Perceived Job Insecurity: Investigating The Effect Of Demographic Characteristics

Abstract

Numerous literatures have shown that individuals who exhibit higher feelings of job insecurity are more likely to experience various health related challenges which might be detrimental to the organization and the society in general. By following the transaction stress model Lazarus and Folkman (1984) which highlights inter individual differences in understanding job insecurity perception, the effect of demographic variables in this regard is investigated. We use the cross sectional research design to elicit responses, through close ended questionnaire from one hundred and fifty three (153) randomly selected employees in the Nigerian Banking Industry. We use the independent t-test of difference and analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistics to examine the relationship between each of the five demographic variables considered and the tendency for perception of job insecurity. Gender, marital status, age and educational qualification do not exercise any significant effect on perceived job insecurity while the occupational status of respondents exercises an influence in this relationship. Specifically, we found that those employees in managerial job position have higher tendency to exhibit job insecurity perception than other employees in junior, senior and middle level respectively. Perceived job insecurity may be controlled by engaging personality, institutional and organizational based interventions regardless of employee's gender, age group, marital status and educational status. More focus should be given to employees in managerial and junior occupational cadre while making use of these interventions as these particular groups of employees are more likely experience higher level of this workplace syndrome.