An Empirical Study on the Health Difference between Standard Employment and Non-standard Employment in the Era of Digital Economy—Based on the Perspective of Environmental Pollution

In the era of digital economy, non-standard employment is prevalent in the global labor market. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) , this study theoretically and empirically analyzed the impact of environmental pollution on health disparities between standard employment and non-standard employment, as well as its mechanisms, regional and annual heterogeneity. The study found that environmental pollution significantly reduced the probability of individual health status improvement, and compared with standard employment, environmental pollution had a greater impact on the health of non-standard employment. The health difference decomposition results showed that the health status of standard employment was better than that of non-standard employment, and the health difference between the two groups was mainly caused by the differences in observable characteristics. Among them, environmental pollution significantly enlarged the health difference, contributing 7.87% to the health difference. The analysis of the pollution differentiation mechanism of health disparities showed that the increase of individual income had a positive adjustment mechanism to the risk of health damage caused by environmental pollution, and the income level could offset the health deterioration caused by environmental pollution. However, overtime work increased the risk of health damage caused by environmental pollution. The results of heterogeneous regression showed that the impact of environmental pollution on health was gradually strengthened from west to east, and the contribution of environmental pollution to health disparities was increasing, but decreased with the increase of years.