Sex, breadwinner status, and perceived job insecurity: A comparative analysis in Europe

Abstract

Previous research has produced contradictory results about the relationship between sex and perceived job insecurity (JI). The male-breadwinner ideology has been put forward to explain the fact that women often report less JI. In addition, previous research on JI has highlighted the importance of the national socioeconomic context, and gender studies have underlined the need to take gender dimensions into account when studying national socioeconomic contexts. This article contributes to those debates by measuring the effect of sex on JI and the moderating effect of breadwinner status in different groups of countries characterized by homogeneous socioeconomic and gender-related contexts. To do so, the authors use the 2015 EWCS survey, and add macro indicators for the national contexts. The results show that when controlling for breadwinner status, sex has no significant effect regardless of the national context; in addition, breadwinner status moderates the relationship between sex and perceived JI in some national contexts.