Employment, health, and the laws of accumulation

Much of the early work on employment was concerned with identifying an association between health and working conditions. This work narrowly focused on the psychological pathways by which unemployment and job insecurity can affect health. More recent work challenges this focus as ultimately concerned with individualizing responsibility for health and obscuring the structural forces that lead to these outcomes. This newer scholarship applies a structuralist lens and highlights the relationship between workers’ health and changes in the political economy. This chapter argues that this literature remains open to capture by mainstream economists and policymakers keen to reproduce existing growth and inequality. It also fails to recognize the core dynamics driving capital accumulation. The chapter aims to show the importance of embedding health outcomes within the broader structures governing labour markets and bridging the social determinants of health (SDOH) literature and Marxian political economy.