Employment/Unemployment and Family Health Insurance Coverage

As a fundamental element in people's lives, employment provides the means by which they achieve a good quality of life for their families, but [Page 411]the decline in family health insurance is threatening the well-being of the family. Traditionally, people who are engaged in the labor market have enjoyed a stable salary and employer-sponsored health insurance. Global market competition and an economic recession, however, have sent the unemployment rate to record heights, and correspondingly employment has drastically changed from conventional full-time work to flexible types of employment, such as part-time, on-call, contract, and informal labor. Furthermore, the power relations and marketplace organizational policies that underpin these new forms of employment have forced the employed to lower their salaries and limit their health insurance coverage. Consequently, ...