Labor Contract System, Employment Security, and Job Satisfaction

The Chinese government has promulgated several labor policies to improve employment relationships during the market-oriented reform period. The labor contractLabor contract system has been promoted in both public and private sectorPrivate sector enterprises. Using data from five waves of the Chinese Social SurveyChinese Social Survey (CSS) from 2013 to 2021, this study examines the impact of labor contractLabor contract types on workers’ subjective well-being (SWBEmployment relationship Subjective well-being (SWB)). Two main conclusions emerge. First, based on the ordinary least squares methodOrdinary Least Squares method (OLS), the results indicate that long-term employment positively affects job and life satisfactionLife satisfaction. The propensity score matchingPropensity Score Matching (PSM) results suggest that job and life satisfactionLife satisfaction among the long-term employment group is higher than those without labor contractsLabor contract. However, the influences of fixed-term, indefinite-term, and other types of labor contractsLabor contract on SWBEmployment relationship Subjective well-being (SWB) are insignificant. Second, the possibility of obtaining employment securityEmployment security is higher for the advantaged workers such as well-educated, men, urban workers, managers or technicians, workers in the public sectorPublic sector, and workers who have received training compared to their counterparts. These results suggest that long-term employment securityEmployment security may enhance workers’ SWBEmployment relationship Subjective well-being (SWB), while the impact of fixed-term, non-fixed term, or other types of labor contractsLabor contract on workers’ SWBEmployment relationship Subjective well-being (SWB) is insignificant, and employment securityEmployment security for disadvantaged workers is limited.