Abstract
Contemporary society is characterized by a high level of uncertainty in many domains of everyday life. The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a deep economic crisis, exacerbating worldwide feelings of uncertainty and precarity. Individuals with insecure jobs have (and will) probably suffered the most from this situation. Workers with higher job insecurity have poorer psychological and physical health, display more negative work attitudes and are less satisfied about their life. However, much less is known about the impact of job insecurity and life uncertainty on consumer behavior. Using the Conservation of Resources theory as a framework, the present study examines a model in which job insecurity and life uncertainty would have a negative effect on everyday consumptions and broader life projects of individuals. Data collection was conducted in Italy in June and July 2020 during COVID-19 pandemic, in the immediate aftermath of the national lockdown. In a sample of 830 workers, the results of a mediation analysis showed that job insecurity and life uncertainty had a detrimental impact of consumer behaviors, since they were significantly associated with higher propensity to sacrifice and reduce everyday short-term consumptions (e.g., buying food) and greater perceived unaffordability of broader long-term life projects (e.g., buying a house).
Highlights
IntroductionHave pointed out that the perception of job insecurity for several segments of the workforce has increased
In the present paper we aimed to investigate the impact of subjective perception of job insecurity on consumer behaviors, considering the role played by the increased general feeling of life uncertainty experienced by individuals during the period of COVID-19 pandemic
The software SPSS 25 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA) was used to compute descriptive and correlations, while M-Plus 8.3 was used to test the structural equation model with latent variables and a Maximum Likelihood estimator (ML) was employed to compute all model parameters [106]. Both quantitative and qualitative job insecurity was significantly correlated with life uncertainty and sacrifice of consumption
Summary
Have pointed out that the perception of job insecurity for several segments of the workforce has increased In this regard, the flexible firm model [7] and segmentation theory [8] could provide a theoretical framework to analyze the current situation. Being strongly linked [9], these approaches argue that the primary segment contains the organization’s core group (characterized by higher wage and labor quality) and the secondary segment contains the peripheral group of employees (characterized by lower wage and unfavorable labor quality) From this viewpoint, the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has pulverized the distinctions between employees’ groups and segments to which they belong, to leave a general sense of uncertainty and insecurity [10], from a social and health point of view [11,12]
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