Stephanie Melamed
Associate Professor, Labour Studies

Job security decreases. People move around the planet more easily.

Issues such as precarious employment, or being a non-white worker, aren’t solely a matter of business, economics or even social justice; they are also health issues. Stephanie Premji researchers how employment issues affect health.

Some such issues are as mundane as daily commutes – more and more people work multiple jobs in different locations, and spent large parts of their days (and nights) in transit. Spending three to six hours traveling each day can create sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, and social and behavioural problems for workers, and also for their children.

Premji’s work relies on having the infrastructure in place to reach historically marginalized groups, and provide them with information and interpretation in languages and formats that encourage them to participate in research.

For Premji, this means working with community partners – not just to find translators and study participants, but also to shape the research itself, and to feed the results back into those communities.

In her teaching, Premji finds many of her students turn out to be second-generation Canadians whose parents have experienced first-hand de-skilling and precarious employment. She appreciates how students feel connected to her field of expertise, and trusts that as they increase their understanding of these issues, they will be better positioned to affect them.