Is More Always Merrier? Intersectionality as an Antecedent of Job Insecurity.

Lindsey Lavaysse,David Arena Jr,Tahira Probst

doi:10.3390/ijerph15112559

Abstract

As modern workplace environments are becoming increasingly diverse, the experiences of disenfranchised employees have become a topic of great interest to scholars and business professionals alike. While the experiences of individuals with singular stigmatized identities have been well-established, a dearth of research has assessed how intersectionality, i.e., holding multiple stigmatized identities, combine and intertwine to shape workplace experiences. We contribute to a growing literature on intersectionality by assessing the extent to which employees identifying with multiple stigmatized identities may constitute a risk factor for the experience of job insecurity, a prevalent and potent economic stressor. Additionally, we propose that job insecurity will partially mediate the relationship between intersectionality and a variety of adverse workplace outcomes associated with increased job insecurity perceptions. In order to test these hypotheses, we collected survey data from 449 employed individuals within the United States over two timepoints. Results of the tests of our direct and indirect hypotheses revealed that individuals with more stigmatized identities reported greater perceptions of job insecurity, and intersectionality indirectly affected workplace outcomes via this heightened job insecurity. Our results highlight a new antecedent of job insecurity for consideration and is meant to motivate others to approach diversity-related research questions with multiple identities in mind, in an effort to encapsulate the full spectrum of one’s experience based on their identity makeup.

Highlights

Respect, fairness, and job security are verifiable factors that human resource professionals can emphasize and promote to maintain employee motivation [1]
As the workforce is becoming increasingly diverse and intersectional [10], we argue that an important extension of past work on employee experiences of job insecurity comes from the lens of intersectionality [11], i.e., the experiences of employees who identify with multiple minority status identities
Identifying with a greater number of marginalized identities was generally associated with more negative job- and health-related outcomes, including safety compliance (r = −0.11, p < 0.05), affective and normative commitment (r = −0.15 and r = −0.13, respectively, p < 0.01), job satisfaction (r = −0.16, p < 0.01), and physical and mental health (r = −0.13 and r = −0.21, respectively, p < 0.01)

Summary

Introduction

Fairness, and job security are verifiable factors that human resource professionals can emphasize and promote to maintain employee motivation [1]. While research has effectively documented the relationship between perceptions of employee justice or fairness and positive workplace related outcomes (i.e., commitment and intentions to quit [2]), there has been a significant dearth of work focused on job insecurity. Job insecurity represents a salient economic stressor that relates to a variety of negative work-related outcomes verified by both longitudinal [3] and meta-analytic [4] work. In a tumultuous economic environment, employees may be more attuned to the idea that steady work may not be constant, which can relate to detriments to employee health and well-being [5]. Some scholars highlight the overall negative impact of increased job insecurity on employee job attitudes, health and well-being, and their overall relationship with their organization [4,6,7]

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Conclusion