However after several decades of

However, after several decades of globalisation and neoliberal economic policies, long-term employment contracts and a high level of job security have become less continine on the labour market. Instead, precarious work, i.e. short-term contracts, involuntary part time employment, employment through ‘staff-for-hire’ enterprises, and shorter or longer periods of unemployment, have become more and more frequent (Puig-Barrachina et al., 2014). There may be some advantages for certain workers in the ‘new forms of employment’, as described in a recent Eurofound publication with this title (Eurofound, 2015). Also, voluntary changes of employment have been associated with positive consequences for the individual, such as increase of status, esteem, and financial rewards (Ng, Sorensen, Eby & Feldman, 2007), decreased physical strain (Swaen, Kant, van Amelsvoort & Beurskens, 2002), as well as better psychosocial health and less burnout (Liljegren & Ekberg, 2008). However, for the majority of those in the increasingly common ‘flexible’ forms of employment, the lack of job security seems to be harmful (Ferrie, Shipley, Stansfeld & Marmot, 2002; Meltzer et al., 2009; Virtanen, Janlert & Hammarstrom, 2011; Yoo et al., 2016; Vancea & Utzet, 2017). Public health research interest in precarious employment has grown rapidly during the past decade, and a recent review supports a linkage between mental health problems and downsizing, perceived job insecurity, and temporary employment (Benach et al., 2014). In a previous study, based on the cohort used in the present study and focusing on young individuals, a significant impact of precarious employment on poor mental health at follow-up was found (Canivet et al., 2016). Thus, it appears as though both precarious employment and remaining in an undesired job or profession might be detrimental for mental health. Not being able to improve precarious employment conditions or to leave one’s job or one’s occupation may be interpreted by the individual as having no or low control over an important part of one’s life (Carver & Scheier, 1982). This may induce a stress response and, with prolonged exposure, poorer mental health (Ursin & Eriksen, 2010; Stansfeld & Candy, 2006). However, the impact of these labour market situations might not be the same in different age strata. Age is related to labour market structures in Sweden. In 2015, 27% and 33% (men and women, respectively) of persons aged 20–34 held temporary employment contracts, compared to 14% and 16% in the entire working population (Statistics Sweden, 2015). Whereas it may appear more ‘natural’ to find that young individuals dominate the group of precariously employed, it is less clear how age relates to workplace or occupational non-preference. In the following, ‘job’ and ‘workplace’ refer to the context of an employment position at a particular workplace, whereas ‘occupation’ refers to the profession, or the ‘label’ of the line of work. In order to leave a non-desired workplace one may have to start networking, developing competences or actively searching for new jobs, or have to migrate to another geographical area, etc. To leave one’s entire occupational field may require even more risk-taking such as taking personal loans to finance university studies, giving up one’s professional identity, changing employer or workplace, and perhaps even trading in job security and seniority of a permanent position for an apprenticeship, internship or temporary job to establish a new career etc. Feldman & Ng (2007). Thus, leaving a non-preferred occupation appears to be difficult, particularly for those who have invested significant time and energy in a career, or who have not many years of their occupational career left. Also leaving a non-preferred occupation often includes leaving the workplace. For this reason, we chose to focus in the present paper on the two factors non-desired occupation (NDO) (rather than non-desired workplace), and precarious employment (PE).