IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v69y2009i5p777-785.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perceived job insecurity and worker health in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Burgard, Sarah A.
  • Brand, Jennie E.
  • House, James S.

Abstract

Economic recessions, the industrial shift from manufacturing toward service industries, and rising global competition have contributed to uncertainty about job security, with potential consequences for workers' health. To address limitations of prior research on the health consequences of perceived job insecurity, we use longitudinal data from two nationally-representative samples of the United States population, and examine episodic and persistent perceived job insecurity over periods of about three years to almost a decade. Results show that persistent perceived job insecurity is a significant and substantively important predictor of poorer self-rated health in the American's Changing Lives (ACL) and Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) samples, and of depressive symptoms among ACL respondents. Job losses or unemployment episodes are associated with perceived job insecurity, but do not account for its association with health. Results are robust to controls for sociodemographic and job characteristics, negative reporting style, and earlier health and health behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Burgard, Sarah A. & Brand, Jennie E. & House, James S., 2009. "Perceived job insecurity and worker health in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 777-785, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:69:y:2009:i:5:p:777-785
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(09)00395-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joelson, Lars & Wahlquist, Leif, 1987. "The psychological meaning of job insecurity and job loss: Results of a longitudinal study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 179-182, January.
    2. Ferrie, J.E. & Shipley, M.J. & Marmot, M.G. & Stansfeld, S.A. & Smith, G.D., 1998. "An uncertain future: The health effects of threats to employment security in white-collar men and women," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 88(7), pages 1030-1036.
    3. Cheng, Yawen & Chen, Chun-Wan & Chen, Chiou-Jong & Chiang, Tung-liang, 2005. "Job insecurity and its association with health among employees in the Taiwanese general population," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 41-52, July.
    4. Paul D. Allison, 1994. "Using Panel Data to Estimate the Effects of Events," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 23(2), pages 174-199, November.
    5. Heaney, Catherine A. & Israel, Barbara A. & House, James S., 1994. "Chronic job insecurity among automobile workers: Effects on job satisfaction and health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1431-1437, May.
    6. William T. Gallo & Elizabeth H. Bradley & Joel A. Dubin & Richard N. Jones & Tracy A. Falba & Hsun-Mei Teng & Stanislav V. Kasl, 2006. "The Persistence of Depressive Symptoms in Older Workers Who Experience Involuntary Job Loss: Results From the Health and Retirement Survey," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 61(4), pages 221-228.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kim, Il-Ho & Muntaner, Carles & Vahid Shahidi, Faraz & Vives, Alejandra & Vanroelen, Christophe & Benach, Joan, 2012. "Welfare states, flexible employment, and health: A critical review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 99-127.
    2. Nicholas Rohde & KK Tang & Lars Osberg, 2017. "The self-reinforcing dynamics of economic insecurity and obesity," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(17), pages 1668-1678, April.
    3. Mandal, Bidisha & Ayyagari, Padmaja & Gallo, William T., 2011. "Job loss and depression: The role of subjective expectations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(4), pages 576-583, February.
    4. Lücke, Christine, 2017. "How much does others’ protection matter? Employment protection and well-being," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168096, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Christine Luecke & Andreas Knabe, 2020. "How much does others’ protection matter? Employment protection, future labour market prospects and well-being," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 893-914.
    6. Johnny Hellgren & Antonio Chirumbolo, 2003. "Can Union Support Reduce the Negative Effects of Job Insecurity on Well-Being?," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 24(2), pages 271-289, May.
    7. Murat Darçın, 2016. "Relationship Between Working Condition Quality and Perceived Quality of Society," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 1193-1205, December.
    8. László, Krisztina D. & Pikhart, Hynek & Kopp, Mária S. & Bobak, Martin & Pajak, Andrzej & Malyutina, Sofia & Salavecz, Gyöngyvér & Marmot, Michael, 2010. "Job insecurity and health: A study of 16 European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(6), pages 867-874, March.
    9. Cheng, Yawen & Chen, Chun-Wan & Chen, Chiou-Jong & Chiang, Tung-liang, 2005. "Job insecurity and its association with health among employees in the Taiwanese general population," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 41-52, July.
    10. Inmaculada Silla & Nele Cuyper & Francisco Gracia & José Peiró & Hans Witte, 2009. "Job Insecurity and Well-Being: Moderation by Employability," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(6), pages 739-751, December.
    11. Triantoro Safaria & Ahmad bin Othman & Muhammad Nubli Abdul Wahab, 2010. "Religious Coping, Job Insecurity and Job Stress among Javanese Academic Staff: a Moderated Regression Analysis," International Journal of Psychological Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 2(2), pages 159-159, December.
    12. Lynsey Romo, 2014. "“These Aren’t Very Good Times”: Financial Uncertainty Experienced by Romantic Partners in the Wake of an Economic Downturn," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 477-488, December.
    13. Eve Caroli & Mathilde Godard, 2016. "Does job insecurity deteriorate health?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 131-147, February.
    14. Lin, Tao & Wang, Donggen & Zhou, Meng, 2018. "Residential relocation and changes in travel behavior: what is the role of social context change?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 360-374.
    15. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13646 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Eve Caroli & Mathilde Godard, 2013. "Does Job Insecurity Deteriorate Health ? A Causal Approach for Europe," Working Papers 2013-13, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    17. Zhiya Hua & Dandan Ma, 2022. "Depression and Perceived Social Support among Unemployed Youths in China: Investigating the Roles of Emotion-Regulation Difficulties and Self-Efficacy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-15, April.
    18. Viviana Salinas, 2016. "Changes in Cohabitation After the Birth of the First Child in Chile," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(3), pages 351-375, June.
    19. Italo A. Gutierrez & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2017. "Whistle While You Work: Job Insecurity and Older Workers’ Mental Health in the United States," CIRANO Working Papers 2017s-21, CIRANO.
    20. Brendan Burchell, 2011. "A Temporal Comparison of the Effects of Unemployment and Job Insecurity on Wellbeing," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 16(1), pages 66-78, February.
    21. Theodossiou, I. & Vasileiou, E., 2007. "Making the risk of job loss a way of life: Does it affect job satisfaction?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 71-83, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:69:y:2009:i:5:p:777-785. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.