Subjective Job Insecurity Research Articles

Job insecurity, employee anxiety, and commitment: The moderating role of collective trust in management

ABSTRACTThis article examines the moderating effect of collective trust in management on the relation between job insecurity (both objective and subjective) and employee outcomes (work-related anxiety and organisational commitment). This is contextualised in the modern British workplace which has seen increased employment insecurity and widespread cynicism. We use matched employer-employee data extracted from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2011, which includes over 16,000 employees from more than 1100 organisations. The multilevel analyses confirm that objective job insecurity (loss of important elements of a job such as cuts in pay, overtime, training, and working hours) are significantly correlated with high levels of work-related anxiety and lower levels of organisational commitment. These correlations are partially mediated by subjective job insecurity (perception of possible job loss). More importantly, collective trust in management (a consensus of management being reliable, honest and fair) significantly attenuates the negative impact of objective job insecurity on organisational commitment, and reduces the impact of subjective job insecurity on work-related anxiety. Theoretical and practical implications and limitations of these effects are discussed.

Incertidumbre laboral y salud mental: una revisión meta-analítica de las consecuencias del trabajo precario en trastornos mentales

<p>Faced with the growing instability resulting from the world economic crisis, job insecurity gains relevance in the study of occupational health. In order to analyse the consequences of job insecurity on mental health, a reference document is provided including the empirical research advances in the current framework. This systematic review follows a meta-analytical technique through 56 independent samples with 53,405 participants in total.<em> </em>The analysis offers a significant correlation between subjective job insecurity and mental health. Thus, it has been found that job insecurity is related to the risk or presence of depression, anxiety and emotional exhaustion, as well as to general low satisfaction with life, international comparisons are made, and negative results among workers regardless of the economic situation of the countries are highlighted, too. Moreover, methodological and conceptual contributions have been made in terms of the quality of the metrics applied. Job insecurity appears as a major problem for workers’ mental health, generating devastating effects on all kind of professional profiles and economic contexts. </p>

Young and at risk? Consequences of job insecurity for mental health and satisfaction among labor market entrants with different levels of education

Young workers are often temporarily employed and thus likely to experience job insecurity. This study investigates associations of objective job insecurity (i.e., temporary employment) and subjectively perceived job insecurity with mental health, job satisfaction and life satisfaction among young workers, testing the moderating role of education. The longitudinal analysis based on 1522 labor market entrants from the German Socio-Economic Panel revealed that subjective job insecurity was associated with decreased mental health and lower satisfaction, whereas objective job insecurity was not. Three levels of education were differentiated: university degree, vocational training and low-qualified. There was weak evidence that those with vocational qualifications were more vulnerable to subjective job insecurity than either the low-qualified or university graduates. The results suggest that irrespective of education, detrimental consequences of subjective job insecurity emerge early in the career. Access to secure employment should be improved for young workers to prevent early dissatisfaction and impairment of their mental health.

Workforce reduction, subjective job insecurity, and mental health

We examine the link between workforce reduction, subjective job insecurity, and mental health using individual level panel data for private-sector employees in Germany. We first estimate the effect of firm-level workforce reductions on mental health, finding a strong, negative, and statistically significant relationship. We then extensively examine the role of subjective job insecurity as mediating variable and its importance relative to other possible channels for the effect of workforce reduction on mental health. Eventually, as an extension to our analysis, we use life satisfaction as alternative outcome variable.

Correlates and Consequences of Nursing Staff Job Insecurity

The health care system, and hospitals, underwent considerable restructuring and downsizing in the early to mid-1900s in several countries as governments cut costs to reduce their budget deficits. Studies of the effects of these efforts on nursing staff and hospital functioning in various countries generally reported negative impacts with threats to job security emerging as an important outcome of these changes. Health care restructuring and hospital downsizing is again being implemented as governments struggle to reduce deficits at a time of worldwide economic recession in 2008/2010. This study examines correlates and consequences of job insecurity among Canadian nursing staff, with a focus on nurses’ well-being. Data were collected from 290 nursing staff working in hospitals in Ontario, Canada. Feelings of job insecurity in the sample as a whole were relatively low. Personal demographics and work situation characteristics were generally uncorrelated with feelings of job insecurity. Consistent with previous findings, perceived job insecurity was once again associated with less favorable work and well-being outcomes. Some suggestions for more successful approaches to addressing levels of subjective job insecurity are offered.

Correlates and Consequences of Nursing Staff Job Insecurity

The health care system, and hospitals, underwent considerable restructuring and downsizing in the early to mid-1900s in several countries as governments cut costs to reduce their budget deficits. Studies of the effects of these efforts on nursing staff and hospital functioning in various countries generally reported negative impacts with threats to job security emerging as an important outcome of these changes. Health care restructuring and hospital downsizing is again being implemented as governments struggle to reduce deficits at a time of worldwide economic recession in 2008/2010. This study examines correlates and consequences of job insecurity among Canadian nursing staff, with a focus on nurses’ well-being. Data were collected from 290 nursing staff working in hospitals in Ontario, Canada. Feelings of job insecurity in the sample as a whole were relatively low. Personal demographics and work situation characteristics were generally uncorrelated with feelings of job insecurity. Consistent with previous findings, perceived job insecurity was once again associated with less favorable work and well-being outcomes. Some suggestions for more successful approaches to addressing levels of subjective job insecurity are offered.

Perceived new demands associated with socioeconomic change: A challenge to job security?

Our study focuses on everyday manifestations of contemporary socioeconomic change. For a sample of young- and middle-aged German employees gathered in 2008 ( N = 281), we investigate the relationship of perceived rising demands regarding (a) the labor market and (b) the workplace context with subjective job insecurity. Regression analyses reveal a positive effect of rising labor market demands on job insecurity, which is buffered by education. The effect of education on job insecurity is mediated by rising labor market demands. Rising workplace demands show no effect on job insecurity for West German employees. In contrast, East Germans who experience rising workplace demands report lower levels of job insecurity. Results are discussed with a particular focus on rising demands in employment relationships.

Young Workerss Job Insecurity and Employment Uncertainty in Times of Crisis: Exploring the Impact of Governance, Economic Resources and Trust in Central-Eastern and Western Europe

The paper is concerned with a better understanding of the job insecurity and labour market uncertainty youngsters confront on the labour market in Europe shortly before and during the Great Recession. The main thrust of the paper is to explore youth insecurity and uncertainty in notably the Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) compared to Western European countries with a particular focus for the role played by young people’s skills, the level of trust in society, and for the ways of governance as indicated by the social models the countries represent. We use the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) and the European Social Survey (ESS). We ran discrete choice logistic and probit regression models on the three variables of interest: objective and subjective job and employment insecurity. At the individual level the findings substantiate the existence of strong correlates between people’s skills, their level of social and institutional trust and objective and subjective job and employment insecurity. At the country level we show that the observed insecurity gaps between insiders and outsiders are strongly skill-based notably in the Nordic countries as well as strongly age-based notably in the Southern regimes. The patterns of insecurity and uncertainty in the CEE countries are skill-based and age-based at the same time, and mirror their relative low levels of trust and their high levels of job insecurity in some countries and employment insecurity in others.

The effect of job insecurity and employability on preferences for redistribution in Western Europe

This article sheds light on the so far under-researched effect of subjective job insecurity on social policy preferences and the moderating role of employability. Using pooled individual-level data from the European Social Survey for workers from 11 Western European countries, it shows that subjective job insecurity does increase demand for redistribution. This effect is conditional upon employability perceptions, that is, expectations about future employment prospects. The impact of job insecurity on redistribution is strongest for workers who fear long-term unemployment. The findings do not seem to be driven by underlying political belief systems as they are robust in a reduced sample of centrist non-partisan workers. While the results confirm the hypothesised repercussions of labour-market flexibility on the individual level, aggregate effects should not be exaggerated, since the segment of workers exposed to job insecurity and low employability at the same time is rather small.

The joint impact of microeconomic parameters and job insecurity perceptions on commitment towards one’s job, occupation and career: A multilevel approach

This study investigates the relationship of microeconomic parameters and subjective job insecurity perceptions with vocational commitment, i.e. commitment towards one’s job, occupation and career in a sample of 236 individuals, nested in 47 German administrative districts. Applying a multilevel approach, job insecurity (quantitative and qualitative) and vocational commitment indicators (operationalized via job involvement, occupational commitment and career satisfaction) were measured at the individual level, whereas microeconomic parameters were collected at the level of administrative district. In addition to regional unemployment rates, we included two further economic parameters, namely change in gainful employment (i.e., change in a district’s number of gainful workers) and change in economic growth (i.e., change in a district’s GDP). It is worth noting that our findings only revealed spillover effects from economic parameters on qualitative (not quantitative) job insecurity on a bivariate level (not after considering controls in multilevel regressions). Cross-level interactions further indicated that environmental economic conditions are important for the relationship between subjective job insecurity perceptions and outcomes.

Revisiting the Public Job Security: Thirty Years of Research and an Agenda for the Future

This paper seeks to develop a research agenda for future public job security research. We begin by clarifying the meaning of the job security concept and specifying its content domain based on Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt’s (1984) study. We review subsequent job security research with origins in labor and employment relations, organizational behavior, and human resource management across sectors and synthesized a model of job security associated with the empirical phenomenon based on review studies. This process resulted in three agenda for future public job security research: (1) building a clear causal linkage between (objective) job security and (subjective) job insecurity, and individual outcomes; (2) developing a relationship between a job security rules and motivation of civil servants, and motivational consequences of job security rules; and (3) conducting experiments about relationships between deinstitutionalization of job security and outcomes.

SELF‐PERCEIVED JOB INSECURITY AND THE DEMAND FOR MEDICAL REHABILITATION: DOES FEAR OF UNEMPLOYMENT REDUCE HEALTH CARE UTILIZATION?

An inverse relationship between job insecurity and sickness absence has been established in the literature, which is explained by employees avoiding to send signals of both poor health and uncooperative behavior towards the employer. In this paper, we focus on whether the same mechanism applies to the demand for medical rehabilitation measures. This question has recently gained much interest in the context of the current public debate on presenteeism. Using county-level unemployment rates as instrument for the employees' fear of job loss on the individual level, we find that an increase in subjective job insecurity substantially decreases the probability of participating in medical rehabilitation.

Economic Openness and Domestic Demand for Social Protection: A Multi-Level Analysis of Social Security Preferences between 1990 and 2006

Abstract Comparative research revealed that social programs did not suffer significant decline despite globalisation and stiffer international competition. Instead, a striking stability of social expenditure is observed which is explained by voters’ demands for social protection because of new uncertainties connected to economic openness. The domestic demand approach conceives the welfare state as a means to compensate for the risks a globalised economy puts on citizens’ job security, and as a means to foster the acceptance of an open economy. Given the prominence of these assumptions little research has been conducted to test them. Does economic openness actually increase unemployment and feelings of job insecurity? Does this in turn lead to a higher voter demand for social security? This paper analyses the propositions of domestic demand approaches based on a data set comprised of waves of the module “Role of Government” from the International Social Survey Programme (1990, 1996 and 2006) and additional country-level features. The results show that economic openness has a negative effect when other insecurity-causing trends are controlled. Also subjective job insecurity instead of the projected positive effect rather shows a negative relation. Social security demand decreases the more job insecurity people perceive. This is interpreted as a consequence of the fear of those still employed that voting for more expenditures would endanger existing jobs. Moreover, the hypothesis that economic openness now spreads economic risks and feelings of insecurity over a broader social strata rather than remaining mired at the low end of the social spectrum is not confirmed.

Commitment to employment and organisation: Finland in a European comparison

Employment and organisational commitment are widely endorsed as goals for labour market policy and organisations. However, there are few comparative studies that examine how, in addition to individual characteristics, dimensions of national culture affect employment and organisational commitment. This article compares employment and organisational commitment among employees in Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Spain and Sweden. The main focus is on whether these commitments differ in Finland from those in four other European countries. Finland has seldom been included in this kind of comparative study. Individual-level data come from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), Work Orientation Module III, collected in 2005–2006. Employment commitment was the highest in Sweden, while organisational commitment was the highest among Germans. Finnish employees did not display particularly high levels of employment commitment: Finns were next to last in this category. Organisational commitment in Finland was on the same level as Spain and Sweden. In all five countries low subjective job insecurity among employees increased organisational commitment. Schwartz’s (2007) cultural dimensions accounted for a significant share of the variance in employment commitment. The data were analysed mainly by using standard multiple regression analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Social Stratification, Living Conditions and the White Male Effect in Sweden

Abstract This paper investigates the impact of subjective job insecurity, past experience of crisis, and social exclusion on risk perceptions in Sweden. In particular, it explores the evidence of the so-called White Male Effect (WME). The paper builds on earlier research of the WME, which had shown that men or native (white) individuals were less concerned about personal and other risks than women and people of foreign background. Yet women and people of foreign background are frequently subject to discrimination and social and economic disadvantage. The present study hypothesises that subjective perceptions of objectively inequitable living conditions influence risk perception. More specifically, people who perceive their jobs to be insecure, who have experienced personal crises, or who feel socially excluded are more likely than others to feel personally threatened by a range of social, personal and environmental risks. Soziale Schichten, Lebensbedingungen und der ‘White Male Effect’ in Schweden Diese...

Is there a buffering effect of flexibility for job attitudes and work-related strain under conditions of high job insecurity and regional unemployment rate?

This article explores the relationships of job insecurity and regional unemployment rate with job attitudes and work-related strain. The authors considered the personality attribute flexibility as a potential moderator. Their results revealed job insecurity to be negatively associated with job involvement and career satisfaction and positively with readiness to make concessions and strain. Moreover, with an increasing level of subjective (qualitative) job insecurity, individuals low in flexibility reported lower career satisfaction. In contrast, where objective job insecurity (unemployment rate) was high, these low flexibility participants showed higher career satisfaction. They were also more ready to make concessions and more involved with their job than those high in flexibility. Finally, the study found the proposed buffering effect, as those high in flexibility experienced less health impairment when perceived (quantitative) job insecurity and regional unemployment rate were high. Strategies of coping with uncertainty as well as options regarding strengthening flexibility are discussed.

Determinants of job insecurity in five European countries

This article studies the determinants of subjective job insecurity in five European countries (Belgium, Finland, Germany, Spain and The Netherlands), using data from the WageIndicator web survey. The impact of different variables is estimated using logistic regression.The analysis shows that differences in subjective job insecurity of women are explained by their objective situation in the labour market. In contrast, subjective insecurity increases with age; education reduces job insecurity, as do wages, except at very high wage levels; having a temporary — but not — a part-time — contract contributes to insecurity, which points to the different nature of the two types of contract.

Employment status and job insecurity: On the subjective appraisal of an objective status

The article argues that job insecurity has subjective aspects that are not determined by the objective levels of security of someone’s employment status. These subjective aspects can be divided into two elements: the perceived probability and the perceived severity of job loss. The psychological consequences of job insecurity supposedly vary as a function of the objective status and the two constituting elements of subjective job insecurity. Results are reported from a study in the Netherlands among 1706 workers in five employment statuses that differ in degree of security. The perceived probability and severity of job loss were assessed, as were five possible consequences of subjective insecurity. The article shows that (1) job insecurity reflects the ‘objective’ conditions people are in; (2) the appraisal of job insecurity results from the functioning of the probability and severity of job loss; and (3) probability and severity have different consequences depending on employment status.

Association of Contractual and Subjective Job Insecurity With Sickness Presenteeism Among Public Sector Employees

We examined the associations of contractual job insecurity (fixed-term vs permanent employment contract) and subjectively assessed job insecurity with sickness presenteeism among those who had no sickness absences during the study year. Survey data from a sample of 18,454 Public sector employees were gathered in 2004 (the Finnish Public Sector study). Fixed-term employees were less likely to report working while ill (odds ratio = 0.88, 95% confidence interval = 0.77 to 0.99) than permanent employees. Subjective insecurity was associated with higher levels of working while ill, and this association was stronger among older employees. These results remained after adjustments for demographics, health-related variables, and optimism. Our results suggest that subjective job insecurity might be even more important than contractual insecurity when a public sector employee makes the decision to go to work despite feeling ill.

The Role of Trust in Secure and Insecure Employment Situations: A Multiple-Group Analysis

This article assesses the impact of job insecurity on the mediating role of trust in the relationship between breach of the psychological contract and employee attitudes. It is argued that both objective and subjective job insecurity influence the relation between breach and trust, as well as the relation between breach and affective commitment, job satisfaction and intention to quit. Hypotheses for different configurations of subjective and objective job insecurity were tested in a sample of 834 Dutch workers employed in 48 organizations. In a multiple-group analysis, the relationships between breach, trust and employee attitudes in four groups of employees in different configurations of job security were analysed. The results show that objective job insecurity moderates the relationship between breach and trust. However, contrary to expectations, trust only partially mediates between breach and employee attitudes in all employment situations.