A Temporal Comparison of the Effects of Unemployment and Job Insecurity on Wellbeing (original) (raw)
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International archives of occupational and environmental health, 2015
Research has provided convincing evidence for the adverse effects of both short- and long-term unemployment, and perceived job insecurity on individuals' health and well-being. This study aims to go one critical step further by comparing the association between short- and long-term unemployment, and perceived job insecurity with a diverse set of health and well-being indicators. We compare four groups: (1) secure permanent employees (N = 2257), (2) insecure permanent employees (N = 713), (3) short-term unemployed (N = 662), and (4) long-term unemployed (N = 345) using cross-sectional data from the nationally representative Living Conditions Survey in Finland. Covariance analyses adjusted for background variables support findings from earlier studies that long-term unemployment and perceived job insecurity are detrimental: short-term unemployed and secure permanent employees experienced fewer psychological complaints and lower subjective complaints load, reported a higher self-ra...
Mental Well-being Among Workers: A Cross-national Analysis of Job Insecurity Impact on the Workforce
Social Indicators Research
Drawing on 2011 and 2016 European Quality of Life Survey data from eight European countries, this paper considers the importance of subjective indicators of employment conditions in impacting mental well-being. Among employment conditions, job insecurity has been discussed as having a negative impact on mental well-being by enhancing the worker’s sense of unpredictability. The idea of losing one’s job brings with it the fear of an uncertain or unclear future and the sense of lack of agency—i.e. feeling powerless with respect to the risk of becoming unemployed. Thus, we investigate two dimensions of job insecurity, namely ‘cognitive job insecurity’ and ‘labour market insecurity’. Our dependent variable is mental health well-being, measured using the 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5), which is a self-reported health scale validated by several studies and internationally adopted for measuring psychological well-being. We apply a fixed-effects model and use a set...
Job Insecurity and Future Labour Market Outcomes
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
This paper uses longitudinal survey data to test the degree to which measures of job insecurity are correlated with changes in labour market status. Three major findings are reported. First, the perceived probability of job loss is only weakly related to both exogenous job separations and subsequent transitions to unemployment and inactivity. Second, while fears of job loss tend to persist across time and job spells, they do so at a highly diminishing rate, suggesting that the impacts on other outcomes (such as psychological well-being) may be quite limited. Third, quit intentions are strongly correlated with both voluntary separations and transitions to alternative employment. The desire to quit, however, does not appear to diminish greatly across successive employment spells.
An Analysis of Subjective Views of Job Insecurity
In the 1997 and 1998 waves of the British Household Panel Survey, workers are asked to assess their level of job security in terms of the probability of becoming unemployed within the next year. We examine whether these perceptions of insecurity are purely subjective or are systematically related to certain characteristics of the worker and their current job. The responses offered by workers suggest that around 10% are in fear of becoming unemployed, and this fear is not persistently confined to the same workers or to particular occupational groups. Individuals with a history of unemployment and those holding short-term employment contracts are found to report the greatest levels of insecurity. Finally, we find that workers' perceptions of unemployment are strong predictors of actual unemployment experiences occurring in the subsequent year. We therefore conclude that such subjective measures of insecurity do convey useful information that may be used in further analyses of the ...
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2018
Objective: The present study aims to tackle in detail the associations of insecurity with mental and self-rated health by using cognitive and affective measures of insecurity that focus on different aspects such as job loss, difficulties in finding an alternative job, and worsening the working conditions. Methods: Data come from a representative sample of the Spanish salaried working population (n =1807) obtained by the 2016 Psychosocial Risks Survey. Results: Cognitive measures yield stronger associations between job loss and labor market insecurity and health, whereas the association between insecurity over worsening job conditions and health is stronger when using affective measures, the associations with mental health being stronger in both cases than those involving self-rated health. Conclusion: Association with health varies, in strength and at times in direction, depending on how insecurity is measured and conceptualized.
Psihološka obzorja / Horizons of Psychology, 2013
We investigated the significance of unemployment and job insecurity for mental health (self-esteem; life satisfaction) and occupational commitment (occupational self-efficacy; affective occupational commitment) comparing the "equal threat" assumption with the "downward spiral" assumption. Whereas the equal threat model suggests that unemployment and (perceived) insecure employment are similarly threatening phenomena, the downward spiral model assumes that there might be a spectrum of employment insecurity, ranging from secure employment to long-term unemployment, that is associated with decreasing mental health and occupational commitment. Controlling for socio-demographic background variables and personality traits, results of ANCOVAs, in which we distinguished between workers who were (more or less) securely employed and those who were either insecurely employed or short-or long-term unemployed revealed that the insecurely employed workers were no better off than those who were (short-term) unemployed-in line with the equal threat hypothesis. Only for occupational self-efficacy did we find some support for the downward spiral model.
Job Insecurity and Its Consequences in the Context of an Economic Crisis
2014
In the present climate, job insecurity has become one of the most relevant sources of stress for workers. It is especially serious in Spain due to the high unemployment rates in this period of crisis. An important body of research has been developed in an attempt to better understand this phenomenon. In recent years, the Institute of Human Resources Psychology, Organizational Development and Quality of Working Life (IDOCAL) has contributed to various of the most determinant dimensions of the research on job insecurity. The determinants have been identified as tenure, employability in the labor market, underemployment, and job self-efficacy. Furthermore, progress has been made in the research on the diversity of the types of contracts, job insecurity and the effects on workers. The studies that examine the role of the intervening factors are especially relevant. In this context, our research has identified that factors such as organizational justice, organizational justice climate, o...