Employment Relations, Welfare States, and Population Health in High

Drawing from comparative welfare state studies and from the World-Systems perspective, 1) we developed composite indicators of employment relations in the 3-tiers of the World System; and, using these indicators, 2) we outlined a 3 by 3 typology of employment relations and population health status in 150 countries of the World System. We used data from the ILO (1990~1996, 1997, 2003), World Band (2000), and WHO (2002 or 2004). Indicators included child labour (%), working poor (%), EPR (employment-to-population) ratio, female vs. male LFP (labour force participation) gap, informal economy in % of GNP, and labour institution indicators such as union density and collective bargaining coverage. We built a scale with these indicators was constructed with PCA. Health outcomes included male and female life expectancy (2004), HALE (2002), adult mortality rate (2004), maternal and child mortality rates (2004 or 2000), and mortality rates from specific disease types (2000). A cluster analysis was performed with this "labour market inequality scale" for each tier of countries based on the world distribution of income. Wealthy countries yielded a three cluster solution closely resembling Esping-Andersen's Liberal, Conservative and Social Democratic types. Medium income countries were described by a three cluster solution of some elements of welfare state (former soviet block) to increasing "informal employment". Low income countries formed a four cluster solution from large informal sector to a qualitative set of countries (mostly African) of major labour market instability and foreign intervention. Clusters were related to average population health indicators in the expected direction.