Association between temporary employment and current smoking and change in smoking behaviors: A prospective cohort study from South Korea (2009–2018)

Background Previous studies have suggested that employment insecurity is associated with adverse health outcomes. We explored the association between temporary employment and smoking behaviors.

Methods We analyzed 11,795 workers (51,867 observations) from the Korea Health Panel Study (2009–2018). Employment types were categorized as regular, fixed-term, or daily, based on the duration of labor contract. The outcomes were current smoking status and changes in smoking behavior (initiation or cessation) in the following year. Generalized estimating equations were used to estimate odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI).

Results The proportions of fixed-term and daily workers were 41.2% and 16.4% for women and 23.6% and 12.4% for men, respectively. Temporary employment was associated with increased odds of current smoking, while also demonstrating prospective associations with changes in smoking behaviors. For instance, in prospective analyses, male workers with fixed-term and daily employments were associated with a decreased likelihood of smoking cessation (OR:0.77; 95% CI:0.65–0.91 for fixed-term employment and OR:0.66; 95% CI:0.52–0.83 for daily employment) in the following year compared to those with regular employment. Moreover, those experiencing consecutive temporary employment was most inversely associated with smoking cessation in both men (OR:0.56; 95% CI:0.44–0.71) and women (OR:0.37; 95% CI:0.16–0.85) compared to those experiencing consecutive regular employment. However, no clear association between temporary employment and smoking initiation was observed in both men and women.

Conclusions Temporary employment is directly associated with current smoking and inversely associated with smoking cessation. Policies are needed to improve job insecurity among temporary employees.