What happened to the employed during the Great Recession? A U.S. population study of net change in employee insecurity, health, and organizational commitment

Abstract

This study explored the effects of the Great Recession on U.S. workers who remain employed. The first goal was to assess net population change in job and employment insecurity, physical and mental health, and affective organizational commitment. The second goal was to explore job and employment insecurity as parallel mediators of the associations between the Great Recession and the health and affective organizational commitment outcomes. Data came from two national surveys of U.S. workers that occurred before the recession (N = 2354) and during the recession (N = 2322). The results show that the recession was associated with a net increase in both job and employment insecurity, though the increase in employment insecurity was 3.4 times larger than the increase in job insecurity. The recession was associated with a net decrease in physical and mental health and affective organizational commitment. Finally, job and employment insecurity partially mediated the association of the recession with physical health and fully mediated its association with mental health. Job insecurity, but not employment insecurity, partially mediated the association of the recession with affective organizational commitment. The results underscore the importance of research that furthers our understanding of how macroeconomic events affect those who remain employed, and that takes a broad view of employee insecurity regarding continuity of employment.