conditions for illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1998
- Full Text
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