With growing attention for labor shortages and employment conditions, it is remarkable that an often-stigmatized form of employment is understudied: “dirty work”. “Dirty work” concerns occupations that the society often views as physically, socially and/or morally tainted (e.g., sanitation workers, cargo handlers, or working in a slaughterhouse). Employees associated with this type of work are prone to stress, burn-out, sleep problems and physical health issues. In our project, we aim to reduce occupational, social, and health inequalities by combining expertise on micro (employee), meso (organizational) and macro (labor market) levels. We will identify prominent psychological, geographical, physical, educational, and socio-structural factors that can help to shed light on issues of wellbeing that these workers experience.

Working on this project are:

Karin Smolders, Leander Van der Meij, Alexandra Rijke, Chih-Chen Trista Lin, Luuk Mandemakers, Heleen Pennings, Jelle Wiering and Maartje Roelofsen

Get in touch

If you want to know more about this project or come into contact with the researchers working on this, you can e-mail Dr Karin Smolders.

Contact info

k.c.h.j.smolders [at] tue.nl