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Perceived Job Insecurity and Health Across the Life Course

by

Paul Glavin

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Sociology University of Toronto

© Copyright by Paul Glavin 2012

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Perceived Job Insecurity and Health Across the Life Course

Paul Glavin

Doctor of Philosophy

Sociology University of Toronto

2012

Abstract

Job loss and unemployment have been consistently shown to have deleterious consequences for

health. However, less is known about how insecure employment experiences and the threat of

job loss influence well-being. Given the high levels of uncertainty associated with threatened and

insecure employment, perceptions of job insecurity are thought to constitute a potent form of

work stress because the ambiguity over a future undesirable event—job loss—undermines

coping strategies and attempts at stress reduction. It has been suggested, then, that health

penalties should be greatest with prolonged exposure to this threat. Further, since the meaning of

job loss likely varies across working life, individual reactions may be contingent on life course

position. Drawing from the Stress Process Model and the life course perspective, this dissertation

explores whether the two factors of timing and duration influence the health penalties associated

with perceived job insecurity, along with its impact on personality traits that are fundamental to

well-being.

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Findings reveal the detrimental social-psychological and health implications of perceived job

insecurity based on a national panel study of American workers surveyed in 2005 and 2007.

Health penalties associated with perceived job insecurity are greatest for middle age workers

reporting prolonged exposure to the threat of job loss. In addition, a personality trait—a high

sense of personal control over one’s life—is demonstrated to alleviate the stress of perceived job

insecurity; but this trait is itself prone to erosion with prolonged exposure to insecure

employment. Collectively, this dissertation contributes to knowledge about the social-

psychological processes through which insecure employment impacts individual well-being, and

how these processes are shaped by age as a key social status and life course marker.

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Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the support and guidance from a long list

of people. I am very grateful for their help and encouragement throughout the project, and offer

them my wholehearted thanks.

I thank Scott Schieman as my mentor and chair of the dissertation. His guidance throughout the

course of my academic training has been critical; he has influenced every aspect of my scholarly

development and I cannot express my gratitude to him enough. To my dissertation committee

members, Sandy Welsh and Ronit Dinovitzer, I thank you for your time and valuable insights on

the dissertation. Thanks also go to my internal and external examiners, Brent Berry and Mark

Tausig. I am very grateful for their support and their willingness to participate in the dissertation.

I would like to thank all my friends for their support and understanding throughout my graduate

training. I could not have gotten through the process without them. To my family, I thank them

for their love, guidance and belief in me. Without the support from my parents and my brothers

and sisters, the idea of pursuing a PhD would have been nothing but a dream. I thank them for

giving me the confidence and desire to seek out and achieve my life goals.

Finally, I thank Marisa for her unyielding support. The journey here was not always an easy one.

But you have always been at my side, through good and bad, and I know that without you, this

dissertation would not have been completed. I thank you for your love, patience and above all,

your willingness to be there for me when I needed you most.

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Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction................................................................................................................ 1

Theoretical and Methodological Contributions ......................................................................... 2

The Stress Process Model ................................................................................................... 3

The Life Course Perspective ............................................................................................... 4

Age Contingencies in the Stress of Job Insecurity .............................................................. 5

Overview of the Dissertation ..................................................................................................... 6

Goals of the Dissertation ............................................................................................................ 7

References ....................................................................................................................................... 8

Chapter 2. Perceived Job Insecurity and Health Across the Life Course ............................. 10

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 10

Literature Review ..................................................................................................................... 12

Perceived Job Insecurity and Health ................................................................................. 12

Job Insecurity Across the Life Course .............................................................................. 14

Job Insecurity and Absenteeism ........................................................................................ 18

Data and Methods .................................................................................................................... 20

Measures ........................................................................................................................... 20

Plan of Analyses ............................................................................................................... 24

Results ...................................................................................................................................... 25

Descriptives ....................................................................................................................... 25

Multivariate Analyses ....................................................................................................... 25

Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 27

Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 31

References ..................................................................................................................................... 32

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Chapter 3. Control in the Face of Uncertainty: The Sense of Personal Control and the Link between Job Insecurity and Distress ........................................................................... 44

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 44


Job Insecurity and Health .................................................................................................. 45

Does the Sense of Control Buffer the Stress of Job insecurity? ....................................... 46

Sense of Control as a Mediator ......................................................................................... 48

Age Contingencies ............................................................................................................ 49

Data and Methods .................................................................................................................... 50

Measures ........................................................................................................................... 51

Plan of Analyses ............................................................................................................... 54

Results ...................................................................................................................................... 55

Descriptives ....................................................................................................................... 55


Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 57

Age Contingencies ............................................................................................................ 59

American-Canadian Comparisons .................................................................................... 60

Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 62

Notes ........................................................................................................................................ 63

References ..................................................................................................................................... 64

Chapter 4. The Consequences of Job Insecurity and Job Degradation for the Sense of Personal Control..................................................................................................................... 74

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 74


The Sense of Personal Control .......................................................................................... 75

Job Insecurity and Feelings of Powerlessness .................................................................. 76

Job Degradation as a Mediator ......................................................................................... 78

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Contingencies: Duration and Life Course Timing ............................................................ 80

Data and Methods .................................................................................................................... 81

Measures ........................................................................................................................... 82

Plan of Analyses ............................................................................................................... 84

Results ...................................................................................................................................... 85

Descriptives ....................................................................................................................... 85


Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 88

Duration and Timing ......................................................................................................... 88

The Contribution of Job Degradation ............................................................................... 90

Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 92

References ..................................................................................................................................... 93

Chapter 5. Conclusions and Discussion .................................................................................. 101

Overview of Contribution and Themes .................................................................................. 101

Declining Job Security .................................................................................................... 101

The Duration and Life Course Timing of Job Insecurity ................................................ 102

The Sense of Control and the Link between Job Insecurity and Distress ....................... 102

Examining the Sense of Control as an Outcome of Job Insecurity ................................. 103

Summary ................................................................................................................................ 104

Limitations ............................................................................................................................. 105

Future Research ...................................................................................................................... 107

References ................................................................................................................................... 110

Appendix I .................................................................................................................................. 112

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List of Tables Table 2.1 Means and Proportions of all Study Variables ............................................................. 37

Table 2.2 Regression of Psychological Distress, Anger, and Self-rated Poor Health at wave 2 on

Perceived Job Insecurity ............................................................................................................... 38

Table 2.3 Regression of Days Absent from Work at wave 2 (logged) on Perceived Job Insecurity

....................................................................................................................................................... 40

Table 3.1 Means and Proportions of all CAN-WSH Study Variables .......................................... 68

Table 3.2 Means and Proportions of all WSH Study Variables ................................................... 69

Table 3.3 Regression of Psychological Distress on Focal Independent Variables (CAN-WSH) . 70

Table 3.4 Regression of Psychological Distress on Focal Independent Variables (WSH)........... 72

Table 4.1 Means and Proportions of all Study Variables ............................................................. 97

Table 4.2 Regression of Excessive Job Pressures and Decision-making Latitude at Wave 2 on

Perceived Job Insecurity ............................................................................................................... 98

Table 4.3 Regression of Sense of Personal Control at wave 2 on Perceived Job Insecurity ........ 99

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List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Age Differences in the Effect of Job Insecurity on Psychological Distress ................ 41

Figure 2.2 Age Differences in the Effect of Job Insecurity on Anger .......................................... 42

Figure 2.3 Age Differences in the Effect of Job Insecurity on Self-rated Poor Health ................ 43

Figure 4.1 Age Contingencies in the Association between Insecurity and Sense of Control ..... 100

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List of Appendices

Appendix I. Predicting the Hazard of Attrition .......................................................................... 112

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Chapter 1 Introduction

Social, economic and political forces over the last three decades have changed the structure of

employment relations in the United States (Kalleberg 2011). One key aspect of the changing

landscape of work in recent decades has been the decline in secure and stable employment. As

American firms have responded to global competition and economic uncertainty by adopting

mean and lean organizational strategies that include downsizing and the favoring of fixed term

contracts over permanent positions, job insecurity has become an increasingly widespread

experience for workers (Fullerton and Wallace 2007; Vallas 1999). Industrial restructuring and

the decline of the manufacturing-base in the United States have also led to the disappearance of

many once-secure blue-collar jobs (Kalleberg 2009). These economic and labour market trends

have led to a widespread erosion of the post-World War II social contract between capital and

labour—a contract that specified the exchange of worker commitment for employer-guaranteed

secure employment (Farber 2010).

The growth of job insecurity has drawn attention from scholars interested in its consequences for

worker health (Burgard, Brand, and House 2009; Tausig and Fenwick 1999). While some have

examined this issue using macroeconomic data (Fenwick and Tausig 1994; Tausig and Fenwick

1999), job insecurity is often examined with respect to workers’ perceptions of the security of

their current job—referred to as ‘perceived job insecurity’ (Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt 1984).

Research indicates that individuals who perceive their job to be insecure are more likely to report

anxiety, depressive symptoms, and poor physical health (Barling and Kelloway 1996; Burgard et

al. 2009; De Witte 1999). As a result, the perception of job insecurity is considered an important

emerging source of work stress (Sverke and Hellgren 2002).

Despite the growing body of evidence linking perceived job insecurity to poor health, the

specific mechanisms and conditions describing this process remain under-identified. Central to

this is the extent that the timing and duration of job insecurity represent contextual factors that

influence its health penalties. Comparatively little is known about whether the health penalties of

perceived job insecurity are universally experienced, or if they depend on the length of the

experience, and the stage in working life that it is encountered. Additionally, the role of

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personality in these processes remains unclear; particularly with regard to whether personality

traits mediate or moderate the connections between job insecurity and health. In sum, while the

existing literature is suggestive of these factors and social-psychological linkages, it is limited

by: (1) the absence of a solid theoretical framework upon which to collectively integrate

predictions about timing, duration and personality contingencies, and (2) its general reliance on

small-convenience based and cross-sectional samples that make generalizations to wider

populations difficult, and that limit propositions regarding causality.

This dissertation addresses these limitations by using the Stress Process Model and insights from

the life course perspective to consider the social-psychological processes through which

perceived job insecurity impacts individual health, and how these processes are shaped by age as

a key social status and life course marker. To this end, I principally utilize survey data from a

nationally representative and longitudinal survey of American workers conducted in 2005 and

2007; this is an ideal data source for examining whether the health penalties of perceived job

insecurity vary according to the duration of the experience and its timing in the life course. The

survey also includes a state of the art measure of the sense of control, an important personal

resource that has been shown to buffer the effects of stressful experiences on health (Mirowsky

and Ross 2003), but one that has received inadequate attention with regards to workers facing the

threat of job loss. Integrating insights from the Stress Process Model and the life course

perspective to examine these unique data, I advance understanding on the nature of perceived job

insecurity as a stressor, and the processes through which it connects to mental and physical

health.

Theoretical and Methodological Contributions I extend existing theoretical and empirical research on perceived job insecurity by combining

insights from the Stress Process Model and the life course perspective (Elder 1998; Pearlin et al.

1981). Here, I conceptualize the experience of job insecurity as one that operates uniquely over

time, and one that is personally negotiated within temporal and contextual constraints. Drawing

from the Stress Process Model, I argue that the duration of job insecurity and the role of

personal resources represent key factors that influence its health penalties. Integrating insights

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from the life course perspective with this theoretical framework enables a consideration of the

role of life course timing—and therefore age contingencies—in the process. I outline these

theoretical perspectives in turn, and their integration.

The Stress Process Model

The Stress Process Model represents a central theoretical framework in the sociological study of

stress (Pearlin et al. 1981). The model identifies the ways that stressors influence health, and the

mediating or moderating influence of psychosocial resources (Pearlin 1999; Thoits 2006). The

model describes the ways that social statuses and roles influence exposure to stressors, along

with the available resources for dealing with stress, and the ways that stressors lead to particular

physical and mental health problems. At its core, the model can be split into three domains that

link together to describe the stress process. First, different sources of stress are distinguished,

such as whether a stressor is an acute, event-based strain, or a durable, chronic strain. Second, the

model outlines how personal resources, including feelings of mastery and the sense of control,

moderate the effects of stressors on health. Third, it specifies the various outcomes of stress (e.g.

mental and physical health, behavioral problems) and how they pertain to different stressors.

Within the stress process model, perceived job insecurity is situated as a role stressor that

involves the anticipation of an undesirable event that is both uncontrollable and unpredictable

(Pearlin et al. 1981). Given that the threat of job loss may be experienced for extended periods of

time, and may not have a clear start or end point, it is typically considered a chronic stressor

rather being than experienced as an acute event like actual job loss (Wheaton 1999). It is argued

that its uncertain, uncontrollable nature represents part of the mechanism that makes job

insecurity stressful, given that high levels uncertainty can have paralyzing effects on the coping

process (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). The proximal health penalties of perceived job insecurity

are expected to manifest themselves through increased anxiety and negative emotional states

such as feelings of anger. However, if the experience is prolonged it may also lead to more

serious mental and physical health problems (Burgard et al. 2009; Sverke and Hellgren 2002). It

is expected that these penalties may be less for those with high levels of perceived personal

control, also referred to as the sense of control—a personal resource that may help to mitigate the

stress associated with uncertain, unpredictable, and tenuous employment experiences (Pearlin et

al. 2005).

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The sense of control is the generalized belief that one can control meaningful events in their life

(Wheaton 1983). As a psychological disposition that promotes active coping strategies for

dealing with the daily challenges of life, the sense of control is linked to healthy mental and

physical functioning (Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Wheaton 1983). Within the framework of the

Stress Process Model, a high sense of control is expected to reduce the effects of stressors on

health. However, in addition to this buffering effect, the sense of control may play a further role

in the stress of perceived job insecurity. Since the sense of control is not a static aspect of

personality but rather one that is shaped by objective, social conditions (Pearlin and Skaff 1996),

the powerlessness to control one’s economic future may indirectly influence health by eroding

the sense that one controls important aspects of their life. The sense of control may therefore

constitute not only a buffering process in the links between perceived job insecurity and health,

but also a mediating mechanism through which the threat of job loss leads to health problems.

While the Stress Process Model offers an interpretive and predictive framework for

conceptualizing perceived job insecurity as a stressor, inadequacies exist with respect to its

treatment of age and life course contingencies. Despite the fact that it acknowledges the potential

role of social statuses in shaping the experience and outcomes of stress, until recently the model

had remained relatively silent on how the stress process is shaped by life course position. As

Miech and Shanahan (2000:163) observe, much of the stress literature continues to rest on the

“implicit conception of the “ageless adult” who experiences the same stressors and reacts to them

the same way from age 18 until the end of life.” Some, however, have highlighted the benefits of

an allegiance between the Stress Process Model and the life course perspective (Pearlin and

Skaff 1996). I respond to this call by integrating insights from the life course perspective to more

fully flesh-out predictions regarding life course contingencies in the stress of perceived job

insecurity.

The Life Course Perspective

Core to the life course perspective is the observation that temporality and historicity matter for

understanding life experiences and events (Elder 1998). As part of this, the perspective outlines a

set of principles that emphasize the importance of considering the timing and sequencing of life

experiences and how they influence outcomes later in one’s life—principles that are useful to the

study of stress (George 2007). Life course researchers argue, for example, that while individuals

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are active agents who exert some control over their responses to life experiences and future life

course trajectories, these reactions and choices are nevertheless constrained by a predefined

social structure and historical context not of their choosing. Additionally, the life course principle

of linked lives observes the interdependence of individuals within social networks and the family;

thus outlining how life events and experiences are shaped by broader social contexts in which

individuals are embedded (Elder 1998).

With respect to the stress of perceived job insecurity, I argue that the life course timing of job

insecurity should shape the meanings and consequences that individuals attach to the threat of

job loss, and subsequent health penalties. Specifically, I suggest that labour market experiences

and family obligations that vary over working life, along with expectations about acceptable

work conditions, may be relevant factors that influence both the level of threat that an individual

attaches to job loss, and their perception of their available resources to deal with the threat.

Additionally the sequencing and proximity of job insecurity relative to a key important stage in

the life course—retirement—represents an additional factor that should shape the meaning that

an individual attaches to the experience. Drawing from the life course perspective, then, I extend

on the Stress Process Model’s treatment of perceived job insecurity as a stressor by

acknowledging the role that individuals play in negotiating the meaning of the experience, but

within a set of social-structural parameters not of their choosing; specifically, the timing and

sequencing of the event in working life.

Age Contingencies in the Stress of Job Insecurity

Integrating insights from the Stress Process Model and the life course perspective, I derive a set

of hypotheses that specify how the length and timing of the experience should act as key factors

that influence its health penalties. First, as a chronic stressor, sustained exposure to the

experience may be required for health penalties to be experienced. Second, age should moderate

the extent that perceived job insecurity is stressful, given the different meanings that individuals

attach to job loss across the life course. To this end, I present two competing hypotheses

regarding age contingencies. The stress of aging hypothesis suggests that health penalties should

be greatest in late-working life, given that older workers experience greater economic penalties

due to job loss, in the form of longer job search times and lower wages after rehire (Hirsch,

Macpherson, and Hardy 2000); penalties that should shape the anxiety associated with the threat

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of job loss. Alternatively, the stress of middle age hypothesis suggests that health penalties

should peak during middle age when the age-related economic penalties associated with job loss

begin to increase, and when family-related obligations tend to be highest (Erikson 1998). These

age hypotheses extend research on perceived job insecurity by moving beyond the “ageless

adult” assumption in which job insecurity is seen as uniform in its meaning and potency as a

stressor across the life course.

To test these hypotheses, I analyze two waves of panel data from a nationally representative

survey of American workers. The design of the study allows for an examination of both the

duration and life course timing of job insecurity as factors that may influence its health penalties,

as well as changes in personality traits (i.e. the sense of control) that may moderate and mediate

these penalties. Additionally, I supplement these analyses with a second cross-sectional survey of

Canadian workers—a study that has the advantage of being based on a much larger sample,

allowing therefore for a more refined investigation of age contingencies.

Overview of the Dissertation This dissertation draws from the Work, Stress and Health study (WSH), a longitudinal survey of

American workers conducted in 2005 and 2007, and the first wave of its Canadian equivalent:

the CAN-WSH, a national survey of Canadian workers conducted in 2011. The piece in its

entirety includes three independently publishable papers and the present common introductory

chapter, along with a concluding chapter. Each of these papers can be considered independent

projects, but together, they represent an overarching modeling of the stress process applied to the

experience of the threat of job loss.

The first paper (chapter 2) examines the extent that duration and life course timing shape the

health penalties associated with perceived job insecurity. Drawing from panel survey data based

on the WSH study, the paper compares the effects of episodic and prolonged exposure to job

insecurity as they pertain to three indicators of mental and physical health. Additionally, two

competing hypotheses are tested with regards to the life course timing of job insecurity and

subsequent health disparities. The second paper (chapter 3) examines the role of an important

personality trait—the sense of control—in both moderating and mediating the stress of perceived

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job insecurity. Here, survey data from the first wave of the WSH study and the CAN-WSH

survey are examined to assess direct and indirect links between perceived job insecurity and

mental health. Given, the large sample sizes of these cross-sectional surveys, more refined age

contingencies are also tested to consider how the stress of perceived job insecurity may vary

across the life course. This has the advantage of examining specific stages within middle age, for

example, and how they relate to job insecurity and health. The third paper (chapter 4) considers

how personality traits may be shaped over time in response to job insecurity. This involves an

analysis of the American WSH panel survey data to examine: 1) whether perceived job

insecurity erodes the sense of control over time, 2) potential explanations—in terms of other

aspects of job quality—for this effect, and 3) whether the strength of any effect varies across age.

Chapter 5 summarizes the general findings and contributions of this dissertation and also

discusses its limitations, alongside future directions and plans for further research.

Goals of the Dissertation Three goals motivate this research. Job insecurity is an increasingly common labour market

experience in the United States and Canada—one that is not simply a result of periodic economic

and financial crises, but the result of long-term structural economic changes that will not reverse

in the foreseeable future (Fullerton and Wallace 2007). The ‘human’ impact of these economic

and labour market trends is an issue of vital importance and one that guides this dissertation. As

such, perceived job insecurity is an experience that merits further scholarly examination in order

to understand its health consequences for workers. Second, the study of labour market

experiences as they pertain across the life course—and older workers in particular—represents

an area requiring further attention. The American workforce is aging—those 50 and older will

account for 35 percent of the workforce by 2019 (Toossi 2009). Further research on the health

implications of job insecurity for this aging workforce is therefore warranted. Finally, I seek to

contribute to the theoretical and empirical literature on the stress process by integrating ideas and

concepts from the life course perspective. Stress researchers are increasingly turning to the life

course perspective as a means to contextualize the stress process; this dissertation seeks to

advance these efforts.

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References Barling, Julian, and E. Kevin Kelloway. 1996. “Job Insecurity and Health: The Moderating Role

of Workplace Control.” Stress Medicine 12:253-259.

Burgard, Sarah A., Jennie Brand, and James S. House. 2009. “Perceived Job Insecurity and Worker Health in the United States.” Social Science & Medicine 69:777-785.

De Witte, Hans. 1999. “Job Insecurity and Psychological Health: Review of the Literature and Exploration of Some Unresolved Issues.” European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology 8:155-177.

Elder, Glen H., Jr. 1998. “Life Course Theory and Human Development.” Sociological Analysis 1:1-12.

Erikson, Erik. H. 1998. The Life Cycle Completed. NY: Norton.

Farber, Henry S. 2010. “Job Loss and the Decline of Job Security in the United States.” Pp. 223-267 in Labour in the New Economy edited by Katherine Abraham, James Spletzer and Michael Harper. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Fenwick, Rudy. and Mark Tausig. 1994. “The Macroeconomic Context of Job Stress.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 35:266–282.

Fullerton, Andrew S. and Michael Wallace. 2007. “Traversing the Flexible Turn: US Workers’ Perceptions of Job Security, 1977–2002.” Social Science Research 36:201-221.

Hirsch, Barry T., David A. MacPherson, and Melissa A. Hardy. 2000. “Occupational Age Structure and Access for Older Workers.” Industrial and Labour Relations Review 53: 401–418.

George, Linda K. 2007. “Life Course Perspectives on Social Factors and Mental Illness.” In W.R. Avison, J. D. Mcleod and B. A. Pescolsolido. Mental Health, Social Mirror (p.191-218). New York, Springer.

Greenhalgh, Leonard, and Zehava Rosenblatt. 1984. “Job Insecurity: Toward Conceptual Clarity.” Academy of Management Review 3:438–448.

Kalleberg, Arne L. 2009. “Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition.” American Sociological Review 74:1–22.

______. 2011. Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s-2000s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, American Sociological Association Rose Series in Sociology.

Lazarus, Richard S. and Susan Folkman. 1984. Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York: Springer.

Miech, Allen M. and Michael J. Shanahan. 2000. “Socioeconomic Status and Depression of the Life Course.” Journal of Health And Social Behavior 41:162-176.

Mirowsky, John, and Catherine E. Ross. 2003. Social Causes of Psychological Distress. Hawthorne, New York: Aldine De Gruyter.

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Pearlin, Leonard I. 1999. “Stress and Mental Health: A Conceptual Overview.” Pp. 161–75 in Handbook for the Study of Mental Health: Social Contexts, Theories, and Systems, edited by Allan V. Horwitz and Teresa L. Scheid. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Pearlin, Leonard I., Morton Lieberman, Elizabeth Menaghan, and Joseph Mullan. 1981. “The Stress Process.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 22:337–56.

Pearlin, Leonard I. and Marilyn M. Skaff. 1996. “Stress and the Life Course: A Paradigmatic Alliance.” The Gerontologist 36:239-247.

Pearlin, Leonard I., Scott Schieman, Elena Fazio, and Stephen C. Meersman. 2005. “Stress, Health, and the Life Course: Some Conceptual Specifications.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 46:205–19.

Sverke, Magnus, and Johnny Hellgren. 2002. “The Nature of Job Insecurity: Understanding Employment Uncertainty on the Brink of a New Millennium.” Applied Psychology 51:23–42.

Tausig, Mark, and Rudy Fenwick. 1999. “Recession and Well-being.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 40:1-16.

Thoits, Peggy. 2006. “Personal Agency in the Stress Process.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 47:309-323.

Toossi, Mitra. 2009. “Labour Force Projections to 2018: Older Workers Staying More Active.” Monthly Labour Review November 30–51.

Vallas, Steven P. 1999. “Rethinking Post-Fordism: The Meaning of Workplace Flexibility.” Sociological Theory 17:68−101.

Wheaton, Blair. 1983. “Stress, Personal Coping Resources, and Psychiatric Symptoms: An Investigation of Interactive Models.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 24:100-24.

______. 1999. “Social Stress.” Pp. 277-300 in The Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health, edited by C.S. Aneshensel and J.C. Phelan. Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

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Chapter 2 Perceived Job Insecurity and Health Across the Life Course

Introduction Labour market changes in recent decades have exposed American workers to a growing sense of

uncertainty about their future employment (Kalleberg 2011). In response to increased global

competition and economic recessions, American firms have engaged in downsizing, plant

closures, and the replacement of full-time, permanent positions with fixed and short-term

employment contracts. This restructuring has contributed to the general decline in job security

over the last thirty years in the United States (Farber 2010). Researchers interested in the

implications of these changes for workers’ health have found that individuals who perceive their

job to be insecure are more likely to report anxiety, anger and depressive symptoms (Barling and

Kelloway 1996; De Witte 1999). Longitudinal research also reveals that prolonged exposure to

job insecurity reduces physical health, and in some cases has more detrimental health effects than

actual job loss (Burgard, Brand, and House 2009; Heaney, Israel, and House 1994; Lee et al.

2004). As a result, perceived job insecurity is widely accepted as an important contemporary

source of work stress (Sverke and Hellgren 2002).

According to the Stress Process Model, perceived job insecurity is considered a ‘chronic

stressor’, whose effects on health may take some time to be realized (Pearlin et al. 1981;

Wheaton 1999). Drawing from this model, I compare the effects of short-term and long-term

exposure to job insecurity on a variety of health outcomes. I suggest that the duration of the

experience may alter both the extent that the experience is damaging to health, as well as

influencing different aspects of mental and emotional health. While general mental health

penalties may be experienced only with sustained exposure to the threat of job loss, short-term

exposure to this threat may be associated with emotional problems, such as feelings of anger.

How the timing and specific health penalties of perceived job insecurity play out remains an

under-identified area in existing research.

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An additional under-examined issue concerns whether the severity of perceived job insecurity’s

health penalties operate uniformly across the life course. While the Stress Process Model

acknowledges the role of social statuses in influencing exposure to stress, its treatment of stress

across the life course is lacking (Elder 1998; Pearlin and Skaff 1996). There is good reason,

however, to consider how job insecurity may operate uniquely across the life course as a stressor.

Since older workers who encounter job loss take longer to find reemployment and experience

greater wage penalties after rehire, the meaning of the threat of job loss—and the anxiety

experienced as a result—may change over the life course, as individuals encounter different

labour market constraints and opportunities, and acquire new statuses and associated obligations.

Thus, I examine age contingencies in the association between job insecurity and health. One

possibility is that the stress and subsequent health effects of job insecurity are stronger among

older workers, given that labour market penalties associated with job loss tend to be more acute

as workers age (Hirsch, Macpherson, and Hardy 2000). Alternatively, the health penalties of job

insecurity may peak during middle age when family obligations tend to be greatest and early

retirement is not a feasible solution to potential job loss. To-date, no research has considered age

contingencies in the stress of job insecurity using nationally representative survey data.

This paper addresses these weaknesses in the existing literature by integrating insights from the

life course perspective with the Stress Process Model to consider the temporal health penalties of

job insecurity across the life course. To do this, I use panel survey data following a national

sample of American workers in 2005 and 2007. Since the health effects of job insecurity may

operate over a longer-time frame that make their detection difficult when examined with cross-

sectional studies (Burgard et al. 2009), a longitudinal research design is therefore ideal for

comparing the health effects of episodic versus prolonged exposure to job insecurity. In the

following sections, I review the existing literature on job insecurity as a chronic stressor, before

discussing potential age contingencies in this relationship.

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Literature Review

Perceived Job Insecurity and Health

Scholars have long demonstrated the impact of unemployment on health (Kessler, House and

Turner 1989; Schaufeli 1992; Tausig and Fenwick 1999). However, recent attention has focused

on the health consequences of the threat of unemployment, typically referred to as ‘perceived job

insecurity’ (Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt 1984). In one of the earliest studies of job insecurity,

Greenhalgh (1979) examined the experiences of New York state hospital workers facing

widespread downsizing, noting the deep levels of anxiety and trauma of workers who survived

the layoffs. Subsequent studies of firm closures and downsizing have demonstrated similar

findings regarding the experiences of remaining workers (Brockner 1990; Jick and Greenhalgh

1989).

Systematic economic and industrial restructuring since the 1980s has meant that job insecurity

has become an increasingly widespread experience that is not limited to workers surviving

downsizing. Firms’ efforts to improve efficiency by downsizing and relying more heavily upon

contingent work contracts have exposed workers from a wide variety of backgrounds to job

insecurity—those in blue-collar and white-collar work, and those with temporary or full-time

contracts (Kalleberg 2009; Polivka and Nardone 1989). In response to these economic trends,

survey researchers have developed self-reported measures of perceived job insecurity in order to

examine its prevalence and consequences in the wider workforce (Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt

1984). These questions examine either an individual’s worry or concern about their job security,

or their assessment of the likelihood that they will lose their job in the future. In comparison to

more objective indicators, such as firm layoffs and economic recessions, self-reported measures

of job insecurity are useful in that they are sensitive to individual differences in the subjective

interpretation of these events; despite this, research shows that perceived job insecurity is

correlated with more objective indicators of insecurity (Elman and O’Rand 2002).

According to the Stress Process Model, perceived job insecurity is considered a classic role

stressor that involves the anticipation of an undesirable event that is both uncontrollable and

unpredictable (Pearlin et al. 1981; Wheaton 1999). Here, the uncertainty surrounding future job

loss itself may function to reduce health (De Witte 1999; Lazarus and Folkman 1984). In contrast

13

to an actual event that an individual can directly observe and respond to—such as job loss—the

very ambiguity and uncertainty about the threat of job loss hinders an individual’s ability to

resolve or alleviate the threat. In fact, some suggest that perceived job insecurity might represent

a more potent stressor than job loss or episodes of unemployment (Burgard et al. 2009).

The Stress Process Model represents a useful framework to interpret job insecurity as a stressor

because of the model’s attention to how the duration of a stressor may influence the extent and

nature of its health consequences (Wheaton and Reid 2007). The model distinguishes between

different sources of stress, such as whether a stressor is experienced as an acute, event-based

strain, or whether it represents a durable, chronic strain. Job insecurity is generally framed as a

chronic stressor. As Wheaton (1999, p. 282) explains, chronic stressors “do not necessarily start

as an event but develop slowly and insidiously as continuing and problematic conditions in our

social environment or roles…” Here, the threat of job loss may be a contextual and ever-present

experience, given its potentially ambiguous and uncertain nature, where anxiety over a layoff

flows across work and nonwork roles. The implications of this for well-being are that health

penalties may occur more gradually for a chronic stressor than compared to the experience of

event-based stressors, such as the loss of a loved one or one’s job (Burgard et al. 2009).

Biological stress response theories, for example, describe how prolonged anxiety over an

imagined or real threat can generate an ‘allostatic load,’ whereby recurrent activation of the

body’s stress-response system gradually compromises autoimmune system functioning, reducing

resistance to other health problems or stressors (Seeman et al. 2001).

There is some empirical evidence that provides support for job insecurity as a chronic stressor.

Burgard and colleagues (2009) find stronger negative health effects for persistent job insecurity

in comparison to episodic experiences of insecurity in two longitudinal studies of American

workers. Similarly, researchers in the classic British Whitehall study found that civil servants

who experienced persistent job insecurity reported an increase in psychiatric morbidity and a

decline in self-reported health over a period of two years (Ferrie et al. 1995). Although

empirically unexamined, it is possible that short-term exposure may nevertheless have severe

penalties for certain aspects of health, such as emotional well-being. Psychological contract

theory (Rousseau 1995) suggests that the onset of job insecurity for some workers may represent

a break in the normative employer-employee relationship, which has been historically bound by

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the mutual exchange of worker commitment for employer-guaranteed secure employment. The

violation of this norm may therefore result in negative emotional reactions, such as feelings of

anger and frustration that are experienced shortly after the onset of the violation.

Thus, based on the Stress Process Model and existing literature on the health consequences of the

threat of job loss, I consider job insecurity as a chronic role stressor, given its non-discrete nature

and its longer time frame in comparison to life events such as job loss (Wheaton 1999). The

negative health consequences of job insecurity should therefore be contingent on the duration of

the experience, with more profound effects resulting from prolonged exposure; short-term health

penalties may manifest themselves with respect to emotional aspects of mental well-being,

however.

Job Insecurity across the Life Course

Despite the growing body of knowledge on the link between job insecurity and health,

comparatively less is known about whether its health consequences are experienced uniformly

across age and the life course. There are various reasons to consider why age might be relevant

to the experience of job insecurity. First, research finds that job insecurity is growing in

prevalence among older age groups. In the last two decades, workers in their forties and older

have experienced a decline in average tenure length and an increase in job displacement rates

(Farber 2008). Traditionally protected from job loss due to their greater experience and

organizational tenure, economic restructuring has eroded the “life-time employment contract”

enjoyed by older workers, and in many cases actually penalized them (Kalleberg 1996; Salzman

1998). Their higher levels of human capital and once-advantageous group memberships (e.g.

union membership) have made them prime candidates for involuntary redundancy, as employers

adopt cost-cutting strategies that involve replacing well-paid older employees with cheaper,

younger workers (Fallick 1996).

Second, there is limited, but conflicting, evidence that age contingencies exist in the stress of job

insecurity. For example, a study by Kasl and colleagues (1975) that examined the health

experiences of men facing job loss in two manufacturing plants found that younger workers were

more likely to report health problems in the anticipatory stage before job loss. However, in a

meta-analysis of job insecurity studies, Cheng and Chan (2008) find evidence of an opposite

15

pattern: older age brought with it disproportionately higher health penalties as a result of job

insecurity.

The life course perspective represents a potentially useful framework for addressing the limited

and conflicting evidence on age contingencies. Life course researchers emphasize the importance

of taking into account the temporal and historical nature of life experiences, and how they may

be linked to later events and experiences in individuals’ lives (Elder 1998). Recently, stress

researchers have called for an allegiance with the life course perspective, arguing that a

consideration of the life course offers several advantages to the study of stress (Pearlin and Skaff

1996). I briefly outline these benefits and discuss their relevance to perceived job insecurity.

It is suggested that when applied to the experience of stress, the life course principles of timing

and trajectories illuminate how stressors may be contingent on contextual experiences that vary

across the life course, as well as individuals’ past and future life paths (Turner and Schieman

2007). The stress associated with a role transition like divorce, for example, may depend on the

past quality of the relationship being exited, as well as one’s future opportunities for meeting

new partners (Wheaton 1990). Additionally, acknowledging the historical context that a stressor

is experienced, and the historical period of a specific cohort of individuals encountering the

stressor, allows stress researchers to consider how historicity influences the consequences of

stressors for well-being. For example, divorce may entail less stigma and stress for younger

cohorts than compared to older cohorts who grew up in an era in which separation was less

common. Collectively, these observations suggest that life course timing and role trajectories, as

well as historical context, may serve to shape the meaning of stressors and an individual’s

perceptions of the resources they have to deal with stress (Pearlin and Skaff 1996).

Applying these principles to the threat of job loss, I suggest that 1) the life course timing of the

experience, 2) one’s current career trajectory and 3) cohort differences, may combine to shape

the meaning of this threat. The timing in which job loss occurs over the life course brings with it

varying prospects for reemployment, along with uneven financial consequences, given that

family obligations tend to vary over working life. An individual’s future career trajectory, such

as their proximity to retirement, may also serve to shape the inferred consequential nature of job

loss; if one is close to retirement, the threat may take on a different meaning compared to an

individual in the formative stages of their career. Finally, different cohorts of workers may react

16

to uncertainty over one’s continuing employment in different ways. Older workers, for whom job

security was a more normative work experience in their early working life (Farber 2010), may

view the contemporary threat of job loss differently from younger workers, who have grown up

in an era defined by labour market instability.

Based on these principles, I derive two hypotheses regarding differences in the experience of,

and meanings that individuals attach to the threat of job loss across the life course.

Stress of Aging Hypothesis

The ‘stress of aging’ hypothesis points to evidence that older workers who encounter job loss

experience more severe economic penalties. Older workers who are laid-off take longer to find

re-employment and encounter greater earnings losses in their new jobs (Hirsch et al. 2000).

Using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation between 1996 and 2004,

Johnson and Mommaerts (2011) found that displaced older men (i.e. age 50-61) were around

forty-percent less likely to become re-employed each subsequent month after job loss. Upon

rehire, these workers experienced a wage loss of twenty-percent in comparison to the two-

percent loss experienced by their younger counterparts. While not as severe, displaced older

women encountered comparable penalties. Similar age-disparities in the consequences of job loss

have been documented elsewhere (Couch 1998; Couch, Jolly, and Placzek 2009). In part, the

disproportionate wage losses that older workers experience reflects their inability to translate

firm-specific human capital acquired in their previous job into equivalent wages upon rehire

(Becker 1962; Farber 1993). However, a portion of these wage losses and the longer search

periods after job displacement are a product of discriminatory age practices by employers who

often view older workers as less adaptable, difficult and costly to train (Bendick, Brown, and

Wall 1999; Rodriquez and Zavodny 2003). These challenges that older workers face in the

labour market should therefore shape the degree of threat that they attach to the risk of job loss.

Labour market constraints may not be the only factor that shapes the meaning of job loss for

older workers; in accordance with psychological contract theory, older workers should also view

job insecurity as a stronger violation of the normative employer-employee contract because of

their on-average longer tenure lengths with their employer (Farber 2008; Rousseau 1995).

Additionally, the formative stages of older workers’ careers—many of whom are from the baby

17

boomer generation—were characterized by high levels of job security, with often the expectation

of holding employment with a single employer for life (Farber 2010). These early work

experiences may have fostered beliefs about appropriate treatment from employers; beliefs that

imbue the meaning and experience of insecure employment as particularly unsettling within this

cohort. Younger generations of workers, in contrast, including those of generation ‘X’ and ‘Y,’

entered the labour market in the 1980s and onwards, when rates of job displacement and job

mobility were on an upward trend (Fullerton and Wallace 2007; Farber 2010). For these workers,

risk of job loss may represent a more ‘normal’ and acceptable feature of working life.

Thus, given the greater labour market penalties and challenges experienced by those seeking

employment in later-working life, along with cohort-specific expectations regarding job security,

I test a ‘stress of aging’ hypothesis that predicts that the stress and health effects associated with

perceived job insecurity should increase with age.

Stress of Middle Age Hypothesis

The ‘stress of middle age’ hypothesis, in contrast, suggests that the meaning of job insecurity

should be most salient during middle age, rather than late-working age. While both middle age

and older workers experience greater economic penalties due to job loss than those in the earlier

stages of their careers, the consequences of these penalties may be disproportionately higher

during middle age when family-related financial obligations tend to be greatest (Brenner 1973;

Erikson 1998). In contrast to middle age, individuals in the later stages of their careers have

fewer family dependants, and therefore may be better able to adjust to the economic penalties of

job loss. Indeed, other research finds that, regardless of family demands, older individuals are

better able to deal with challenges associated with economic hardship in general (Mirowsky and

Ross 2001).

The different career trajectories of middle age and older workers may also serve to imbue the

threat of job loss with different meanings and connotations. Many older workers who encounter

job loss may become discouraged and enter involuntary retirement. This is in part, of course,

because of the limited employment options for workers in later life (Szinovacz and Davey 2005),

but also because of their greater access to social security benefits and private pension plans that

may make early retirement feasible, if not desirable. Hence, for older workers the onset of job

18

insecurity and the threat of job loss may prompt thoughts about a premature transition into

retirement rather than feelings of anxiety.

It is also possible that cohort differences in expectations about job security create the most

frustration for middle age workers. As a group that were raised by a baby-boomer generation that

experienced job security and good promotion opportunities—job conditions that were

particularly enjoyed at middle age during the golden era of American capitalism—contemporary

middle age workers may be uniquely positioned in that they retain career aspirations and

expectations for their prime work years; but face a contemporary labour market that obstructs

these aspirations. It may be this generation, sandwiched between baby-boomers and young

workers, that experience the greatest incongruency between their job expectations and the reality

of the contemporary labour market; in other words, frustrations about job insecurity for this

group may arise out a combination of both cohort and age-related factors.

Consequently, an alternative hypothesis to the ‘stress of aging’ hypothesis predicts that the

experience of job insecurity is most harmful for health during middle age, due to cohort

differences in the meaning of job insecurity, and when the economic penalties associated with

job loss are most disruptive to meeting family obligations. The stress and health effects of

perceived job insecurity should therefore operate across age in a nonlinear fashion, with the

most severe effects experienced during middle age.

Job Insecurity and Absenteeism

While the Stress Process Model has been mainly used to examine the links between stress and

health, behavioral outcomes of relevance for health have also been assessed; for example

problem drinking (Wheaton 1999). Given the potential health consequences of job insecurity,

therefore, I briefly consider its relevance to work absenteeism—a behavior that may be a

consequent of reduced well-being, but also a predictor of poor health if workers with health

problems reduce absenteeism due to anxiety over job loss.

Two general perspectives inform understanding on absenteeism (Koslowsky 2009). The first

views absenteeism as an indicator of work withdrawal, where workers reduce attendance as a

result of unfavorable work attitudes, such as job dissatisfaction and low organizational

commitment (Hulin 1991). A second perspective considers absenteeism as a result of work stress

19

and burnout. Stress theories suggest that high levels of stress should result in psychosomatic

health problems that lead to increased absences due to sickness (Pearlin et al. 1981). In terms of

the links between perceived job insecurity and absenteeism, the former perspective frames job

insecurity as a likely antecedent of job dissatisfaction that should lead to withdrawal from work.

Workers who perceive their job to be insecure may feel disenfranchised and less committed to

their job, and become negligent in their attendance (Ashford, Lee and Bobko 1989; Cuyper and

De Witte 2006). Several studies have shown a subsequent increase in absenteeism rates in firms

that undergo downsizing, for example (Bourbonnais et al. 2005; Firns, Travaglione, and O’Neill

2006). The second perspective makes the same prediction, but for different reasons: as a role

stressor that reduces health, job insecurity should result in more frequent absences from work

(King 2000; Lim 1996).

An alternative possibility exists, however. Given the propensity for job insecurity to create

feelings of anxiety and trepidation about future job loss, it is possible that workers may improve

their attendance at work as part of an effort to demonstrate organizational commitment and ward

off job loss (Brockner 1990; Probst et al. 2007). As indirect of evidence of this possibility,

perceived job insecurity was found to be associated with increased sickness presenteeism—

attendance at work when one is ill—among workers in two Finnish and Canadian studies

(Caverley, Cunnigham, and MacGregor 2007; Heponiemi et al. 2010).

With respect to age differences in the consequences of job insecurity, informed by the ‘stress of

aging’ hypothesis, the greater anxiety over job loss experienced by older workers should result in

more health problems and less organizational commitment that lead to higher levels of

absenteeism. Alternatively, job insecurity may result in reduced absenteeism among older

workers as they attempt to reduce the likelihood of job loss. This latter prediction signals a

possible double-disadvantage for older workers in insecure employment. That is, even though

they may encounter more mental or physical health problems that require rest and recovery, they

may nevertheless feel pressured to attend work due to the threat of being laid off, potentially

exacerbating existing health issues. Finally, based on the prediction that the health effects of

insecurity peak during middle age, we may see either the greatest increase or decline in

absenteeism among middle age workers.

20

In summary, competing predictions are tested regarding the tendency of job insecurity to result

in either increased or decreased absenteeism. Further, based on the ‘stress of aging’ hypothesis or

its alternative, the strength of these effects may either increase linearly with age, or conversely

peak during middle age.

Data and Methods To test the hypotheses described above, I analyze panel data from the Work, Stress and Health

study (WSH), which involved telephone interviews with adults in the 50 United States in 2005

and 2007. To obtain the original sample, a list-assisted random digit dialing (RDD) selection was

used and drawn proportionally from all 50 states from GENESYS Sampling Systems. Eligible

participants are 18 years of age or older and participating in the paid labour force. At Wave 1, 71

percent of eligible individuals were successfully interviewed yielding a sample of 1,800 adults.

At Wave 2 interviews, which occurred approximately 18-to-20 months after the initial interview,

1,286 of the original participants were successfully re-interviewed. Sample characteristics for the

WSH study are similar to the population estimates of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2005 American

Community Survey (ACS). The working sample includes non-self employed workers between

25 and 65 years of age (N=956) working twenty hours or more.

I explain the rationale for the sample selection. I limit the sample to non self-employed workers

between the ages of 25 and 65. The measure of job insecurity that I use is designed to tap into

workers perceptions of the strength of the employer-employee psychological contract (Rousseau

1995); as such, even though self-employed workers may face future threats to their continuing

employment, this measure of insecurity is not applicable to workers who are not hired by an

employer. Additionally, as is the case with most studies of job insecurity, respondents between

the ages of 18-24 are omitted from the working sample, since this group are overridingly in

contingent jobs due their disproportionate participation in higher education (Polivka 1996).

Measures

Three outcomes are used to assess health. Psychological distress. To measure distress, I use an

amalgamation of items from the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D,

21

see Radloff 1977; Ross and Mirowsky 1984) and the Kessler index of generalized psychological

distress (Kessler et al. 2002). Respondents were asked the following eight items: “In the last

seven days, on how many days have you . . . felt sad; felt like you just couldn’t get going; felt

unable to shake the blues; felt like everything was an effort; had trouble keeping your mind on

what you were doing; worried a lot about little things; felt anxious or tense; had trouble getting to

sleep or staying asleep.” Responses are coded in days per week from 0 to 7. The distress scale is

the mean response to the eight items. The scale has an alpha reliability of .84.

Feelings of anger. Respondents were asked: “In the last seven days, on how many days have you

. . . felt annoyed or frustrated; felt angry; felt very critical of others; yelled at someone or

something; lost your temper.” Responses are coded in days per week from 0 to 7. The anger scale

is the mean response to the five items and has an alpha reliability of .78 (see Schieman and Reid

2009).

Self-reported poor health. Respondents were asked: “At the present time, in general would you

say your health is…? (1) “poor”, (2) “fair”, (3) “good”, (4)“very good”, (5) “excellent.”

Responses are reverse coded, such that higher scores represent poorer self-rated health. Self-

rated health correlates strongly with more objective measures of health, such as physician’s

health evaluations (Idler and Kasl 1991).

Days Absent from Work. At wave 1 and 2 participants were asked: “In the last six months, how

many days have you been absent from work (not counting vacation)?” Days absent from work at

wave 1 and wave 2 are coded as continuous measures and logged to correct for skewness.

Perceived Job insecurity. Job insecurity is assessed with the following question: “How likely is it

that during the next couple of years will you lose your present job and have to look for a job with

another employer?” Response choices include: “not at all likely” (1), “somewhat likely” (2), and

“very likely” (3). This question has been used in several well-respected surveys including the

General Social Survey and the National Study of the Changing Workforce. I follow Burgard and

colleagues (2009) modeling strategy in order to assess temporal change in job insecurity. I create

three binary dummy variables that represent episodic (wave 1 or wave 2 only) and persistent job

insecurity (both waves), and contrast these with the absence of job insecurity at both time points.

Persistent insecurity is coded 1 if respondents report that they are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very likely’ to

22

lose their jobs at both interviews and coded 0 otherwise, (2) resolved insecurity is coded 1 if

respondents reported that they are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very likely’ to lose their job only at wave 1,

and coded 0 otherwise, and (3) new insecurity is coded 1 if respondents reported that they are

‘somewhat’ or ‘very likely’ to lose their job at wave 2 only, and coded 0 otherwise. The

reference category is the absence of reported job insecurity at both time points.

Age. To assess age contingencies I created age categories that reflect three stages of working life:

early (25-39), middle (40-54) and late working life (55-65). These categories are modeled as

dummy variables in all analyses, with ‘early age’ respondents omitted as the contrast category.

As is the case with most studies of job insecurity, respondents between the ages of 18-24 are

omitted from the working sample, since this group are overridingly in contingent jobs due their

disproportionate participation in higher education (Polivka 1996). In analyses not shown, I also

modeled age as a continuous variable and tested squared and quadratic age interactions with

perceived job insecurity. These analyses revealed similar results as those with age modeled as a

categorical variable. I decided to use the latter modeling strategy since the categories map onto

well-established stages in work and nonwork roles (Erikson 1998; Toossi 2009).

Prior health Problems and work conditions. In order to address the issue of health selection, I

control for participant health at wave 1 for each health outcome appropriate to the particular

analysis. Further, I include an indicator of health problems that participants reported having prior

to wave 1 that could select them into particular jobs that might potentially influence subsequent

health and job insecurity. Prior health problems is measured as a count of health problems that

participants reported being diagnosed with, including: high blood pressure, high cholesterol,

arthritis, stomach problems, and cancer.

In order to rule out the possibility that the effect of job insecurity on subsequent health is due to

some related change in participants’ work conditions between wave 1 and wave 2, I include

baseline measures of income, job pressures, job autonomy, and work hours, in addition to a

change measure indicating any increase/decrease or change in these conditions between wave 1

and wave 2. These conditions are measured in the following way:

23

Household income. Household income is assessed with the question: “For the complete year of

2004/2006, what was your total household income, including income from all of your paid jobs,

before taxes?”

Job pressures. Job pressures are assessed with responses to the following item: “How often do

the demands of your job exceed those doable in an 8-hour workday?” Response categories are

"never" (1), "rarely" (2), "sometimes" (3), and "frequently" (4).

Job autonomy. Participants were asked: “In your current job, how often does someone else

decide how you do your work?” Response categories are "never" (1), "rarely" (2), "sometimes"

(3), and "frequently" (4). I reverse coded the responses, such that higher responses indicate more

autonomy.

Work hours. Participants were asked: “How many hours do you work in a typical week at your

main job?” I use a continuous measure of work hours.

Between wave job loss. Participants were asked: “In the past 12 months, have you become

unemployed (laid off or fired)?” Yes coded (1) and no coded (0).

Job Sector (wave 1). I create dummy variables to indicate whether participants are employed by

either the government (1) or the private sector (0).

Education (wave 1). Education is coded as an ordinal variable with the following categories:

“less than high school,” “high school or GED,” “some college or associate degree,” “four-year

college degree,” and “graduate or professional degree.”

Gender. I use dummy codes for men (0) and women (1).

Marital Status (wave 1). Marital status is coded as “married (1) versus all other categories (0).

Children (wave 1). This is coded as the number of children under 18 living in the household,

ranging from no children to 4 or more children under age 18 living in the home.

Spouse works (wave 1). Participants who have a cohabitating partner working in the paid labour

force are coded 1 versus all others (0).

24

Race. I coded participants’ race as “white” (1) versus all other categories (0).

Plan of Analyses

In table 2.2, I use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression techniques and regress each of the

three health outcomes at wave 2—psychological distress, feelings of anger, and self-rated poor

health—on episodic and persistent job insecurity, adjusting for baseline levels of health. In each

of these analyses, I test age-by-job insecurity interactions to examine whether the association

between job insecurity and health is contingent on age. I then include marital and family statuses

to examine their contribution to any potential age-by-job insecurity contingencies.

In table 2.3, I regress days absent from work at wave 2 on episodic and persistent job insecurity,

adjusting for controls and absenteeism levels at the baseline. I then test age-by-job insecurity

interactions to examine whether the association between job insecurity and absenteeism is

contingent on age. In the final model, I include change in self-rated poor health to examine its

contribution to any potential age-by-job insecurity contingencies.

With regards to the choice of longitudinal design, a panel regression model with fixed-effects

specification is generally preferred to OLS approaches that rely upon the stringent assumption

that unmeasured factors are uncorrelated with included covariates (Allison 1999). However, I use

a lagged-outcome method (where a baseline measure of the health outcome is included as a

predictor) because participants whose exposure does not change over time would be removed

from analyses under a fixed effects design. This would therefore lead to the exclusion of those

with persistent insecurity from the analyses (Burgard et al. 2009).

Additionally, a common problem of longitudinal data analysis is that sample attrition can bias the

results; this is particularly problematic if baseline measures of the dependent measure predict

attrition (Mirowsky and Ross 2001). I therefore adjust for the likelihood of attrition in each of the

regression models. This adjustment takes into account the probability that each of the health

outcomes or independent variables predict attrition. Using probit regression analyses I regressed

“absent from the sample at wave 2” on all independent variables. I then transformed predictions

to obtain the Mills Inverse Ratio and included it in all of the analyses (see Appendix I). Although

adjustment for the hazard of attrition has little effect on estimates, I decided to retain it in all

regression analyses as a precaution (Mirwosky and Ross 2001).

25

Results

Descriptives

Table 2.1 reports descriptive statistics for all variables examined in the multivariate analyses at

wave 1 and wave 2. In comparison to those in middle age (age 40 to 54) and late working life

(age 55 to 65), those in early working life (age 25 to 39) reported higher levels of distress and

anger at wave 2, and fewer physical health problems prior to wave 1. Those in early working life

also have more children in the household. In comparison to early age workers, those in middle

age have more job autonomy, higher household income and report less absenteeism in the last six

months. Those in late working life reported poorer health at wave 1, less work hours, and are less

likely to have a spouse in the labour force. No statistically significant age differences exist with

respect to perceived job insecurity. The majority of respondents perceived no job insecurity at

either wave (72 percent). About eight percent reported job insecurity at wave 1, and a similar

percentage reported it at wave 2 only. Eleven percent reported persistent job insecurity at both

waves.

Multivariate Analyses

In Table 2.2, I present regression analyses with each of the health outcomes. I first regress

psychological distress at wave 2 on perceived job insecurity. In model 1, I find no evidence of a

statistically significant effect of either episodic or persistent job insecurity on distress. In model

2, however, the association between persistent job insecurity and distress is contingent on age;

the significant interaction between middle age and persistent insecurity indicates that in

comparison to those in early working life, persistent insecurity is associated with higher levels of

distress among middle age workers. The ‘late working age’ × persistent insecurity interaction is

not significant, indicating that age moderates the association between persistent insecurity and

distress in a nonlinear pattern. In model 3, I include marital and family statuses to examine

whether they contribute to the significant age × persistent insecurity interaction revealed in

model 2. Adjusting for marital status, children in the household and spousal working status does

not change either the size of the coefficient for the middle age × persistent insecurity interaction,

nor its statistical significance. Figure 2.1 illustrates this contingency. Additionally, it is worth

noting that I observe this interaction adjusting for changes in job conditions between wave 1 and

2, including job loss, changes in work hours, job pressures and job autonomy. Among these

26

control measures, I observe that job loss and increasing job pressures between wave 1 and 2 are

associated with higher levels of distress at wave 2.

Next, I regress feelings of anger at wave 2 on perceived job insecurity and find similar patterns

to those involving psychological distress. In model 1, the associations between episodic or

persistent job insecurity and feelings of anger are not statistically significant. Examining age ×

insecurity contingencies, however, reveals that middle age workers with persistent job insecurity

report more feelings of anger at wave 2. Early age workers and late age workers are unaffected

by episodic or persistent job insecurity. Further, the inclusion of marital and family statuses in

model 3 does not attenuate the middle age × persistent insecurity interaction. Figure 2.2

illustrates this contingency. Among the control measures, job loss between wave 1 and 2 is

associated with more feelings of anger—but these adjustments do not affect the age × insecurity

contingencies.

I then regress self-rated poor health at wave 2 on perceived job insecurity. Model 1 reveals no

significant main effects of episodic or persistent insecurity on poor health. However, the

significant interaction between middle age and persistent insecurity indicates that in comparison

to those in early working life, middle age workers with persistent insecurity report poorer health.

Further, this contingency is unaffected when marital and family statuses are included (model 3).

Figure 2.3 illustrates this contingency. It is also worth noting that job loss, changes in job

pressures and job autonomy do not influence self-rated health. In addition to testing age

contingencies in the associations between perceived job insecurity and each of the health

outcomes, I also tested a series of two-way and three-way interactions involving job insecurity

and several socio-demographic characteristics, including gender and socioeconomic status. These

analyses revealed no evidence of other significant interactions with perceived job insecurity.

Finally, in Table 3.1 I regress days absent from work at wave 2 on episodic and persistent job

insecurity, adjusting for controls and absenteeism at wave 1. Model 1 reveals no evidence of a

significant effect of either episodic or persistent job insecurity on days absent from work. In

model 2, I test for age interactions to see whether the association between job insecurity and

absenteeism is contingent on age. There is some evidence that among middle age workers,

persistent insecurity is associated with a decrease in the number days that they report being

absent from work (p<.10). In model 3, I control for change in self-rated health between wave 1

27

and 2. Adjusting for changes in health, the middle age × persistent insecurity interaction becomes

significant at the p<.05 level, indicating that self-rated health partially suppresses the association

between persistent insecurity and absenteeism for middle age workers. Since persistent job

insecurity leads to an increase in self-rated poor health for middle age workers (as shown in

Table 2.2), and self-rated poor health predicts more absenteeism, once I adjust for changes in

health between wave 1 and 2, persistent job insecurity is associated with a statistically significant

decrease in absenteeism for middle age workers. Hence, were it not for the tendency of persistent

job insecurity to result in health problems for middle age workers, these workers would display

an even larger decline in absenteeism at wave 2.

In analyses not shown, a several other of firm-level and individual-level measures were tested to

see if they influenced the association between job insecurity and absenteeism; including: firm

size, job sector and years of tenure. Previous research has shown these may shape withdrawal

from work (Berry, Lelchook and Clark 2011; Caverley et al. 2007). None of these measures were

associated with the dependent variable, or influenced its association with job insecurity,

however; and their inclusion did not significantly improve model fit.

Discussion The findings of this paper support recent research that demonstrates that chronicity matters when

it comes to the stress of job insecurity (Burgard et al. 2009). I observe a decline in health only

among workers reporting prolonged exposure to perceived job insecurity. Further, only middle

age workers experience a health penalty when confronted with persistent job insecurity.

Controlling for demographic characteristics, changes in work conditions and family structure,

discernable health effects of perceived job insecurity exist only for workers age 40 to 54. Finally,

the source of these health problems—anxiety over potential job loss—may push these workers to

reduce their absenteeism rates, posing a potential double-penalty when it comes to the negative

consequences of job insecurity. I discuss the implications of these findings with regards to

perceived job insecurity as a chronic stressor, and the changing labour market experiences for

middle age and mature workers.

28

Unemployment and job loss have been consistently shown to be harmful for health. No doubt

these are important sources of stress; yet they represent a comparatively less common experience

(with the exception of periods of economic recession such as the recent ‘Great Recession’) when

contrasted against the prevalence of insecure work (Kalleberg 2009). As an indication, seven

percent of participants in this study reported a job loss in the year prior to the interview; in

comparison, nineteen percent reported that they felt they were somewhat or very likely to lose

their job in the near future. Similar numbers have been documented elsewhere along with

evidence that suggests that these figures are part of a trend involving the growth of insecure

employment in the last four decades within the United States (Burgard et al. 2009; Farber 2010).

Organizational downsizing and lean production practices that have undermined the traditional

standard employment contract have undoubtedly contributed to this trend—justifying the need

for further research on job insecurity in order to better understand its health implications within

the contemporary labour force.

In response to these changes, research has demonstrated that job insecurity is potentially as

important a work stressor as job loss, with some evidence even suggesting that it may have more

severe health consequences (Burgard et al. 2009). While the findings of this study do not

necessarily confirm this latter claim, there is clear evidence that the perception of job insecurity

has tangible health effects. Based on the Stress Process Model and the life course perspective

(Elder 1998; Pearlin et al. 1981), this paper advances on prior research by revealing how the

association between insecurity and health is contingent on both the duration and life course

timing of insecurity as a stressor.

I find no evidence that episodic job insecurity impacts psychological distress, feelings of anger or

self-rated poor health. Participant health is affected neither by the recent onset nor past

experience of insecurity. It is only the persistent experience of insecurity that is consequential for

health, which more or less corroborates the findings of Burgard and colleagues (2009). In the

present study, I find that the health consequences of prolonged exposure to job insecurity are

remarkably consistent across health measures: feelings of distress, anger and self-rated

assessments of poor health all increase at wave 2 in response to persistent insecurity—though

these effects are contingent on age. It is important to underscore that these health penalties exist

over and above the impact of job loss, or changes in job conditions that may accompany a

29

decline in job security, and which could create a spurious association between insecurity and

health. The results also hold after controlling for prior health problems that could potentially self-

select individuals into less secure jobs and create the appearance of a causal link between

insecurity and health. As such, these results provide strong evidence for the temporal health

effects of job insecurity as a chronic stressor.

Pinpointing the specific processes through which insecurity impacts health is difficult given the

particular data available and the very nature of chronic stress. The uncertainty over one’s future

employment may have no start point for some workers who are restricted to precarious

employment opportunities, or it may be aroused sharply with a particular event such as an

employer notice of future downsizing. Regardless of the nature of its inception, the present

study’s findings suggest that the health effects of job insecurity are not immediately experienced,

but rather result from prolonged exposure to this stress. This may be, in part, because body and

psyche can cope and recover from episodic or transitory experiences of insecurity with little or

no health cost, and it is only when a critical point in the accumulation of anxiety over job loss is

passed that it becomes damaging to well-being. It is also possible that these time-lagged effects

may be a product of slowly adapting coping strategies (e.g. increased alcohol consumption or

smoking) that then cause future health problems. Future research should consider behavioral

responses to job insecurity over time as potential mediating links to well-being.

Informed by the life course perspective, it also appears that the timing of job insecurity

represents an important factor in determining its potency as a stressor. I find evidence that the

health penalties of job insecurity are greatest during middle age, when the consequences of job

loss are likely perceived by workers as most severe, and potentially incongruent with

expectations about acceptable work conditions. Only among those ages 40 to 54 does persistent

job insecurity lead to greater health problems; older workers in their mid fifties to mid sixties do

not report more health issues compared to younger workers. Here, it is possible that while labour

market penalties after a job loss increase with age, older workers’ proximity to retirement

tempers the fear and stress of job loss. Middle age workers have no such proximity to retirement,

however, and yet still may be vulnerable to age-discrimination practices and wage penalties after

rehire. Indeed, labour market research shows that job loss for middle age workers is increasingly

pushing them into lower paid and more precarious work arrangements—conditions that are

30

historically atypical for this age group (Elman and O’Rand 2002). Based on these labour market

trends, in addition to the greater family-related responsibilities that individuals tend to have

during middle age, it is perhaps unsurprising that the threat of job loss is met with the most

trepidation at this stage in the life course.

Unfortunately, I am not able to directly examine the specific meanings that workers attach to job

insecurity and the threat of job loss. Thus, I can only speculate that these age-contingent health

disparities are a result of the greater salience and anxiety that middle age workers associate with

insecurity. Controlling for marital and parental statuses does not explain the age contingent

effects of job insecurity, which would have provided some evidence for the argument that family

responsibilities play a role in shaping interpretations of and reactions to job insecurity. This may

be because the measures available inadequately tap into the financial demands of middle age

(information on childcare expenditure were unavailable, for example). Nonetheless, I am able to

examine individuals’ behavioral responses to insecurity—namely their attendance rate at work.

The fact that middle age workers are the only age group in which persistent job insecurity leads

to a reduction in absenteeism provides some evidence that these workers place greater

importance on the threat of job loss. This finding is important in itself, since the very factor that

accounts for the decline in health for these workers is also the force that pressures them to reduce

their work absences, when one might expect more sickness-related absenteeism to result. In fact,

it is possible that the attempt to show organizational commitment through increased work

attendance partially contributes to these workers’ poorer health.

One limitation of this study deserves comment; one that could potentially account for the age-

contingencies presented. The longitudinal design of the study was such that only those in the

paid labour force were re-interviewed at wave 2. It is possible that participants close to

retirement who reported job insecurity at wave 1 and who then lost their job before wave 2

simply chose to permanently leave the labour force. These individuals would therefore be

removed from the follow-up interview, resulting in a tendency to underestimate older workers

with persistent job insecurity, possibly obscuring the true association between insecurity and

health among this group. Similarly, it is also possible that older workers with job insecurity were

more likely to exit the labour force due to poor health, leaving only the healthiest and most

resilient older workers at wave 2. However, all analyses adjust for the hazard of attrition to rule

31

out these potentialities. Additionally, an examination of factors predicting attrition between wave

1 and wave 2 (see Appendix I, model 2) indicates that older workers reporting job insecurity at

wave 1 were not statistically more likely to be absent from wave 2 than any other age group.

Thus, I can be relatively comfortable in ruling out attrition as a potential explanation for the age

contingencies discovered.

Finally, it is worth noting that despite this study’s finding that the negative health effects of job

insecurity are encountered only during middle age, it is possible that older cohorts in the future

may experience similar problems. Given that precarious work is becoming more widespread for

middle age workers, as these individuals approach retirement in twenty years time, increasing

numbers of them may not have the option to retire early if faced with job loss—a situation that

many older workers already exist within. One would therefore expect that since future

generations of older workers will find it necessary to work longer to acquire the resources to

ensure a comfortable retirement, job insecurity might come to have similar health effects as those

reported for middle age workers in this study. Given that the American labour force is aging,

more research focused on the experiences of older workers is necessary to understand the health

implications of these important demographic and economic trends.

Conclusion

With the emergence of the ‘New Economy,’ the nature and dynamics of the contemporary labour

market have changed in recent decades—changes that have unevenly shifted economic

opportunities and inequalities across the American population. These changes have also brought

attention to new forms of work stress, such as the interpersonal demands of service work,

increased work-family dilemmas, and as examined in this paper, uncertainty over the stable

continuity of employment. At present, this latter stressor is somewhat unique in that it offers no

readily available solution in which to contend with it. Unlike job loss, no institutionalized

supports exist to alleviate the negative health effects of job insecurity, and its ambiguous nature

makes individual coping strategies difficult. Future research is therefore vital in order to better

understand it both as an economic trend and as a role stressor that presents serious health

problems for an aging American workforce.

32

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TABLE 2.1 Means and Proportions of all Study Variables Early Work

Age (25-39) Middle Age (40-54)

Late Work Age (55-65) Total

Health outcomes (Wave 2) Psychological Distress 1.734 1.532* 1.264** 1.555 Anger 1.941 1.477*** 1.100*** 1.560 Self-rated Poor Health 2.313 2.369 2.435 2.373 Wave 1 and earlier health Psychological Distress 1.944 1.744* 1.442** 1.772 Anger 1.979 1.611*** 1.116*** 1.632 Self-rated Poor Health 2.254 2.372 2.438* 2.339 Health Problems Prior to Wave 1 .356 .625*** .767*** .5648 Absenteeism Days Absent from Work at Wave 1 3.794 3.428 3.068 3.471 Days Absent from Work at Wave 2 4.599 3.253* 4.589 3.965 Perceived job insecurity Perceived Insecurity at Wave 1 .199 .200 .180 .193 Perceived Insecurity at Wave 2 .202 .185 .170 .195 Episodic and Persistent Insecurity Absent Insecurity .702 .721 .751 .722 New (Wave 2 only) .098 .078 .068 .083 Resolved (Wave 1 only) .088 .080 .068 .081 Persistent (Wave 1 and Wave 2) .111 .118 .112 .115 Job conditions (Wave 1) Work Hours (Weekly) 43.303 44.699 38.022* 42.323 Job Pressures 3.033 2.991 2.879 2.976 Job Autonomy 2.356 2.552* 2.555 2.469 Employed in Public Sector .255 .282 .241 .265 Objective job insecurity Job Loss between Wave 1 & 2 .078 .071 .040 .069 Socio-demographics (Wave 1) Female .643 .569* .634 .608 Married .594 .627 .578 .611 Spouse Works .529 .529 .317*** .491 Children in the Household 1.512 .792** .254*** .914 White .702 .775* .787 .751 Household Income 53264.38 65498.45*** 50551.12 59046.68 Education 3.722 3.699 3.831 3.707 N 295 450 211 956 Comparison with the “Early Work Age” group is statistically significant at * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–tailed test).

38

TABLE 2.2 Regression of Psychological Distress, Anger, and Self-rated Poor Health at wave 2 on Perceived Job Insecurity, Age, Interactions, Job Conditions and Controls (N=956)

Psychological Distress Anger Self-rated Poor Health Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Perceived Job Insecurity New Job Insecurity a .086 -.031 -.024 .089 .017 .025 .103 .017 .032 Resolved Job Insecurity a .003 .130 .146 .036 -.282 -.252 .008 -.130 -.137 Persistent Job Insecurity a .213 -.225 -.226 .104 -.392* -.368* .152 -.146 -.141 Age Age 40 to 54 b .284 .186 .198 -.343* -.413*** -.467** .005 -.095 -.010 Age 55 to 65 b .233 .207 .181 -.407* -.415** -.518** .028 -.031 .021 Insecurity × Age Interactions Age 40 to 54 × New a ——

.264

.243

——

.070

.078

——

.145

.151 Age 40 to 54 × Resolved a

——

-.135

-.159

——

.390

.361

——

.252

.262 Age 40 to 54 × Persistent a

——

.737**

.742**

——

1.110***

1.098***

——

.420*

.424* Age 55 to 65 × New a ——

.010

.000

——

.174

.127

——

.111 .072 Age 55 to 65 × Resolved a ——

-.344

-.354

——

.694 .673 ——

.121

.127 Age 55 to 65 × Persistent a ——

.459

.486

——

.311

.336

——

.310

.308 Job Experiences/Conditions

Job Loss between Wave 1 & 2 .391* .383* .382* .292* .292* .270 .109 .103 .103 Employed in Public Sector .205* .208* .196* .094 .088 .068 .048 .053 .052 Work Hours (Wave 1) -.006 -.006 -.007 .002 .001 .001 .001 .001 .001 Change in Work Hours .003 .002 .002 .006 .007 .007 -.000 -.000 -.000 Job Pressures (Wave 1) .021 .025 .024 .014 .013 .018 .047 .046 .047 Change in Job Pressures .140** .146** .146** .056 .063 .061 .035 .034 .034 Job Autonomy (Wave 1) -.110* -.114* -.112* -.067 -.070 -.062 .019 .017 .017 Change in Job Autonomy -.061 -.067 -.063 -.054 -.048 -.047 .036 .033 .035 Controls Married c ——

——

.081 ——

——

-.065 ——

——

.057 (Continued on Next Page)

39

Table 2.2 Continued Psychological Distress Anger Self-rated Poor Health Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Children in the Household ——

——

.026

——

——

.081**

——

——

.013 Spouse Works ——

——

-.163

——

——

-.047

——

——

.042 Household Income (Wave 1) -.000 -.000 -.000 .000 .000 .000 -.000 -.000 -.000

Change in Household Income -.000 -.000 -.000 -.000 -.000 -.000 .000 .000 .000 Female .244** .248** .267** -.036 -.028 -.042 .046 .043 .066 White -.039 -.037 -.035 -.016 -.007 .016 -.103 -.100 -.101 Education .013 .010 .020 -.009 -.012 -.001 -.047 -.050 -.025 Wave 1 and earlier Health Health Problems prior to W1 .083 .084 .081 .089 .091 .087 .130*** .125*** .127*** Health Outcome at Wave 1 .419*** .417*** .414*** .473*** .481*** .478*** .533*** .535*** .522*** Hazard of Attrition -4.595** -4.955** -4.954* .387 .428 .644 -.100 .001 -.113 Constant 3.787 3.852 4.014 .768 .836 .583 1.116 1.122 1.691 R2 .361 .368 .373 .308 .319 .325 .388 .393 .394 * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–tailed test). a Compared to insecure at neither wave b Compared to age 25 to 39. c Compared to Never Married and Previously Married Note: Unstandardized regression coefficients are shown in the table.

40

Table 2.3 Regression of Days Absent from Work at wave 2 (logged) on Perceived Job Insecurity, Age, Interactions, Job Conditions and Controls (N=956)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Perceived Job Insecurity New Job Insecurity a .106 .144 .121 Resolved Job Insecurity a -.056 -.052 -.030 Persistent Job Insecurity a -.004 .117 .127 Age Age 40 to 54 b -.008 .012 -.087 Age 55 to 65 b .076 .091 -.040 Insecurity × Age Interactions Age 40 to 54 × New a ——

-.086

-.097 Age 40 to 54 × Resolved a ——

.052

.021 Age 40 to 54 × Persistent a ——

-.210

-.257* Age 55 to 65 × New a ——

.002

.032 Age 55 to 65 × Resolved a ——

-.127

-.144 Age 55 to 65 × Persistent a ——

-.109

-.171 Job Experiences/Conditions

Job Loss between Wave 1 & 2 .144* .147* .132 Employed in Public Sector .084* .083* .073 Work Hours (Wave 1) .001 .001 .001 Change in Work Hours -.001 -.001 -.001 Job Pressures (Wave 1) .012 .013 .013 Change in Job Pressures -.011 .014 -.021 Job Autonomy (Wave 1) -.050* -.049* -.043 Change in Job Autonomy -.025 -.026 -.030 Controls Married c -.128* -.133* -.192** Children in the Household .021 .022 .020 Spouse Works -.003 -.003 -.009 Household Income (Wave 1) .000 .000 .000 Change in Household Income .000 .000 .000 Female .045 .040 .007 White .018 .018 .031 Education .026 .026 .009 Wave 1 and Changes in Health Days Absent at Wave 1 .215*** .217*** .208*** Self-rated Poor Health at Wave 1 ——

——

.095*** Change in Self-rated Poor Health ——

——

.112*** Hazard of Attrition -1.175 -1.085 .177 Constant 1.896 1.832 1.523

R2 .145 .148 .176 * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–tailed test). a Compared to insecure at neither wave b Compared to age 25 to 39. c Compared to Never Married and Previously Married Note: Unstandardized regression coefficients are shown in the table.

41

FIGURE 2.1 Age Differences in the Effect of Job Insecurity on Psychological Distress

Note: Predicted values shown above are derived from Model 3 of Table 2.2, with wave 2 distress as the dependent variable. All control variables are held constant at their respective means.

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

2.4

Absent Resolved New Persistent

Psyc

holo

gica

l Dis

tress

(Wav

e 2)

Perceived Job Insecurity

Ages 25 - 39 Ages 40 - 54 Ages 55 - 65

42

FIGURE 2.2 Age Differences in the Effect of Job Insecurity on Anger

Note: Predicted values shown above are derived from Model 3 of Table 2.2, with wave 2 anger as the dependent variable. All control variables are held constant at their respective means.

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2


Ange

r (W

ave

2)


Ages 25 - 39 Ages 40 - 54 Ages 55 - 65

43

FIGURE 2.3 Age Differences in the Effect of Job Insecurity on Self-rated Poor Health

Note: Predicted values shown above are derived from Model 3 of Table 2.2, with wave 2 self-rated poor health as the dependent variable. All control variables are held constant at their respective means.

2.0

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6


Self-

rate

d Po

or H

ealth

(Wav

e 2)


Ages 25 - 39

Ages 40 - 54

Ages 55 - 65

44

Chapter 3 Control in the Face of Uncertainty: The Sense of Personal Control

and the Link between Job Insecurity and Distress

Introduction The growth of uncertain and unstable employment in recent decades has drawn increased

attention from health researchers interested in the implications of this trend for workers’ well-

being (Kalleberg 2011). This research has moved beyond an investigation of the health

consequences of unemployment (Kessler, House and Turner 1989; Tausig and Fenwick 1999),

toward a consideration of how a wider range of negative employment experiences influence

health, especially the threat of job loss and uncertain future employment—key features of what is

often referred to as ‘job insecurity’ (Burgard, Brand, and House 2009; De Witte 1999). In some

cases, the threat of job loss has been found to exert similar health penalties as unemployment

(Burgard et al. 2009; Heaney, Israel, and House 1994; Lee et al. 2004). Consequently, job

insecurity is considered an important contemporary source of chronic stress and a salient

predictor of poor health (Sverke and Hellgren 2002).

Given the current and rather persistent strife in the American and Canadian economies, job

insecurity has become quite normative for many people. The question becomes: How can

workers cope with the potential health consequences? One set of potential answers is based on

the ideas of the Stress Process Model (Pearlin et al. 1981): The stress of job insecurity may be

buffered by the availability of certain coping resources. In this paper, I focus on one particular

resource—the sense of control—a personal resource that may help to mitigate the stress

associated with uncertain, unpredictable, and tenuous employment experiences (Pearlin et al.

2005). While sense of control has been shown to buffer the impact of a variety of role stressors

on health (Avison 2001; Wheaton 1983), it has received only limited empirical attention with

respect to the stress of job insecurity. Given that economic uncertainty is one of the key

explanations for why job insecurity so stressful, a strong sense of agency and personal control

may alter the meaning and perceived threat attached to this uncertainty.

While sense of control may moderate the association between job insecurity and distress, it may

also represent a key mediating mechanism through which job insecurity reduces well-being.

45

Perceived control over one’s life may foster protective beliefs and behaviors that lessen the stress

of job insecurity, but the very uncertain and controllable nature of a threatened employment

situation may come to erode one’s sense of control, which is an important component of good

mental health (Ross and Sastry 1999). To-date, I know of no study that has examined these

mediating and moderating possibilities involving sense of personal control, job insecurity and

health in a population-based sample of workers from a broad range of social statuses and

occupational backgrounds.

To answer these questions, I examine data from two national samples of American and Canadian

workers in 2005 and 2011, respectively. I test whether sense of personal control both mediates

and moderates the association between perceived job insecurity and psychological distress.

Additionally, given that some research finds age differences in the health consequences of job

insecurity (Cheng and Chan 2008), I consider whether the propensity for sense of control to

buffer the stress of job insecurity varies across the life course. In the following section I discuss

possible age contingencies in more detail as part of a review of the literature on the linkages

between job insecurity, health, and the sense of personal control.

Literature Review

Job Insecurity and Health

In recent decades, organizational downsizing and the growth of nonstandard work arrangements

have led to a decline in job security and the erosion of the guarantee of long-term, stable

employment in the United States (Kalleberg 2011). Much of the research examining these trends

and their consequences for well-being focuses on the extent that workers consider their job as

insecure, often referred to as “perceived job insecurity.” Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt (1984:438)

define perceived job insecurity as a: “perceived powerlessness to maintain desired continuity in a

threatened job situation.”

The association between job insecurity and health can be interpreted through Jahoda’s (1982)

latent deprivation model and the Stress Process Model (Pearlin et al. 1981). Given that

employment provides access to valued material, psychological and social resources, the

46

anticipation of job loss and the future unavailability of these resources represent a potential role

stressor, particularly when this ‘anticipated’ future event is uncontrollable and unpredictable

(Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Wheaton 1999). In fact, it is suggested that it is the unpredictability

and uncertainty associated with this stressor that makes it so stressful—potentially making it a

more potent stressor than job loss or episodes of unemployment (Burgard et al. 2009). These

theoretical explanations are validated by a variety of qualitative studies of workers in firms that

have downsized, and for whom the prospect of future job loss is likely (Greenhalgh and

Rosenblatt 1984; Jick and Greenhalgh 1989). Recurring themes in these studies were workers’

reports of the stress associated with the uncertainty over their employment situation, and their

feelings of helplessness in the face of impending job loss. In accordance with this qualitative

evidence, a growing body of quantitative research has demonstrated that job insecurity has

tangible consequences for health. Perceptions of job insecurity are associated with increased

feelings of depression, anxiety and poor self-rated health (Burgard et al. 2009; Ferrie et al. 1995).

Given the growth of contingent work arrangements in the last few decades (e.g. temporary and

contract work), some scholars contend that job precariousness represents a critical public health

concern of potentially epidemic proportions (Fischer and Thayer 2006).

Does the Sense of Control Buffer the Stress of Job insecurity?

What factors might counteract or protect workers from the health effects of job insecurity?

According to the Stress Process Model (Pearlin et al. 1981), the availability of certain coping

resources may mitigate the harmful consequences of job insecurity. A feature of the self-concept,

the sense of personal control represents one such resource. Similar to constructs such as self-

efficacy and mastery, the sense of control refers to the degree to which that an individual

believes they have control over the things that happen in their life (Turner and Roszell 1994;

Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Pearlin and Schooler 1978). Research has demonstrated that a strong

sense of control fosters good physical and mental well-being, encouraging flexible coping

strategies and resilience in response to adverse or challenging events (Turner and Roszell 1994;

Ross and Mirowsky 1989).

Research and theory in the mental health literature often frames sense of control as a ‘buffering

resource’ with “the capacity to hinder, prevent, or cushion the development of the stress process

and its outcomes.” (Pearlin 2006:405). With regards to stress associated with the threat of job

47

loss, this buffering effect may operate in two related ways. First, individuals with a high sense of

control are more likely to perceive potential job loss as less threatening and of less consequence.

Given that one of the major purported mechanisms through which job insecurity manifests itself

as a stressor is through the imagined consequences of job loss (Sverke and Hellgren 2002),

individuals with a low sense of control may be particularly vulnerable since they are more likely

to consider the worst case scenarios associated with the event. In contrast, a high sense of control

likely fosters a more positive outlook that downplays the negative aspects of job loss, while up-

playing the positive possibilities—viewing a layoff as an opportunity for job mobility, for

example. Thus, a high sense of control is likely to negate a key deleterious feature of job

insecurity—anxiety over an uncertain future—because it engenders a belief that one can deal

with and overcome unforeseen eventualities such as job loss (Pearlin and Aneshensel 1986).

Additionally, individuals with a high sense of control are more likely to pursue strategies that

reduce the impact of future job loss—such as retraining or proactively looking for more secure

employment—further reducing its perceived threat and future health consequences. In a small

longitudinal study of dual-earner couples facing job loss (N=79), Sweet and Moen (2012) find,

for example, that those who actively prepared in advance of the layoff reported less severe health

problems and emotional challenges after the event. Thus, as a social-psychological trait that taps

into one’s level of perceived agency, the sense of control should influence the subjective

meanings that individuals assign to the threat of job loss, as well as their behavioral responses to

the threat.

While other empirical research documents how the sense of control buffers the effects of a

variety of life stressors on health (Avison 2001; Pearlin et al. 2007; Wheaton 1983), there is only

limited evidence of it acting as a buffer in the face of job insecurity. Based on a sample of

Swedish female nurses, Naswall, Sverke and Hellgren (2005) find job insecurity was more

strongly associated with poor psychological health among those who attributed outcomes in their

life to forces outside of their control. Most research, however, utilizes either control tied to one’s

job, or job-specific measures of efficacy or control, rather than a general sense of control.

Barling and Kelloway (1996), for example, find that perceptions of workplace control moderated

the impact of perceived job insecurity on both blood pressure and physical health among a small

sample of coal miners. Similarly, Schreurs et al. (2010) find that high levels of job autonomy

48

weaken the effect of job insecurity and health. The same authors found no evidence of a

moderating effect of job self-efficacy, however.

Despite the paucity of evidence on the subject, some research is indicative of the mechanisms

through which the benefits of the sense of control may be operate: one study of layoff survivors

found that those with a high sense of mastery were more likely to engage in control-oriented

coping strategies in response to the threat of job loss, including actions such as discussing their

situation with their supervisor (Armstrong-Stassen 1993). These behaviors may not remove the

threat of job loss, but they may nonetheless serve to reduce the anxiety that one attaches to the

threat (Kinnunen, Mauno and Siltaloppi 2010). Collectively, then, the existing empirical

literature is suggestive of the resource-aspects of the sense of control, though there remains an

absence of larger representative studies that have validated it as a resource within the wider

labour force.

Sense of Control as a Mediator

Research and theory recognizes that while personality traits and coping skills may buffer and

weaken the health effects of stressors, these resources are also susceptible to the conditions

whose effect they moderate (Pearlin et al. 2007). Since the sense of control is not a fixed aspect

of personality but rather one that is shaped by objective, social conditions (Skaff, Pearlin, and

Mullan 1996), it is plausible that job insecurity may itself influence perceptions of personal

control, that then subsequently impact health.

Several classic studies have demonstrated how the self-concept, and the sense of control in

particular, is influenced by the social organization of work (Kohn and Schooler 1983; Seeman

1967). Research has also revealed how unemployment exerts a strong negative effect on feelings

of mastery (Avison 2001; Broman, Hamilton, and Hoffman 2000). Given the centrality of work

in most peoples’ lives, the inability or powerlessness to prevent the loss of employment strikes at

the very heart of the belief that one has control over the things that happen in their life.

Moreover, unlike job loss, an event and role transition that an individual can directly observe and

respond to, the very ambiguity and uncertainty surrounding the possibility of being laid off may

hinder the ability to resolve and come to terms with the threat (Burgard et al. 2009). Without

such recourse, then, it is very likely that one will experience a decreased sense of control in their

49

life. And, since the link between a low sense of control and poorer health has been well-

established (Mirowsky and Ross 1989; Wheaton 1983), I expect one of primary mechanisms

through which job insecurity reduces well-being is through its propensity to reduce perceptions

of personal control. Sense of control should therefore partially mediate the association between

job insecurity and health.

Age Contingencies

Emerging evidence suggests that the processes involving sense of control, job insecurity and

health may vary in their nature and extent across the life course (Cheng and Chan 2008). I

therefore also consider whether age, as a key life course marker, influences 1) health levels

associated with job insecurity, and 2) the propensity of sense of control to buffer the stress of job

insecurity.

A life course approach to stressors and their consequences for well-being suggests that both

stressful events and nonevents potentially vary in their meaning and impact across salient stages

in individuals’ lives (Elder 1998; Sweet and Moen 2011); in the case of job insecurity, across life

course stages as they align with one’s career (i.e. early, mid or late career). Thus, the stage in

one’s career at which job insecurity is encountered may influence the level of threat that an

individual attaches to possible job loss, their perception of available resources to deal with the

threat, and the extent that this threat conflicts with expectations about acceptable work

conditions—factors that should shape the degree that job insecurity is distressing. Specifically,

several age- and cohort-patterned factors appear relevant, including one’s current occupational

status and experience, expectations regarding future career and nonwork trajectories (e.g.

retirement plans), standards about acceptable or desirable working conditions, as well as the

presence of nonwork demands, such as family-related financial obligations. Since the existence

and extent of these factors are both age-specific and cohort-specific, we should therefore see age

differences in the stress associated with job insecurity.

Some suggest, for example, that the stress of job insecurity should be most harmful during

middle age when workers are most dependent on steady, full-time employment in order to meet

family responsibilities (Fullerton and Wallace 2007; László et al 2010). Here, the risk of job loss

may carry greater significance in comparison to younger workers who have less financial

50

responsibilities, as well as older workers whose proximity to retirement age may reduce the

perceived threat of job loss (Brenner 1973; Erikson 1998). Additionally, in comparison to

workers entering the labour market, middle age workers have generally accumulated higher

levels of occupational prestige and status; the onset of job insecurity may be particularly

incongruent to these workers’ beliefs about appropriate treatment from their employer. From this

view, then, which I label the stress of middle age, the negative health effects of precarious and

uncertain employment should be greatest during middle age.

Alternatively, other researchers have argued that the health penalties of job insecurity may

increase linearly with age (Cheng and Chan 2008). Given that older workers tend to experience

more severe economic penalties when job loss occurs—older workers who are laid-off, for

example, take longer to find re-employment and encounter greater earnings losses in their new

jobs (Hirsch, MacPherson, and Hardy, 2000)—the perceived consequences of job loss may

engender greater feelings of anxiety among workers in the later stages of their careers. Moreover,

older workers may consider job insecurity a particularly jarring experience given that this

cohort—many of whom are of the baby-boomer generation—enjoyed high levels of job security

earlier in their careers (Farber 2010). Finally, since workers are now delaying retirement due to

insufficient retiree plans and social security benefits (Toossi 2009), older workers facing the

prospect of job loss may perceive it with the same trepidation as their younger counterparts.

From this view, then, the stress of job insecurity may be greatest among older workers; a view I

label as the stress of aging hypothesis.

Data and Methods

To test the hypotheses described above, I analyze data from two national surveys of workers in

the United States and Canada: The Work, Stress and Health study (WSH) involved telephone

interviews with adults in the 50 United States in 2005 and 2007. To obtain the sample, a list-

assisted random digit dialing (RDD) selection was used and drawn proportionally from all 50

states from GENESYS Sampling Systems. Eligible participants are 18 years of age or older and

participating in the paid labour force. Study participants received a $30 gift card for completing

the interview Seventy-one percent of eligible individuals were successfully interviewed yielding

51

a sample of 1,800 adults. The working sample includes non-self employed between 25 and 65

years of age (N=1,219), working twenty hours or more a week.

The Canadian Work Stress and Health study (CAN-WSH), is a nationally representative sample

of the Canadian labour force. Interviews were conducted by telephone between January and July

2011. To be eligible to participate in the study, individuals had to be: (1) residing in Canada; (2)

18 years of age or older; (3) currently working at a paid job or operated an income-producing

business; (4) employed in the civilian labour force; and 5) living in a non-institutional residence.

Calls were made to a regionally stratified unclustered random probability sample generated by

random-digit-dial methods. Study participants received a $20 gift card for completing the

interview. The final full sample was 6,005. The response rate was approximately 40 percent.2

The working sample includes non-self employed workers between 25 and 65 years of age

(N=3,790), working twenty hours or more a week.1

I briefly explain the rationale for the sample selection. I limit the sample to non self-employed

workers between the ages of 25 and 65. The measure of job insecurity that I use is designed to

tap into workers perceptions of the strength of the employer-employee psychological contract

(Rousseau 1995); as such, even though self-employed workers may face future threats to their

continuing employment, this measure of insecurity is not applicable to workers who are not hired

by an employer. Additionally, as is the case with most studies of job insecurity, respondents

between the ages of 18-24 are omitted from the working sample, since this group are

overridingly in contingent jobs due their disproportionate participation in higher education

(Polivka 1996).

Measures

Psychological distress. In the WSH study I use an amalgamation of items from the Center for

Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D, see Radloff 1977; Ross and Mirowsky 1984)

and the Kessler index of generalized psychological distress (Kessler et al. 2002). Respondents

were asked the following eight items: “In the last seven days, on how many days have you . . .

felt sad; felt like you just couldn’t get going; felt unable to shake the blues; felt like everything

was an effort; had trouble keeping your mind on what you were doing; worried a lot about little

things; felt anxious or tense; had trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep.” Responses are coded

52

in days per week from 0 to 7. The distress scale is the mean response to the eight items. The

scale has an alpha reliability of .84.

In the CAN-WSH study I use 7 items of generalized psychological distress adapted from the

Kessler index (K10, see Kessler et al. 2002). These items ask about the frequency of the

following symptoms in the past month: “anxious or tense,” “nervous,” “worry a lot about little

things,” “had trouble keeping your mind on what you were doing,” “restless or fidgety,” “sad or

depressed,” and “hopeless.” Response choices are “all of the time” (1), “most of the time” (2),

“some of the time” (3), “a little of the time” (4), and “none of the time” (5). I reverse-coded these

responses and averaged the items such that higher scores indicate greater levels of distress (α =

.83).

Perceived job insecurity. In both the WSH and CAN-WSH studies perceived job insecurity is

assessed with the following question: “How likely is it that during the next couple of years will

you lose your present job and have to look for a job with another employer?” Response choices

for the CAN-WSH study include: “not at all likely” (1), “not too likely” (2), “somewhat likely”

(3), and “very likely” (4). Response choices for the WSH study include: “not at all likely” (1),

“somewhat likely” (2), and “very likely” (3). This question has been used in several well-

respected surveys including the General Social Survey and the National Study of the Changing

Workforce. Perceived job insecurity is coded 1 if respondents reported that they are ‘somewhat’

or ‘very likely’ to lose their job, and coded 0 otherwise.

Sense of personal control. Mirowsky and Ross's (2003) 2 x 2 index of the sense of personal

control is used in the WSH study. It asks participants to report their level of agreement or

disagreement with the eight statements; there are two statements in each of the four categories.

Statements that measure the level that individuals claim control over good outcomes include: (1.

"I am responsible for my own successes," and (2. "I can do just about anything I really set my

mind to." Items that measure claims of control over bad outcomes include: (3. "My misfortunes

are the result of mistakes I have made," and (4. "I am responsible for my failures." Items that

assess the extent that individuals deny control over good outcomes are: (5. "The really good

things that happen to me are mostly luck," and (6. "There's no sense planning a lot--if something

good is going to happen it will." The last two statements measure the denial of control over bad

outcomes: (7. "Most of my problems are due to bad breaks," and (8. "I have little control over the

53

bad things that happen to me." Responses to statements 1 through 4 are coded "strongly

disagree" (-2), "disagree" (-1), "neutral" (0), "agree" (1), and "strongly agree (2). Responses to

statements 5 through 8 are coded "strongly disagree" (2), "disagree" (1), "neutral" (0), "agree" (-

1), and "strongly agree (-2). I averaged responses; higher scores indicate a greater sense of

control (α = .52).

In the CAN-WSH study participants are asked the extent they agree with the following four

statements: “You have little control over the things that happen to you,” “There is really no way

you can solve some of the problems you have,” “You often feel helpless in dealing with

problems of life,” “Sometimes you feel that you are being pushed around in life,” “You can do

just about anything you really set your mind to.” Responses choices include: “strongly agree”

(1), “agree” (2), “disagree” (3), and “strongly disagree” (4). Responses for the fourth statement

were reverse-coded, and then summed and averaged with the remaining three statements; higher

scores indicate a greater sense of control (α = .60).

Age. To assess age contingencies I contrast those age 25-34 (the reference category) with the

following age groups: middle age workers (two categories for those age 35-44 and those age 45-

54) and older workers (those age 55-65). I split middle age workers into two categories in order

to consider the different family and career experiences of those in early-mid life and those

approaching late-working life (Toossi 2009).

Work Conditions

Personal income. In both the WSH and CAN-WSH studies, one item assesses total personal

earnings in the previous year—from all sources. I used the following categories: “$25,000 or

less,” “$25,001 to $50,000,” “$50,001 to $75,000,” “$75,001 to $100,000,” “$100,001 to

$125,000,” and “More than $125,000.” I use the modal category ($25,001 to $50,000) as the

omitted reference group.

Job pressures. Participants in the WSH study were asked: “How often do the demands of your

job exceed those doable in an 8-hour workday?” Response categories are "never" (1), "rarely"

(2), "sometimes" (3), and "frequently" (4). In the CAN-WSH study, three items ask about the

frequency of the following pressures in the past three months: “Felt overwhelmed by how much

54

you had to do at work?” “Have to work on too many tasks at the same time?” “The demands of

your job exceeded the time you have to do the work?” Response choices are coded: “never” (1),

“rarely” (2), “sometimes” (3), “often” (4), and “very often” (5). I averaged the items; higher

scores indicate more job pressure (α = .85).

Job autonomy. In the WSH study participants were asked: “In your current job, how often does

someone else decide how you do your work?” Response categories are "never" (1), "rarely" (2),

"sometimes" (3), and "frequently" (4). Responses were reverse coded, such that higher responses

indicate more autonomy. In the CAN-WSH study, three items assess job autonomy. Participants

were asked the extent that they agree or disagree with the following statements: “I have the

freedom to decide what I do on my job,” “It is basically my own responsibility to decide how my

job gets done,” and “I have a lot of say about what happens on my job.” Response choices are

coded “strongly disagree” (1), “somewhat disagree” (2), “somewhat agree” (3), and “strongly

agree” (4). I averaged responses to create the index; higher scores reflect more autonomy (α =

.78).



Plan of Analyses

Table 3.1 presents descriptive statistics for all measures in both samples. In table 3.2 (CAN-

WSH) and table 3.3 (WSH), using ordinary least squares regression I regress psychological

distress on job insecurity and the sense of personal control, adjusting for controls. I follow a

strategy to test whether the association between job insecurity and distress is mediated and

moderated by sense of control, and whether these relationships operate differently across age. In

model 1, I examine the association between distress and job insecurity. In model 2, I include

sense of control to examine its contribution to the association between insecurity and distress

observed in model 1. Then, in model 3, I test a job insecurity x sense of control interaction to

examine whether the association between insecurity and distress is moderated by sense of

control. Models 4 and 5 test age contingencies involving the associations between job insecurity,

sense of control and distress. In model 4, I include insecurity x age interactions to examine

whether the association between job insecurity and distress is contingent on age. Finally in model

55

5, I test whether the two-way interaction involving insecurity and sense of control examined in

model 3 is contingent on age. To do this, I test a series of three-way interactions involving

insecurity, sense of control and age. All models include the following controls: gender, marital

status, number of children younger than age 18 in the household, education, occupation and job

sector.

Results

Descriptives

Table 3.1 reports descriptive statistics for all measures in both samples. In the CAN-WSH and

WSH studies, older workers (55-65) report lower levels of distress in comparison to young

workers (25-34). In the CAN-WSH study, older workers are the least likely to think that they

may lose their job in the next two years (17%), while those 35-44 (23%) are the most likely to

report the possibility of future job loss. Similar age-patterns exist in the WSH study, but they are

not statistically significant. In the CAN-WSH study, young workers report a higher sense of

control than those age 45-54 and 55-65. No statistically significant age differences exist in the

WSH study with regards to sense of control.


CAN-WSH Sample

In Table 3.2, I present regression analyses with the CAN-WSH sample. As shown in model 1,

job insecurity is associated with higher levels of distress. Among the controls, the following

groups report lower levels of distress: men, the married, those with higher incomes, and those

reporting fewer job pressures and more job autonomy. In model 2, sense of control is associated

with lower levels of distress. The inclusion of sense of control substantially weakens this

association, though it remains statistically significant—indicating that part of the mechanism

through which job insecurity leads to more distress, operates through its tendency to decrease

feelings of personal control. This mediation effect is statistically significant (p<.001).

Additionally, adjusting for sense control, older individuals report lower levels of distress;

evidence that sense of control suppresses an association between older age and distress: were it

not for their lower levels of personal control, older workers would report even less distress.

56

I then examine whether sense of control moderates the association between job insecurity and

distress. In model 3, the ‘job insecurity × sense of control’ interaction is statistically significant.

Workers reporting higher levels of personal control are less affected by the stress of job

insecurity; in fact, at the highest levels of personal control, job insecurity is not associated with

higher distress. Conversely, among those reporting a low sense of personal control, job insecurity

is associated with the highest levels of distress. An incremental r-square test reveals that the

improvement in r-square between models 2 and 3 is significant (F=5.86, p<.05). In models 4 and

5, I find no evidence of age contingencies in the association between job insecurity and distress.

Moreover none of the three-way interactions in model 6 involving age, sense of control and job

insecurity are statistically significant—indicating that the sense of control buffers the stress of

job insecurity uniformly across the life course.

WSH Sample

In Table 3.3, I present regression analyses with the WSH sample. In model 1, job insecurity is

associated with more psychological distress. Additionally, older workers report statistically

significant lower levels of distress. Among the control variables, service workers, those with low

wages and more job pressures report higher levels of distress. By contrast, the following groups

report lower levels of distress: men, the highly educated, those with no children in the household,

and non-married individuals.

In model 2, sense of control is associated with lower levels of distress. As in the CAN-WSH

sample, the inclusion of sense control weakens (and thus partly mediates) the association

between insecurity and distress, though to a much lesser degree. This mediation effect is

statistically significant (sobel test: p<.05). In model 3, I find that sense of control moderates the

association between job insecurity and distress. In comparison to those with low levels of

personal control, workers with a high sense of control report less distress when they encounter

job insecurity. An incremental r-square test reveals that the improvement in r-square between

models 2 and 3 is significant (F=5.48, p<.05).

Model 4, reveals evidence that the association between job insecurity and distress is contingent

on age. The significant interaction between job insecurity and workers age 35-44 indicates that,

in comparison to younger workers, job insecurity is associated with higher levels of distress

57

during the early stages of middle age. The ‘insecurity × 45-54’ and ‘job insecurity × 55-65’

interactions are not statistically significant, suggesting that the stress of job insecurity is

nonlinear across age. In model 5, none of the three-way interactions involving age, sense of

control and job insecurity are statistically significant.

Given research showing gender differences in the ways men and women navigate work and

family roles across the life course (Moen 1992; Winslow 2005), for both the CAN-WSH and

WSH samples, I also tested for gender contingencies in the focal associations and interactions

between job insecurity, sense of control, and distress; however these analyses yielded no

statistically significant results.

Discussion This paper makes several contributions that advance understanding on the links between the

sense of control and the stress of job insecurity—an increasingly common source of work stress

for many North Americans. Based on two national samples of American and Canadian workers, I

show that, despite acting as a key resource for ameliorating the deleterious health consequences

of job insecurity, the sense of control also represents an indirect route through which job

insecurity influences health. Additionally, I also document age-contingencies in the stress of

employment precariousness, an area requiring further examination, given an aging workforce in

both the United States and Canada.

With the ripples of the recent American financial crisis continuing to influence workers, firms,

and stock markets, the stress of job loss is a health issue that is often raised with regards to the

economic downturn. At the peak of the recession, close to one in ten were unemployed in the

United States, with almost half of these individuals experiencing long-term unemployment,

lasting over twenty-six weeks. This dire state of the American labour market has resulted in the

prolonged hardship for many workers and their families—a well-documented source of stress

(Mirowsky and Ross 2001). However, the negative mental and physical health consequences

generated by the recession are most likely not restricted to those workers who experienced

layoffs, but also many surviving workers whose own job situation has been made increasingly

58

tenuous. My results support this point, showing that even the threat of job loss—whether real or

imagined—can be damaging to one’s health (Burgard et al. 2009).

While the data sources that I examine in this paper do not speak directly to the experiences of

workers during the recession, these results inform understanding on the stress that many

employed workers faced during this period, and likely continue to face. I find consistent results

showing that job insecurity has negative health consequences for workers north and south of the

American-Canadian border. Further, roughly one in five workers reported job insecurity in both

samples, indicating that even in non-recession periods, this stressor is not restricted to a small

minority of workers—patterns that have been documented elsewhere as part of a growing trend

since the 1970s (Fullerton and Author 2007). Thus, the findings of this paper contribute to a

growing body of research that suggests that insecure employment should be treated as a very real

and prevalent work stressor in the contemporary labour market. Additionally, I extend research

in this area by revealing how the stress of job insecurity may be buffered by a high sense of

personal control.

In both American and Canadian samples I find that workers with a strong sense of control over

their life are less affected by the stress of job insecurity; in fact, in the CAN-WSH sample, job

insecurity is not associated with distress for workers with the highest levels of perceived control.

I can only surmise at the reasons for this buffering effect, but workers who see outcomes in the

life as under their control likely view job loss as an event that they can resolve or at least

adequately cope with. Workers with low levels of personal control, in contrast, are likely to

envision worst-case scenarios that could result from being laid off; thus experiencing high levels

of anticipatory anxiety. These findings are consistent with other research (Ross and Sastry 1999)

that has shown the value of a high sense of control in the face of chronic stress—in this particular

case, sense of control acts as a personal resource for reducing the stress associated with chronic

uncertainty.

In addition to the buffering role of the sense of control, I also find evidence that suggests that it

represents a key mechanism through which job insecurity increases distress. In the CAN-WSH

sample, once I adjust for sense of control, the association between job insecurity and distress is

reduced by a quarter. This mediation effect indicates that part of the reason why job insecurity is

associated with higher distress is because of its tendency to reduce one’s sense of control, a

59

personality trait that is important for health in the face of the daily challenges and stress of

everyday life.

The dual role of the sense of control as both a mediator and moderator of the association between

job insecurity and health can be interpreted through what others have referred to as structural

amplification. Structural amplification describes the direct and indirect processes through which

social conditions “undermine the personal attributes that otherwise would moderate their

undesirable consequences” (Ross 2011:290). Formally, it exists when a moderator of an

association between a social condition and outcome also results from the social condition. Other

research has found evidence of structural amplification when examining the effect of

neighborhood disorder on feelings of mistrust. Ross (2001) describes how neighborhood disorder

exerted a direct positive impact on feelings of mistrust, while also leading to a reduced sense of

personal control, which then amplified the association between disorder and mistrust. I find

evidence of this process with respect to the stress of job insecurity. While a high sense of control

buffers the association between job insecurity and distress, my findings suggests that it is also

undermined by the very experience of job insecurity—thus amplifying the stressful nature of the

experience. I am unable to speak to the specifics regarding how this amplification process

operates, such as whether it operates over the short-term or alternatively with long-term exposure

to job insecurity. Further analysis with longitudinal data is therefore necessary to address this

issue.

Age Contingencies

My results also serve to support emerging evidence that the stress of job insecurity varies

according to life course position (Cheng and Chan 2009). Calls to combine the insights of the

Stress Process Model and life course theory have drawn increased attention to the timing of

stressors and the ways in which stressful role transitions intersect with other contextual factors,

such as the quality of the role under duress, and family structure/composition (Elder 1998; Sweet

and Moen 2011). Due to the data limitations, the analyses in this paper are unable to take a

lifelong view of stressors and their health implications over the long-term; but the findings

revealed here do at least lend support to many of these life course considerations. Specifically, I

contend that age-disparities in the stress of job insecurity are in part a function of an individual’s

current position and trajectory in their career, along with the nature and extent of family-related

60

demands coinciding with that position. Informed by this argument, I derived two specific age-

related hypotheses; one hypothesis predicting that the stress of job insecurity is greater among

older workers, and an alternative hypothesis predicting that this stress should be greatest during

middle age.

I find some support for the stress of middle age hypothesis, but only among participants in the

WSH study. The greater distress that American workers in the early stages of middle age (35-44)

experience as a result of job insecurity may be due to their exposure to family-related financial

responsibilities that makes the threat of job loss a more significant stressor for this group. Middle

age workers approaching late working life (45-54), and older American workers (55-65) facing

job insecurity, by contrast, do not report more distress than workers in the youngest group (25-

34). The absence of a significant interaction for older workers may be explained by their

proximity to retirement; though the fact that those age 45-54 do not report more distress as a

result of job insecurity is perhaps surprising, given that they likely have similar family

obligations as those age 35-44, as well as facing increasing labour market constraints (i.e.

increased age discrimination). These results do indicate, however, that the least affected by job

insecurity are those in formative stage of their careers; for this group, the stress of job insecurity

may be tempered by the fact that job mobility and instability are traditionally more common and

expected early on in one’s career—not to mentioned being now normative features of the

contemporary labour market that these workers have grown-up in. Additionally, the fact that

many younger workers are increasingly delaying family formation (Mathews and Hamilton

2009) means that this age group likely has fewer financial dependants to provide for, potentially

reducing the perceived danger of a layoff. Finally, in both studies I find no evidence of

statistically significant three-way interactions between age, sense of control and job insecurity;

thus all age groups equally experience the protective benefits of a strong sense of control.

American-Canadian Comparisons

Since this paper analyzes studies from two countries at two different time-points, it is important

to consider the similarities and differences in economic and labour market conditions that may

account for consistencies and inconsistencies between the results of the two analyses. The free-

market focused economies of Canada and the US share many similarities, particularly when

contrasted with northern European countries that have more extensive welfare state protections

61

and other labour market regulation systems (Kahn 2012). The consequences of job loss may be

more ominous for workers in North America because of the absence of such protections; an

explanation that may account for the similar health experiences reported by WSH and CAN-

WSH survey participants who encountered job insecurity. Nevertheless, labour market

differences do exist. Canada has generally stronger labour market protections and higher union

density than the United States, for example (Kahn 2012). Additionally, Canadian workers who

are laid-off also have greater access to health insurance compared to American workers. This

greater access to health care may account for the absence of age contingencies in analyses of the

Canadian study. For American workers who are laid off, the loss of health care coverage may

pose economic problems that particularly problematic during middle age when family

obligations are highest. Their children may still receive coverage, but the threat of losing one’s

personal coverage may nevertheless create greater anxiety during this stage, given that personal

health costs may disrupt one’s ability to provide for their family. In contrast, Canadian workers’

continued access to health coverage might dampen this anxiety among middle age workers with

families—possibly resulting in more similar health penalties over the life course.

Another important difference is the timing of the two studies. The American WSH study was

conducted prior to the recession during a period of relative economic stability, while the CAN-

WSH study was conducted after the recession, but nevertheless during a period of global

economic and financial uncertainty. It is perhaps, then, surprising that the increased uncertainty

of this period did not lead to greater perceptions of insecurity in the CAN-WSH study. However,

with a more detailed examination of responses to the insecurity survey item, differences between

participants’ experiences across the two studies emerge. Specifically, while a similar proportion

of workers in each study reported that they were ‘somewhat likely’ to lose their job in the next

two years, almost twice the proportion of Canadian participants reported that they were ‘very

likely’ to lose their job (8 percent), relative to American workers (4.5 percent). The measurement

strategy used in this paper thus obscures these differences. It should be noted that other analyses

with perceived insecurity modeled as an ordinal measure revealed similar results as those

presented here. In order to examine age contingencies, the dichotomous measure was preferred,

given the low cell sizes that were created from interacting age with each of the ordinal levels of

insecurity.

62

Several limitations of this research deserve brief mention. While the hypothesized linkages

between the focal variables are consistent with prior theory and qualitative evidence, I am unable

to test the causal ordering between job insecurity, sense of control, and distress. Longitudinal

analyses are therefore required to more accurately verify my claims. Additionally, while the

measure of job insecurity is well-established and commonly used, future research would benefit

from the inclusion of a more comprehensive set of questions that tap into both subjective and

objective components of employment precariousness—such as recent organizational downsizing,

or measures that more deeply probe one’s sense of worry regarding potential job loss. Despite

this, I believe that asking workers about the likelihood of future job loss is a concise and succinct

strategy for assessing job security, and one that avoids confounding personality and mental

health traits (e.g. neuroticism) with the appraisals of security—an issue that survey items that

measure the degree that one expresses worry about job loss may fall prey to.

Conclusion The sense of control has been shown to be a critical psychological disposition that explains a

considerable proportion of mental health disparities between individuals and groups (Pearlin et

al. 2007). A primary mechanism that accounts for its health benefits is the propensity for a strong

sense of control to reduce the deleterious impact of role stressors on well-being by fostering

resilience and proactive behaviors in the face of these stressors. In the case of this paper, sense of

control is shown to alleviate the stress of an uncertain and potentially damaging future event: the

loss of employment. At the same time, however, exposure to this uncontrollable and uncertain

threat may also come to erode one’s sense of control, thus serving to amplify the stress of job

insecurity. This structural amplification effect warrants further thought and empirical study, since

it may represent a useful framework for understanding the long-term links between job insecurity

and well-being.

63

Notes

1. There were approximately 27,000 cases that are classified as “refusals,” but information about

whether or not these cases would have been eligible to participate is unavailable. A substantial

percentage simply “hung up” immediately. It is estimated that roughly 40 percent of these cases

would have been eligible to participate in the study. Despite the response rate being lower than

desirable levels, comparisons with the Canadian working population show that the sample is

nationally representative. Additionally, weighted analyses revealed very similar results as those

presented here; thus providing no evidence of sample-bias.

64

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68

TABLE 3.1 Means and Proportions of all CAN-WSH Study Variables

Age Categories Total

25-34 35-44 45-54 55-65

Psychological Distress 2.213 2.205 2.215 2.083* 2.168

Perceived Job Insecurity .210 .235 .214 .171* .211

Sense of Personal Control 2.989 2.967 2.994 2.943 2.959

Female .597 .599 .638 .601 .610

$25,000 or less .155 .132 .113

* .140 .131

$25,001 to $50,000 .434 .334 .338 .314 .352

$50,001 to $75,000 .257 .239 .226 .221 .235

$75,001 to $100,000 .087 .168 .170 .172 .153

$100,001 to $125,000 .025 .043

* .050

* .044

* .042

More than $125,000 .022 .040* .053

* .059

* .044

Job Pressures 3.104 3.218* 3.187 3.097 3.162

Job Autonomy 2.795 2.882 2.835

* 2.905

* 2.823

Work Hours (Weekly) 40.346 40.085 40.070 43.303 40.277

Employed in Public Sector .325 .363 .409* .405

* .379

Executive .088 .108 .114 .094 .103

Professional .364 .364 .310* .325 .336

Technical .132 .168

* .156 .179 .158

Sales .055 .055 .057 .056 .058

Administrative .100 .076 .120 .104 .101

Service .116 .096 .116 .109 .115

Production .141 .130 .141 .124 .124

Education 5.239 5.245 4.945* 4.479

* 5.058

Married .412 .581* .542

* .561

* .531

Children in the Household .920 1.434* .610

* .123

* .804

N 757 1017 1325 691 3790

Comparison with the “25-34” group is statistically significant at * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–

tailed test).

69

TABLE 3.2 Means and Proportions of all WSH Study Variables

Age Categories Total

25-34 35-44 45-54 55-65

Psychological Distress 2.033 1.900 1.860 1.667* 1.877

Perceived Job Insecurity .192 .217 .200 .201 .205

Sense of Personal Control .852 .871 .79 .800 .830

Female .640 .520

** .585 .631 .589

$25,000 or less .382 .254

* .223

* .255

* .275

$25,001 to $50,000 .415 .439 .379 .372 .402

$50,001 to $75,000 .133 .161 .234* .217

* .187

$75,001 to $100,000 .049 .078 .096

* .079 .077

$100,001 to $125,000 .006 .017 .029 .054 .023

More than $125,000 .013 .049 .043 .029 .035

Job Pressures 3.019 3.104 2.995 2.983 3.028

Job Autonomy 2.408 2.453 2.557

* 2.493 2.482

Work Hours (Weekly) 42.284 45.520* 46.557

* 42.561 44.516

Employed in Public Sector .221 .257 .256 .261 .247

Professional .267 .329 .312 .326 .301

Technical .392 .300

* .361 .368 .355

Craft .045 .095* .061 .054 .066

Service .133 .115 .133 .133 .128

Labor .105 .112 .104 .101 .106

Education 5.301 5.271 5.291 5.384 5.309

Married .516 .604* .608

* .577 .579

Children in the Household 1.051 1.280* .649

* .605

* .826

White .683 .716 .804* .786

* .749

N 306 346 393 239 1284

Comparison with the “25-34” group is statistically significant at * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–

tailed test).

70

TABLE 3.3 CAN-WSH: Regression of Psychological Distress on Focal Independent Variables

(N=3,790)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Job Insecurity and Personal Control

Perceived Job Insecurity .189***

.107***

.410**

.085 .392

Sense of Personal Control — -.580**

-.556***

-.580***

-.568***

Job Insecurity × Personal Control — — -.107* — -.108

Age Contingencies

35 – 44 years-old a -.003 -.032 -.032 -.050 -.146

45 – 54 years-old a -.039 -.089

** -.089

** -.091 -.052

55 – 65 years-old a -.051 -.120

** -.118

** -.117 -.232

Job Insecurity × 35 – 44 — — — .075 .344

Job Insecurity × 45 – 54 — — — .009 -.107

Job Insecurity × 55 – 65 — — — -.019 -.409

35– 44 × Personal Control — — — — .032

45 – 54 × Personal Control — — — — -.013

55 – 65 × Personal Control — — — — .039

Job Insecurity × 35– 44 × Personal Control — — — — -.094

Job Insecurity × 45 – 54 × Personal Control — — — — .039

Job Insecurity × 55 – 65 × Personal Control — — — — .140

Income

$25,001 or less b .064 .051 .050 .050 .048

$50,001 to $75,000 b -.077

** -.030 -.031 -.030 -.030

$75,001 to $100,000 b -.115

** -.013 -.015 -.014 -.013

$100,001 to $125,000 b -.166

** -.087 -.087 -.086 -.083

More than $125,000 b -.146

** -.026 -.026 -.027 -.024

Work Conditions

Work Hours (Weekly) .000 .001 .001 .001 .001

Job Pressures .218***

.151***

.150**

.151**

.150***

Job Autonomy -.129***

-.066**

-.065**

-.066**

-.064**

Employed in Public Sector .020 .030 .030 .030 .031

Occupation

Executive c .024 0.054 .052 .053 .052

Technical c -.001 -.010 -.009 -.010 -.008

Continued on next page

71

Table 3.3 Continued


Sales c .007 .013 .013 .011 .008

Administrative c -.005 -.040 -.041 -.041 -.040

Service c .034 .016 .016 .016 .015

Production c -.003 -.029 -.028 -.030 -.030

Demographics

Women .085**

.123**

.122**

.120**

.120**

Education -.002 .006 .005 .005 .004

Married -.100**

-.064**

-.064**

-.063**

-.062**

Children in the Household .085 .011 .010 .011 .011

Constant 1.837

3.526 3.452

3.531

3.495

R2

.187 .352 .358 .358 .360

* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–tailed test). a Compared to 25 – 34 year-olds.

b Compared to $25,001 to $50,000.

c Compared to professionals.

72

TABLE 3.4 WSH Sample: Regression of Psychological Distress on Focal Independent Variables

(N=1,284)


Job Insecurity and Personal Control

Perceived Job Insecurity .555***

.523***

.909***

.118 .324

Sense of Personal Control — -.462***

-.347***

-.461***

-.399

Job Insecurity × Personal Control — — -.490* — -.255

Age Contingencies

35 – 44 years-old a -.095 -.098 -.094 -.230 -.333

45 – 54 years-old a -.121 -.181 -.191 -.258

* -.166

55 – 65 years-old a -.367

** -.421

** -.423

** -.529

** -.776

*

Job Insecurity × 35 – 44 — — — .651* .115

Job Insecurity × 45 – 54 — — — .397 -.112

Job Insecurity × 55 – 65 — — — .536 .305

35– 44 × Personal Control — — — — 1.058



Job Insecurity × 35– 44 × Personal Control — — — — -.443

Job Insecurity × 45 – 54 × Personal Control — — — — -.234

Job Insecurity × 55 – 65 × Personal Control — — — — -.266

Income

$25,00 or less b .257

* .205 .198 .205 .196

$50,001 to $75,000 b -.178 -.150 -.147 -.151 -.148

$75,001 to $100,000 b .035 .076 .090 .078 .104

$100,001 to $125,000 b -.114 -.113 -.108 -.097 -.100

More than $125,000 b -.039 .019 .025 .007 .012

Work Conditions

Work Hours (Weekly) -.001 .001 .001 .001 .001

Job Pressures .211***

.213***

.216***

.215***

.220***

Job Autonomy -.048 -.043 -.042 -.042 -.039

Employed in Public Sector -.035 -.008 -.011 -.007 -.007

Occupation

Service c .342

* .335

* .340

* .330

* .342

*

Technical c .089 .056 .060 .051 .052

Continued on next page

73

Table 3.4 Continued


Craft c .252 .216 .226 .232 .237

Labor c .115 .059 .075 .094 .121

Demographics

Women .541***

.543***

.553***

.556***

.566***

Education -.074**

-.065**

-.066**

-.065**

-.069**

Married -.252**

-.251**

-.251**

-.261**

-.261**

Children in the Household .070* .078

* .078

* .080

* .078

*

White .160 .170 .168 .175 .177

Constant 1.303 1.411

1.134

1.464

1.101

R2

.125 .141 .146 .148 .150

* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–tailed test). a Compared to 25 – 34 year-olds.

b Compared to $25,001 to $50,000.

c Compared to professionals.

74

Chapter 4 The Consequences of Job Insecurity and Job Degradation for the

Sense of Personal Control

Introduction The sense of personal control is the generalized belief that one has control over meaningful

events and circumstances in their life. It is considered an important psychological disposition that

is associated with good psychological and physical well-being (Mirowsky and Ross 2003;

Wheaton 1983). While a subjective appraisal, the sense of control is nevertheless a learned

expectation, and one that is shaped by patterned social-structural experiences over the life course

(Ross and Sastry 1999). As such, it is considered a key-mediating link through which social

conditions influence mental health (Seeman 1959). In this paper I consider how the social

organization of work—specifically the organization of insecure work—shapes the sense of

control, and how this process potentially operates uniquely across age, a key social status.

Scholars have long demonstrated how job conditions, such as autonomous, interesting and self-

directed work, influence feelings of mastery and self-efficacy (Kohn and Schooler 1983; Ross

and Mirowsky 1992; Schieman and Plickert 2008). However, with economic and organizational

restructuring contributing to the proliferation of insecure and precarious work arrangements in

recent decades, the degree of control and certainty over one’s continuing employment represents

a particularly important and contemporary work experience that may influence the sense of

control (Kalleberg 2011). The proportion of American workers who perceive their jobs as

insecure has risen steadily since the 1970s (Fullerton and Wallace 2007), and with the recent

‘Great Recession,’ job insecurity has become an issue attracting widespread interest. Since

employment serves as a key source of economic livelihood, as well as identity, it seems plausible

that the threat of job loss, and the uncertainty surrounding the event, could constitute a chronic

stressor that may challenge the extent that an individual believes they exert control over their life

(Sverke and Hellgren 2002; Wheaton 1999).

While insecure employment may directly influence beliefs about personal control, it may also do

so as part of a broader process involving deteriorating job quality. Insecurity researchers have

argued that the loss of desirable job conditions represents an overlooked dimension of job

75

insecurity, and suggest the importance of distinguishing between insecurity about the continuity

of one’s job from insecurity over valued aspects of one’s job (Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt 1984;

Sverke and Hellgren 2002). Given that many workers surviving organizational downsizing and

restructuring tend to experience not only a decline in job security, but also job degradation in the

form of increased job pressures and reduced decision-making latitude (Burke and Nelson 1998;

Quinlan and Bohle 2009), part of the association between job insecurity and a decreased sense of

control may be accounted for by changing access or exposure to these job resources and demands

(Bakker and Geurts 2004). To address this issue, I consider whether a decline in job security is

associated with a change in workers’ reports of decision-making latitude and job pressures over

time, and whether any changes in these job conditions mediate the potential association between

job insecurity and sense of control.

In order to these issues, I analyze two waves of panel data drawn from a national study of

American workers in 2005 and 2007. As part of these analyses, I consider whether the potential

associations between job insecurity, job quality and the sense of control are contingent on two

temporal factors: 1) the duration of job insecurity, and 2) its life course timing. I outline the

rationale for examining these contingencies, as well as the links between insecurity and sense of

control in the following section.

Literature Review

The Sense of Personal Control

The belief that one can effectively control important aspects of their life is informed by a variety

of constructs, including mastery and self-efficacy at one end of the continuum, and

powerlessness, fatalism and external locus of control on the other (Turner and Roszell 1994;

Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Pearlin and Schooler 1978). Here, I focus on a particular construct

that shares considerable conceptual overlap with all of these: the sense of personal control.

Individuals with a high or internal locus of personal control believe that the things that happen in

their life are mostly of their doing rather than the result of chance or outside forces. These beliefs

are shaped through socialization and personal experience, as an individual comes to realize the

extent that their actions result in desirable versus undesirable outcomes (Wheaton 1980). Interest

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in the sense of control originates in part from the fact that it represents a useful concept for

illuminating the ways in which the self is socially constituted (Ross and Sastry 1999). However,

it has also drawn interest from stress researchers who have shown it to be a key personal resource

for coping with the deleterious consequences of stressors (Mirowsky and Ross 1989).

With regards to the antecedents and formative elements of personal control, one relevant social

domain is the workplace. Beyond the beneficial value of employment itself (Mirowsky and Ross

1992), the workplace constitutes an important patterned source of opportunity and constraint that

may influence feelings of mastery and personal control. A considerable body of scholarship

informs knowledge of the relationship between the social organization of work and personal

control, from Marx ([1852] 1983), who saw work activity as a key source of identity and self-

actualization, but one that was increasingly estranged under capitalist relations, to Kohn and

Schooler (1983), who considered specific occupational sources of powerlessness (see also

Seeman 1967; Schieman 2002; Schieman and Plickert 2008). Collectively, this research

highlights how the degree that one is able to exercise self-direction in the pacing, nature, and

timing of work are important predictors of high personal control.

A related issue that has received increased attention is the decline in job security in the United

States in recent decades (Hollister 2011; Kalleberg 2011). However, while scholars have

documented the mental and physical health consequences of insecure employment, less research

has considered the implications for the sense of control. Indeed, while stress process researchers

have suggested that personal control represents a resource for reducing the stress associated with

job insecurity (Pearlin 1989; Pearlin Schieman, Fazio, and Meersman 2005), few have

considered it as an outcome of job insecurity. I discuss existing theoretical and empirical work on

this subject in the following section.

Job Insecurity and Feelings of Powerlessness

Decreasing job security in recent decades is one aspect of a broader change in paid work that is

often described in terms of the erosion of the post-WWII psychological contract between

employers and employees (Rousseau 1995). The decline of this contract, which specifies the

exchange of worker commitment and loyalty for secure, well-paid employment with

advancement opportunities, has been driven by an interlinked set of economic and political

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changes that have led employers to increasingly prioritize flexible labour (Kalleberg 2011). This

prioritization is evident in the growing popularity of organizational strategies designed to achieve

numerical and functional flexibility, such as downsizing and the hiring of short or fixed-term

contracts (Hollister 2011). Consequently, scholars have become interested in workers’ responses

to these changes, and in particular, their reactions to growing uncertainty about their continuing

employment (for a review, see Sverke and Hellgren 2002).

Job insecurity has been defined in various ways, including “an individual’s expectations about

continuity in a job situation” (Davy et al. 1997:323), and one’s “powerlessness to maintain

desired continuity in a threatened job” (Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt 1984:438). A common theme

among these definitions is that it represents a subjective appraisal of the threat to one’s

immediate employment. Despite its subjective nature, research demonstrates that workers’

perceptions of insecure employment represent a relatively accurate indicator of more objective

measures of insecurity (Elman and O’Rand 2002).

There are various reasons to expect a link between job insecurity and the sense of control.

Research documents that job loss and unemployment are associated with reduced personal

control (Avison 2001; Broman, Hamilton, and Hoffman 2000), presumably because of the loss of

valued material, psychological and social resources attached to employment (Jahoda 1982).

Thus, it seems likely that the threat and anticipation of job loss may have similar consequences,

as individuals realize they are not in control of their continuing access to these resources, and

generalize this lack of control to other aspects of their life. The chronic, non-discrete nature of

job insecurity may also function to reduce perceptions of control (Wheaton 1999). In contrast to

an actual event that an individual can directly observe and respond to—such as job loss—the

very ambiguity and uncertainty about the threat of job loss hinders an individual’s ability to

resolve or alleviate the threat (De Witte 1999; Lazarus and Folkman 1984). The lack of options

to resolve this threat, coupled with its unpredictability, may therefore result in feelings of

powerlessness and low perceptions of control. Further, the absence of secure, long-term

employment may reduce an individual’s tendency to engage in certain actions that require long-

term planning, such as starting a family or purchasing a home—behaviors that may otherwise

foster positive beliefs about personal control (Hollister 2011).

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While research has shown that a variety of work-related stressors are associated with lower

perceptions of personal control (Christie and Barling 2009; Schieman and Plickert 2008), there is

a dearth of strong empirical evidence regarding the effects of job insecurity. Waters and Moore

(2002) found that those experiencing frequent layoffs were more likely to believe that outcomes

in their life were a result of powerful others; however the generalizability of the authors’ findings

was limited by their small convenience-based sample (n=129). Moreover, larger cross-sectional

studies of North American and European workers that have examined the association between

insecurity and control report conflicting results (Lau and Knardahl 2004; Schieman 2002).

Added to this, there is a relative absence of research utilizing repeated observations of insecurity

and personal control over time—research designs that are better able to establish evidence of

causality. One notable exception is a study by Kinnunen, Feldt, and Mauno (2003) who found a

negative association between job insecurity and self esteem based on a one-year longitudinal

study of a non-representative sample of Finnish workers (n=456).

Despite the absence of consistent quantitative evidence on the subject, qualitative studies of

workers facing downsizing and the prospect of future job loss are suggestive of a link between

job insecurity and the sense of control. Greenhalgh (1979) examined the experiences of New

York state hospital workers who survived downsizing, for example, and noted how these workers

reacted to their situation in a manner similar to a traumatic event. Recurring themes are evident

in other studies that discuss the feelings of powerlessness and helplessness that workers facing

future job loss experienced (Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt 1984; Jick and Greenhalgh 1989). Based

on existing quantitative and qualitative research, therefore, I expect that workers reporting job

insecurity will also report a reduced sense of personal control.

Job Degradation as a Mediator

When workers experience job insecurity, is likely a work condition that is not encountered in

isolation. Some research finds that workers who survive organizational downsizing and

restructuring not only perceive less job security but also increased job pressures and reduced job

control (Burke and Nelson 1998; Quinlan and Bohle 2009). Exposure to these conditions, if

prolonged, may come to further erode the sense of control. Indeed, while the majority of research

on job insecurity has focused on the antecedents or consequences of perceptions of insecurity,

Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt’s (1984) original definition of insecurity considers it a

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multidimensional construct that is based on the interaction between subjective characteristics and

objective job conditions. Using this broader conceptualization of job insecurity, I consider two

aspects of job degradation that may be relevant to declining job security, and that may serve to

either mediate or compound its effect on the sense of control: work intensification and reduced

decision-making latitude. That is, I seek to tease out the specific processes through which

insecurity influences personal control; either through the threat and uncertainty of job loss on the

one hand, and potential job degradation on the other.

Work intensification represents a workplace condition that is relevant to a broad section of

workers, both in secure and insecure jobs. Nevertheless, it is considered a hallmark experience of

workers in firms that downsize or restructure their organization (Kalleberg 2011). These

pressures may result from technical or organizational changes that increase the pace of work to

levels that exceed an individual’s ability to adequately complete tasks; or due to multiple or

conflicting demands from coworkers, managers or customers. The human consequences of

excessive time, task or relational work demands are well documented. Scholars find that

excessive job pressures are associated with higher levels of psychological distress and physical

health problems (Christie and Barling 2009; Schieman 2002). At the same time, excessive job

pressures signify a degree of powerlessness regarding an individual’s ability to adequately

complete work activities or meet job demands. Job pressures may therefore reduce feelings of

mastery in the work role, and potentially attitudes about personal control in general.

Similarly, organizational restructuring that is tied to declining job security may also lead to a

reduction in the control afforded to workers and the degree that they are able to make decisions

at work—job conditions that are consistently shown to be associated with high personal control

(Kohn and Schooler 1983). Moreover, the symbolic loss of a valued job feature such as decision-

making latitude may signify a loss of status and standing in the workplace, which may also serve

to reduce feelings of value, self-efficacy and personal control.

Based on these ideas and existing research, then, I expect that job insecurity should be associated

with a decline in job quality, in the form of excessive job pressures and reduced decision-making

latitude; and, since these conditions should be associated with lower sense of control, they should

subsequently mediate part of the overall association between job insecurity and personal control.

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Contingencies: Duration and Life Course Timing

Research and theory suggest that the link between job insecurity and sense of personal control

may be contingent on: 1) the duration of exposure to job insecurity, and 2) life course timing. I

briefly discuss the theoretical and empirical rationale for these contingencies in turn.

Duration. If job insecurity does reduce perceptions of personal control, what is the temporal

nature of this association? Two scenarios appear plausible. One possibility is that given the

relatively stable nature of the sense of control as a feature of the self-concept (Mirowsky and

Ross 2003), the effect of job insecurity may only become evident with persistent, long-term

exposure. The threat of job loss and the pervading sense of insecurity may reduce beliefs about

personal control once they are seen as durable and intractable; this view of the consequences of

job insecurity is closest to its conceptualization as a chronic role stressor (Wheaton 1999). An

alternative possibility, however, is that the stable presence of insecurity has less or no impact on

personal control, since individuals may adjust to “environment constants” and come to see them

as normative (Mirowsky and Ross 2001). From this view, feelings of mastery and personal

control may be downwardly malleable only to a certain level, and after which, job insecurity may

have no further influence. Indeed, individuals may potentially regain a sense of control as they

come to reinterpret or downplay the threat of job loss as unimportant in their lives. The impact of

recently experienced job insecurity may therefore exert a stronger influence on personal control

than persistent insecurity. I test each of these hypotheses, which I label as the persistent and

novelty effects of job insecurity, respectively.

Life Course Timing. The effect of job insecurity on the sense of personal control may also vary

across age. Population studies of adults document that the sense of control varies across the life

course, peaking during middle age, before declining with older age (Mirowsky 1995), and there

is evidence that the deleterious effects of life stressors on personal control may be greater during

later life (Pearlin et al. 2007). A meta-analysis of the health consequences of job insecurity, for

example, found that older workers were more affected than younger workers (Cheng and Chan

2008). The disproportionate health effects across age may be because of the greater threat and

consequences that older workers associate with the threat of job loss—older workers who are

laid off face significant labour market challenges in comparison to younger workers (Hirsch et al.

2000). Or, it may be due to a cohort effect in which younger workers who have grown up in an

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era of high employment instability may be more acclimatized and accepting to precarious work

conditions than their older counterparts (Farber 2010). Similarly, younger workers at the

beginning of their careers may be more accepting of the job degradation that often accompanies

decreased job security. In contrast, older workers, due to their greater experience and job status,

may perceive a decline in job autonomy or an increase in work pressures as more unexpected and

disagreeable, which may be subsequently more detrimental to their sense of control. As such, job

insecurity may represent a more stressful, debilitating and unfamiliar experience for older

workers (Schieman 2002). These potentialities suggest that the extent that job insecurity leads to

a lowered sense of control should increase with age.

Data and Methods To test the hypotheses described above, I analyze panel data from the Work, Stress and Health

study (WSH), which involved telephone interviews with adults in the 50 United States in 2005

and 2007. To obtain the original sample, a list-assisted random digit dialing (RDD) selection was

used and drawn proportionally from all 50 states from GENESYS Sampling Systems. Eligible

participants are 18 years of age or older and participating in the paid labour force. At Wave 1, 71

percent of eligible individuals were successfully interviewed yielding a sample of 1,800 adults.

At Wave 2 interviews, which occurred approximately 18-to-20 months after the initial interview,

1,286 of the original participants were successfully re-interviewed. Sample characteristics for the

WSH study are similar to the population estimates of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2005 American

Community Survey (ACS).

The working sample includes non-self employed workers, between the ages of 25 and 65, who

participated in both waves of the survey, worked twenty hours or more a week, and who did not

change or lose their job between interviews (N=775). I briefly explain the rationale for the

sample selection. The measure of job insecurity that I use is designed to tap into workers

perceptions of the strength of the employer-employee psychological contract (Rousseau 1995);

as such, even though self-employed workers may face future threats to their continuing

employment, this measure of insecurity is not applicable to workers who are not hired by an

employer. Additionally, as is the case with most studies of job insecurity, respondents between

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the ages of 18-24 are omitted from the working sample, since this group are overridingly in

contingent jobs due their disproportionate participation in higher education (Polivka 1996).

Finally, I restrict the sample to those who had the same employer between interviews because I

am specifically interested in examining how job insecurity is associated with changes in job

quality; that is, changes in job quality for a specific, single job. Including in the sample those

who changed jobs would not allow for such an examination.

Measures

Sense of personal control. Mirowsky and Ross's (2003) 2 x 2 index of the sense of personal

control is used. It asks participants to report their level of agreement or disagreement with the

eight statements; there are two statements in each of the four categories. Statements that measure

the level that individuals claim control over good outcomes include: (1. "I am responsible for my

own successes," and (2. "I can do just about anything I really set my mind to." Items that

measure claims of control over bad outcomes include: (3. "My misfortunes are the result of

mistakes I have made," and (4. "I am responsible for my failures." Items that assess the extent

that individuals deny control over good outcomes are: (5. "The really good things that happen to

me are mostly luck," and (6. "There's no sense planning a lot--if something good is going to

happen it will." The last two statements measure the denial of control over bad outcomes: (7.

"Most of my problems are due to bad breaks," and (8. "I have little control over the bad things

that happen to me." Responses to statements 1 through 4 are coded "strongly disagree" (-2),

"disagree" (-1), "neutral" (0), "agree" (1), and "strongly agree (2). Responses to statements 5

through 8 are coded "strongly disagree" (2), "disagree" (1), "neutral" (0), "agree" (-1), and

"strongly agree (-2). I averaged responses; higher scores indicate a greater sense of control (α =

.55).

Perceived Job insecurity. Job insecurity is assessed with the following question: “How likely is it

that during the next couple of years will you lose your present job and have to look for a job with

another employer?” Response choices include: “not at all likely” (1), “somewhat likely” (2), and

“very likely” (3). This question has been used in several well-respected surveys including the

General Social Survey and the National Study of the Changing Workforce. I follow Burgard and

colleagues (2009) modeling strategy in order to assess temporal change in job insecurity. I create

three binary dummy variables that represent episodic (wave 1 or wave 2 only) and persistent job

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insecurity (both waves), and contrast these with the absence of job insecurity at both time points.

Persistent insecurity is coded 1 if respondents report that they are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very likely’ to

lose their jobs at both interviews and coded 0 otherwise, (2) resolved insecurity is coded 1 if

respondents reported that they are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very likely’ to lose their job only at wave 1,

and coded 0 otherwise, and (3) new insecurity is coded 1 if respondents reported that they are

‘somewhat’ or ‘very likely’ to lose their job at wave 2 only, and coded 0 otherwise. The

reference category is the absence of reported job insecurity at both time points.

Excessive job pressures. The following question is used to measure excessive job pressures: “In

the past 30 days, has anyone at work made too many demands on you?” If participants reported

yes, I then asked about the role-set source: “Was it a supervisor, someone you supervise,

customer/client, coworker, or someone else at work?” Participants could choose any source and

describe its frequency: (1) rarely, (2) sometimes, or (3) frequently. Individuals who reported no

one are the reference category. Participants were then asked a follow-up question: “How often do

the demands of your job exceed those doable in an 8-hour workday?” Response choices are (0)

never, (1) rarely, (2) sometimes, and (3) frequently. Responses to these items were standardized

and averaged to create the job pressure index.

Decision-making latitude. Two items assess decision-making latitude: “How often do you make

decisions on what needs to be done?” and “How often do you have the chance to solve

problems?” Response choices are (1) never, (2) rarely, (3) sometimes, and (4) frequently. I

averaged the items and higher scores indicate more decision-making latitude (α = .66).

Age. Age is modeled as a continuous variable.



Personal income. Personal income is assessed with the question: “For the complete year of 2004,

what was your personal income, including income from all of your paid jobs, before taxes?”

Job sector. I create dummy variables to indicate whether participants are employed by either the

government (1) or the private sector (0).

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Occupation. To assess occupation, I use respondents’ reported job titles and main duties of the

“main job at which you worked last week” to code responses into five categories in accordance

with the Bureau of Labour Statistics codes: professional (managerial and professional specialty

occupations), administrative (technical, sales, and administrative support occupations), service

(service occupations), craft (precision production, craft, and repair occupations), and labour

(operators or labourers). In regression analyses, craft is the reference category.

Gender. I use dummy codes for men (0) and women (1).

Race. I coded participants’ race as “white” (1) versus all other categories (0).

Marital status. Marital status is coded as “married (1) versus all other categories (0).

Children. This is coded as the number of children under 18 living in the household, ranging from

no children to 2 or more children under age 18 living in the home.

Education. Education is coded as an ordinal variable with the following categories: “less than

high school,” “high school or GED,” “some college or associate degree,” “four-year college

degree,” and “graduate or professional degree.”

Plan of Analyses

My analytical strategy is designed to examine the following: the association between perceived

job insecurity and the sense of personal control, the extent that decline in job quality (excessive

job pressures, reduced decision-making latitude) contributes to this association, and whether the

associations between insecurity and the sense of control are contingent on age. To this end, I first

examine whether perceived job insecurity is associated with an increase in job pressures and

reduced decision-making latitude between wave 1 and wave 2. In table 4.2, I use ordinary least

squares (OLS) regression techniques and regress job pressures (and decision-making latitude) at

wave 2 on episodic and persistent job insecurity, adjusting for baseline (i.e. wave 1) levels of job

pressures (decision-making latitude) and controls.

In model 1 of table 4.3, I use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression techniques and regress

sense of personal control on episodic and persistent job insecurity, adjusting for baseline levels

of personal control, and controls. I then enter change in job pressures in model 2, and change in

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decision-making latitude in model 3, to examine their respective contribution to any association

between job insecurity and sense of personal control revealed in model 1. I then test age-by-job

insecurity interactions in model 4 to examine whether the association between job insecurity and

sense of personal control is contingent on age.

With regards to the choice of longitudinal design, a panel regression model with fixed-effects

specification is generally preferred to OLS approaches that rely upon the stringent assumption

that unmeasured factors are uncorrelated with included covariates (Allison 1999). However, I use

a lagged-outcome method (where a baseline measure of job quality/sense of personal control is

included as a predictor) because participants whose exposure does not change over time would

be removed from analyses under a fixed effects design. This would therefore lead to the

exclusion of those with persistent insecurity from the analyses (Burgard et al. 2009).

Additionally, a common problem of longitudinal data analysis is that sample attrition can bias the

results; this is particularly problematic if baseline measures of the dependent measure predict

attrition (Mirowsky and Ross 2001). I therefore adjust for the likelihood of attrition in each of the

regression models. This adjustment takes into account the probability that each of the outcomes

or independent variables predict attrition. Using probit regression analyses I regressed “absent

from the sample at wave 2” on all independent variables. I then transformed predictions to obtain

the Mills Inverse Ratio and included it in all of the analyses. Although adjustment for the hazard

of attrition has little effect on estimates, I decided to retain it in all regression analyses as a

precaution (Mirwosky and Ross 2001).

Results

Descriptives

Table 4.1 reports descriptive statistics for all variables examined in the multivariate analyses at

wave 1 and wave 2. The majority of participants report an absence of job insecurity at both

waves (seventy-four percent), while twelve percent reported job insecurity at both waves. Seven

percent reported job insecurity at wave 2 but not at wave 1, and another seven percent reported

insecurity at wave 1 but not at wave 2.

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In Table 4.2, I present regression analyses with excessive job pressures and decision-making

latitude as dependent variables. I first regress job pressures at wave 2 on perceived job insecurity.

In model 1a, I find that episodic (new) job insecurity is associated with higher levels of job

pressures at wave 2; no statistically significant association exists between job pressures and

persistent or resolved job insecurity. Among the control measures, work hours are positively

associated with job pressures at wave 2.

I then regress decision-making latitude at wave 2 on perceived job insecurity. Model 1b reveals

that persistent job insecurity is associated with lower levels of decision-making latitude at wave

2. No statistically significant association exists between episodic (new or resolved) job insecurity

and decision-making latitude. Among the control measures, women and older workers report

lower levels of decision-making latitude at wave 2.

In Table 4.3 I regress the sense of personal control on perceived job insecurity and changes in

job quality. Model 1 reveals a statistically significant association between new job insecurity and

personal control at wave 2, though this association is significant at the p<.10 level. No significant

association exists between personal control and persistent or resolved job insecurity. In model 2,

I include excessive job pressures at wave 2 to examine whether job pressures mediates the

association between new insecurity and personal control revealed in model 1. While the

inclusion of job pressures at wave 2 weakens the association between new insecurity and

personal control and reduces it to non-significance, sobel tests reveal no evidence of a

statistically significant mediation effect. Moreover, job pressures at wave 2 are not associated

with personal control. In model 3, with job pressures omitted, I include decision-making latitude

at wave 2 and find no evidence that it is associated with personal control, or that it mediates the

association between new job insecurity and control.

Finally, in model 4 I examine whether the association between job insecurity and personal

control is contingent on age. The interaction between new insecurity and personal control is not

significant, indicating that the association between new insecurity and personal control does not

vary across age. However, the statistically significant interaction between persistent insecurity

and personal control reveals that the association between persistent job insecurity and personal

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control is contingent upon age. Specifically, while younger workers with persistent job insecurity

have similar levels of personal control as those reporting an absence of job insecurity, the

tendency for persistent insecurity to be associated with lower levels of personal control begins at

the age of thirty and increases with age; though the difference only becomes notable for older

workers. An incremental r-square test reveals that the improvement in r-square between models 3

and 4 is significant (F=7.24, p<.01). Figure 4.1 illustrates this contingency.

Attrition

The longitudinal design of the study was such that only those in the paid labour force were re-

interviewed at wave 2. It is possible therefore that attrition may account for the association

between job insecurity and sense of control, as well as the age contingencies that I find.

Individuals reporting job insecurity at wave 1, for example, may be more likely to experience

subsequent job loss, resulting in their absence from wave 2. All analyses therefore adjust for the

hazard of attrition to rule out these possibilities. Additionally, an examination of factors

predicting attrition between wave 1 and wave 2 (see Appendix I, model 2) shows that attrition is

largely random with respect to the baseline focal measures. One other related possibility

concerns the decision to restrict the analytical sample to workers who did not change employers

between interviews; it is possible that those with a high sense of control who reported job

insecurity at the first interview were more likely to look for and find another more secure job by

the second interview, resulting in their absence from the analytical sample. Consequently, the

possible omission of these individuals from the analytical sample might create the false

appearance of a negative association between job insecurity and sense of control, since the

number of individuals with job insecurity and low sense of control would be overestimated.

However, analyses (not shown) that include workers who changed employers between interviews

demonstrated similar findings as those presented here, ruling out this possibility.

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Discussion

This paper makes three key contributions to scholarship on the social-psychological linkages

between a contemporary work experience and personality, namely by: 1) documenting the

association between job insecurity and sense of control in a large, national sample of workers, 2)

revealing how this association is contingent on the duration of job insecurity and the age it is

experienced, and 3) assessing the extent that job insecurity is associated with job degradation,

and whether this degradation accounts for the association between insecurity and sense of

control.

Given the decrease in job security in recent decades, and particularly in the light of the recent

recession, scholars have become interested in documenting the implications of these trends with

respect to workers’ health. However an issue that has been less considered is whether job

insecurity may also shape important psychological dispositions that are fundamental to health

and individual functioning. We know much about how autonomous and self-directed work

conditions are associated with personality dispositions like the sense of personal control; but

what of the uncertainty that permeates the daily work experiences of individuals who live under

the continual threat of job loss? The chronic nature of this threat, its ambiguous nature, and the

relative lack of options to resolve it may present serious challenges to the belief that one

commands control over their life. The findings of this paper support the conceptualization of job

insecurity as a chronic work stressor that leads to feelings of powerlessness; however, as I

discuss, the extent that it does so depends on several key temporal factors.

Duration and Timing

My findings provide evidence that the effect of job insecurity on the sense of control is

contingent on both the duration and timing of the experience. I find no evidence that the past

experience of job insecurity has any lagged or long-term consequences for personal control. In

contrast, I find partial support for both the novelty and persistent hypotheses. Workers

experiencing the recent threat of job loss report lower levels of personal control relative to those

without job insecurity—suggestive of the possibility that the sense of control is a psychological

disposition that is reactive over relatively short time-spans. I also find, however, that persistent

job insecurity is associated with reduced personal control, rejecting the notion that individuals

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eventually adapt to environmental constants, where ever-present uncertainty about job loss is the

constant.

A caveat exists here, however. The association between persistent job insecurity and reduced

personal control is evident only among middle age and older workers. This suggests that younger

workers may in some manner adapt to prolonged exposure to job insecurity. I do not have access

to these individuals’ prior work histories, but workers in their twenties who report job insecurity

at both waves of the survey likely have encountered no other type of employment situation in

their career. Job insecurity may therefore be a normative experience for these individuals; likely

they have either already adapted to their uncertain economic situation, or they may not connect

such powerlessness to their general sense of control. Here, these possibilities speak to a

potentially important issue regarding the meaning of stressors and the ways in which individuals’

prior experiences and beliefs may influence reactions to stress (Wheaton 1999). The fact that

older workers experience the greatest reduction in personal control in response to the threat of

job loss suggests that this threat holds a different set of meanings for these individuals; that is,

they may perceive it as either more consequential for their careers or family, or it is more

incongruent with their prevailing expectations about the employer-employee psychological

contract. Unfortunately, I am unable to determine the specific meanings that older workers attach

to job insecurity, or the ways in which they are consequential for personal control. It may be that

both worries about the chances of rehire, as well as their stronger expectations about job security,

contribute to the disproportionate penalties that they experience with respect to their sense of

personal control.

The above explanation why younger workers may be unresponsive to prolonged job insecurity

notwithstanding, it is still surprising that older workers do not incur greater penalties from

recently experienced job insecurity. One might expect to find similar age contingencies with

respect to new and persistent job insecurity. Additional analyses of curvilinear age contingencies

did not shed any light on this issue. More research is therefore necessary to address this question.

Are these findings suggestive that young workers who are now entering a labour market

characterized by high instability and mobility will be unaffected by the threat of job loss, since

they have experienced nothing else? Perhaps not. With only two waves of interviews, two years

apart, I have a relatively short snapshot of workers’ lives. A longer view of the life course is

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necessary—a key tenet of the life course perspective (Elder 2003)—in order to fully consider

how beliefs about personal control may be influenced by insecure employment experiences. Such

an approach would allow for an investigation of how job insecurity influences decisions about

family formation, home purchases, and other significant life events that may either serve to foster

or undermine the sense of control. Thus, an accurate appraisal of the consequences of the recent

recession for young workers—a group whose employment opportunities have been hardest hit—

would require follow-up interviews with these individuals over the next decade.

The Contribution of Job Degradation

Traditional conceptualizations of job insecurity define it as a perceived powerlessness with

regards to control over one’s continuing employment. However, broader conceptualizations of

the construct acknowledge that the insecurity or loss of valued job conditions may also be

relevant (Sverke and Hellgren 2002). Declining job security and job quality is therefore likely

experienced in tandem, as employers place greater demands on surviving workers, or restructure

in ways that reduce worker autonomy. My findings demonstrate evidence of this: workers in the

sample who reported a decline in job security also reported greater job pressures and less

autonomy at wave 2—though these associations depend on the duration of job insecurity. I find

that the recent—but not persistent—experience of job insecurity is associated with an increase in

excessive job pressures. That excessive job pressures are not associated with persistent job

insecurity is somewhat surprising, but it may be that individuals come to adjust to the changes in

pressures that result from organizational restructuring or downsizing.

While it is only the recent experience of job insecurity that I find to be associated with increased

job pressures, I find the opposite with regard to decision-making latitude; only workers reporting

persistent insecurity reported a decline in decision-making latitude at work. Here, it may be that

decision-making latitude is a job resource that is eroded more slowly, as organizations engage in

work-redesigns that emphasize efficiency at the expense of worker autonomy.

With respect to these findings, one possibility that is worth noting is that workers with job

insecurity may perceive an increase in job pressures or a reduction in job latitude without an

actual objective change in job conditions. This could explain why new job insecurity is

associated with job pressures, but not persistent insecurity. As an individual comes to consider

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job insecurity an accepted feature of their job situation, the tendency to appraise more job

pressures may also decline. It is harder, however, to see how this explanation might account for

changes in decision-making latitude, which are associated with persistent insecurity only. If

participants’ reports of job autonomy were purely a result of insecurity shaping perceptions about

decision-making latitude, one would expect to find an association between the recent onset of job

insecurity and latitude. Thus, it would seem more plausible that reports of changing job quality

are—at least in part—the result of objective changes in workers’ jobs.

Despite the links between job insecurity and job degradation, I find no evidence that changes in

job pressures or decision-making latitude account for the association between insecurity and

sense of control. Indeed, I find no evidence that changes in job pressures or job latitude are

associated with personal control. One possibility is that personal control is reactive only with

longer-term exposure to such job conditions. Kohn and Schooler’s (1983) longitudinal study of

the association between occupational self-direction and sense of control examined changes over

a ten-year period; the two-year gap between interviews in the present study may be inadequate to

identify an association. In contrast, the threat of job loss may result in a more immediate and

stronger feeling of powerlessness since it challenges an important aspect of identity—

employment. Moreover, although I do not directly test this, it may be that in contexts of threat

and economic uncertainty, that the importance of valued job conditions for the sense of control

diminish in importance, as workers become more focused on maintaining employment, rather

than the quality of their employment.

One limitation of this study deserves mention. The lagged-dependent design method utilized

does not provide a strict test of temporal ordering between the focal measures of interest. That is,

it is possible that individuals with a low sense of control are more likely to perceive that their job

is insecure, for example, rather than the reverse association hypothesized in this paper.

Moreover, it is possible that the relationship between insecurity and the sense of control is

actually reciprocal. Christie and Barling (2009), for example, find evidence that individuals

reporting high level of work stressors subsequently reported lower levels of personal control; but

they also find that low levels of personal control subsequently predicted higher levels of work

stressors—leading them to the conclusion that the nature of stress and stress recovery is a

dynamic process, and one that is better explained in terms of positive or negative control spirals.

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I am unable to replicate Christie and Barling’s (2009) study because of the absence of multi-item

measures that are required in the latent curve modeling technique that they use, but in analyses

not shown, I find no evidence that changes in sense of control predict perceived job insecurity at

wave 2. A logistic regression with perceived job insecurity at wave 2 regressed as the

independent variable on change in sense of control revealed no evidence that sense of control

significantly predicted job insecurity. Thus, while I cannot rule out the possibility that the

relationship between the focal measures of interest is dynamic and reciprocal, these additional

analyses support a causal argument in which perceptions of job insecurity influence beliefs about

personal control, rather than the opposite.

Conclusion It has been suggested that the anticipation of an undesirable event, like job loss, can be more

distressing than the event itself (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). This may be in part because the

possibility of a future event does not lend itself well to coping behaviors that are typically only

useful when the event actually occurs, but also because the perceived absence of available coping

strategies generates feelings helplessness and powerlessness—naturally unpleasant and

distressing feelings. Moreover, if the situation that one lacks control over is durable and concerns

a particularly salient role, such as employment, it is possible that these feelings may become

generalized as part of a personality trait that undermines instrumental and proactive behaviors

necessary to deal with the daily hassles and stresses of life. The findings of this paper with

respect to the sense of personal control are suggestive of this latter indirect and long-term process

that may connect job insecurity to well-being. Future research should seek to further examine

how insecure employment relations may shape personal control over the long-term, and the

subsequent effects on workers’ health over the life course.

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TABLE 4.1 Means and Proportions of all Study Variables Sense of Personal Control Wave 1 .850 Wave 2 .872 Perceived Insecurity % reporting at Wave 1 .194 % reporting at Wave 2 .180 Episodic and Persistent Insecurity % Absent Insecurity .740 % New (Wave 2 only) .065 % Resolved (Wave 1 only) .075 % Persistent (Wave 1 and Wave 2) .120 Work Conditions Excessive Job Pressures Wave 1 .073 Wave 2 .116 Decision-making Latitude Wave 1 3.620 Wave 2 3.548 Work Hours (Weekly) 44.125 Personal Income 45884.82 Employed in Public Sector .276 Socio-demographics Female .608 Married .652 Children in the Household .982 White .745 Education 3.709 N 775

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TABLE 4.2 Regression of Excessive Job Pressures and Decision-making Latitude at Wave 2 on Perceived Job Insecurity and Controls (N=775)

Excessive Job Pressures

Decision-making Latitude


New Job Insecurity a 0.181+ -0.101

Resolved Job Insecurity a 0.106 0.005

Persistent Job Insecurity a 0.031 -0.115*

Other Work Conditions

Work Hours (Weekly) 0.010*** 0.001

Employed in Public Sector -0.008 -0.035

Occupation

Labor b -0.273* -0.089

Administrative b -0.178** -0.053

Service b -0.258** -0.167**

Craft b -0.149 -0.044

Personal Income 0.000 0.000

Demographics

Female 0.034 -0.134**

Age -0.008 -0.010**

Education 0.011 0.018

Married -0.030 -0.041

Children in the Household 0.012 -0.011

White -0.057 -0.009

Wave 1

Excessive Job Pressures 0.428*** —

Decision-making Latitude — 0.537***

Constant -.441 .870

R2 .261 .339

+ p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–tailed test). a Compared to absent job insecurity b Compared to professionals.

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TABLE 4.3 Regression of Sense of Personal Control at wave 2 on Perceived Job Insecurity, Age, Interactions, Job Conditions and Controls (N=775)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Perceived Job Insecurity New Job Insecurity a -0.088+ -0.076 -0.040 -0.017 Resolved Job Insecurity a -0.059 -0.057 0.340 0.306 Persistent Job Insecurity a -0.042 -0.037 0.313 0.338+ Changes in Job Quality Excessive Job Pressures (Wave 1) -0.016 -0.005 -0.015 -0.017 Change in Excessive Job Pressures — -0.026 — 0.306 Decision-making Latitude (Wave 1) 0.024 0.007 0.019 0.338 Change in Decision-making Latitude — 0.033 — -0.017 Age -0.001 -0.001 0.001 0.001 Insecurity × Age Interactions Age × New a — — -0.001 -0.001 Age × Resolved a — — -0.009 -0.008 Age × Persistent a — — -0.008* -0.008* Other Work Conditions Work Hours (Weekly) -0.001 -0.001 -0.001 0.000 Employed in Public Sector -0.018 -0.017 -0.021 -0.020 Occupation Labor b -0.095 -0.099 -0.090 -0.093 Administrative b 0.016 0.013 0.023 0.019 Service b -0.140** -0.142** -0.128** -0.130** Craft b -0.021 -0.023 -0.009 -0.011 Personal Income 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 Demographics Education 0.039** 0.038** 0.033* 0.032* Married -0.010 -0.009 -0.020 -0.020 Children in the Household 0.041* 0.042* 0.036 0.036 White 0.066 0.063 0.049 0.046 Wave 1 Sense of Control at Wave 1 0.552*** 0.547*** 0.544*** 0.539*** Constant 0.663 0.608 0.418 0.362 R2 .331 .351 .388 .388

+ p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–tailed test). a Compared to absent job insecurity b Compared to professionals.

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FIGURE 4.1 Age Contingencies in the Association between Job Insecurity and Sense of Control

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64

Sen

se o

f Con

trol

Age

Persistent Insecurity

New Insecurity

Resolved Insecurity

Absent

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Chapter 5 Conclusions and Discussion

Overview of Contribution and Themes

Declining Job Security

Social, economic and political changes in the last three decades have led to a diversification of

employment relations and work experiences in the United States (Kalleberg 2009). The ‘standard

employment relation’ has been increasingly replaced by nonstandard work arrangements that

deviate from the full-time, permanent employment contract (Vosko 2006). These labour market

trends defy generalization with respect to workers’ experiences in the workplace. Job quality has

risen for some segments of the labour force—evident in the growth of professional

occupations—and conversely declined for others (e.g. the spread of precarious work) (Kalleberg

2011). However, one trend that has been widespread and universal across the labour force is the

decline in job security over the last three decades (Fullerton and Wallace 2007). Few groups

have been untouched by systematic economic restructuring; restructuring that has led firms to

externalize onto workers the uncertainty of contemporary market capitalism, in the form of

flexible and insecure employment relations.

How workers experience and react to this increased risk and uncertainty has been the central

issue addressed by this dissertation. Existing research documents the deleterious health

consequences of perceived job insecurity as a stressor (Sverke and Hellgren 2002), but questions

remain about the conditions under which the threat and uncertainty of job loss reduces health.

This dissertation has sought to understand how the duration of the experience of job insecurity,

as well as its timing in the life course, represents key factors in the relationship between

perceived job insecurity and health, in addition to the role of personality in these processes.

Guided by the Stress Process Model and the life course perspective (Elder 1998; Pearlin et al.

1981), I reveal how the stress of job insecurity is greatest when the experience is prolonged and

encountered during middle age, as well as being most detrimental for those with a low or

external locus of personal control. I also begin to ‘unpack’ the mechanisms through which job

insecurity influences individuals by examining whether job degradation accounts for the negative

health consequences of insecure work.

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The Duration and Life Course Timing of Job Insecurity

Previous research on the stress of perceived job insecurity has failed to adequately assess how

the timing and duration of the experience represent potential factors that shape its health

penalties. The first paper of this dissertation addresses this omission by examining the effect of

short-term and prolonged exposure to job insecurity on mental and physical health, and the

extent that this is contingent on life course position. Analyses of a national and longitudinal

survey of American workers reveal a decline in mental and physical health among middle age

workers reporting prolonged exposure to perceived job insecurity. I also find that the likely

source of these health penalties—anxiety over the threat of job loss—may reduce absenteeism

among middle age workers, as they attempt to consolidate their position with their employer. The

findings of the paper thus support the conceptualization of perceived job insecurity as a chronic

stressor, while providing evidence of the theoretical value of the life course perspective with

regard to the study of the stress process. Here, I argue that that the meaning of job insecurity and

the threat of job loss vary across the life course with changing labour market and family

experiences, along with different expectations about acceptable work conditions. Specifically,

middle age may represent the ‘perfect storm’ of high family financial commitments combined

labour market vulnerability and the expectation of secure employment—a combination that

imbues the threat of job loss with the most danger, frustration and anxiety.

The Sense of Control and the Link between Job Insecurity and Distress

The second paper in this dissertation makes several contributions that advance understanding

regarding the links between the sense of control and the stress of job insecurity. Drawing on two

national samples of American and Canadian workers, I show that a high sense of personal

control buffers the deleterious health consequences of job insecurity. However, the sense of

control is also shown to mediate the impact of job insecurity on psychological distress, indicating

that one of the mechanisms through which job insecurity decreases mental well-being is through

its propensity to erode the extent that one believes they exert control over their life. Individuals

with a lowered sense of control subsequently experience higher levels of distress because of a

reduced efficacy in dealing with stress in everyday life. In addition, the large sample size of the

American and Canadian surveys allow for a more detailed investigation of age contingencies in

the stress of job insecurity. These analyses provide mixed results and only partial support for the

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stress of middle age hypothesis. In the American WSH study, workers age 35-44 report the

highest levels of distress in response to job insecurity. No age contingencies are found in the

Canadian CAN-WSH study however. The paper concludes with a consideration of structural

amplification as an explanation of the dual mediating and moderating role that the sense of

control plays with regard to the stress of job insecurity. Structural amplification represents a

potentially useful concept for understanding the longer-term links between job insecurity and

health.

Examining the Sense of Control as an Outcome of Job Insecurity

The third paper advances on the previous paper with a more detailed examination of how

perceived job insecurity may shape the sense of personal control, and how this process may be

contingent on the duration and life course timing of the experience. The paper also assesses the

extent that job degradation, which is often associated with declining job security, is responsible

for the lowered personal control reported by workers facing the threat job loss.

The study of the connections between personality and the social organization of work has a rich

heritage, driven in large part by the classic work of Kohn and Schooler in the 1970s and 1980s

that examined the links between personality and occupational self-direction. This third paper

advances on this work by considering a contemporary feature of workplace organization—

insecure work—and how it is associated with changes in the sense of control over time. I find

that both recently experienced and prolonged job insecurity reduce the sense of control, but this

latter effect exists only among middle age and older workers. I speculate that the different role of

age in the effects of short-term and prolonged insecurity on the sense of control may be reflective

of a normalizing process for younger workers exposed to prolonged job insecurity. These

workers may, in some manner, adapt to prolonged job insecurity, particularly if they have had no

other experience with job security; they may simply not consider such powerlessness as

important or relevant to their general sense of control over their life. These findings again point

to the role of the meaning that individuals attach to stressors—meanings that may serve to reduce

or exacerbate the potency of a particular stressor. The fact that older workers experience the

greatest reduction in personal control in response to the threat of job loss suggests that this threat

holds a different set of meanings for these individuals; that is, they may perceive it as either more

consequential for their career or family, or it may be more incongruent with their prevailing

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expectations about the employer-employee psychological contract (Rousseau 1995). The value of

integrating the life course approach into the study of stress is apparent here, since the meanings

of job loss and job insecurity likely depend on social circumstances that vary over working life,

along with perceptions of whether job insecurity considered normative or unusual.

Finally the potential role of job degradation (rising job pressures and reduced decision-making

latitude) in the association between job insecurity and personal control is assessed). Analyses

reveal that perceptions of job insecurity are associated with reduced decision-making latitude and

increased job pressures—albeit differently across age—but changes in job quality do not account

for the tendency of job insecurity to reduce personal control. I conclude from these results that

declining job security likely comes packaged with a general decline in job quality, but it is the

threat of job loss that primarily serves to reduce the sense of personal control.

Summary Collectively, these papers support previous arguments that chronicity is a necessary requirement

for certain stressors to impact health (Wheaton 1999). This appears especially true for perceived

job insecurity, which may primarily begin to influence health through feelings of anxiety. As

these feelings become prolonged, they may constitute an allostatic load on the individual that

gradually compromises their mental and physical resistance to stress in general, resulting in the

gradual accumulation of health problems rather than immediate penalties. A parallel process that

may account for the longer-term health effects of job insecurity is through its tendency to

influence personality traits that are important to well-being. The association between job

insecurity and a declining sense of control revealed in paper three suggests support for this

possibility. According to the Stress Process Model, the sense of control is considered an

important resource for helping individuals overcome the daily challenges of life by promoting

active coping strategies to resolve these challenges. The erosion of personal control due to job

insecurity may represent the first stage in a longer process in which individuals become

increasingly vulnerable to stress as their repertoire of coping strategies diminish.

The consistent relevance of timing in the stress of job insecurity is matched by a set of findings

across of each of the three papers that demonstrate the importance of age and life course position.

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All papers show evidence that the penalties of job insecurity peak at specific stages in the life

course. In each paper, I have discussed the role of labour market constraints and family demands

experienced in middle and later working life that may shape the consequences of job loss and the

meaning of job insecurity. Additionally, I have suggested that younger workers may consider the

experience as normative—particularly if they have encountered nothing else in their short

working life. Middle age and older workers, in contrast, may consider job insecurity a more

unexpected and distressing experience; however, it may be middle age workers, in particular,

because of their expectations about job security at the prime stage of working life, who are most

vulnerable to the stress of employment uncertainty. Collectively, my findings suggest that

duration and life course timing operate together in order to shape the meaning and stress of job

insecurity—highlighting the value of a theoretical alliance between Stress Process and life course

researchers (Pearlin and Skaff 1996).

Limitations Several limitations of this dissertation deserve mention. While the measure of perceived job

insecurity is commonly used in survey research, the inclusion of a more comprehensive set of

questions that assess individuals’ perceptions of job security is desirable. A single item indicator

of job insecurity does not allow for assessment of reliability. Despite this, I believe that asking

workers about the likelihood of future job loss is a concise and succinct strategy for assessing job

insecurity, and one that avoids confounding personality and mental health traits (e.g.

neuroticism) with the appraisals of security. Future research, however, would benefit from

multiple measures of job insecurity, along with measures that allow for greater fidelity in

responses (e.g. job security measured on a scale of 1-100). This would make available a range of

alternative multivariate techniques, including fixed-effects panel regression and structural

equation modeling. The former technique would enable a more rigorous examination of changes

in health to changes in predictors, thereby removing the effects of all time-stable characteristics,

while the latter technique would allow for a more comprehensive empirical modeling of the

hypothesized linkages between insecurity and health (Allison 1999). With a single-item measure

of perceived job insecurity, these techniques are unavailable.

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A second important weakness of this dissertation is the inability to directly examine the

meanings that workers attach to job insecurity. I have argued that these meanings may shape the

anxiety associated with the threat of job loss, and that they should vary according to life course

position. I therefore rely on age as a proxy for life course position and as an indirect indicator of

the meanings that individuals of different ages attach to job insecurity. Assumptions about the

different meanings that individuals attach to job loss are informed by prior research and theory,

but it would be desirable to assess, with the use of survey items, the specific consequences that

individuals attach to future job loss, or their views about early retirement, for example. In-depth

interviews would also provide more detailed information on how individuals interpret and

negotiate the experience of job insecurity, and how this intersects with social statuses and family

structure. This would allow for a teasing-out of cohort-effects from age-effects in the experience

of job insecurity, for example.

A number of limitations are worthy of mention with regards to the integration of the life course

perspective with the Stress Process Model, such as the inability to comprehensively examine

gender contingencies and the absence of a thorough application of key life course principles. I

discuss these in more detail in the following section under ‘Future Research,’ but it is important

to acknowledge these limitations. Unfortunately, sample-size limitations in the longitudinal

WSH study limit the ability to adequately perform subgroup analyses for men and women. The

relatively limited number of participants that reported each of the job insecurity experiences

meant that there were low cell-sizes for examining three-way interactions between insecurity,

age and gender. A larger sample was available in the form of the CAN-WSH study, but this was

limited by its cross-sectional design. As future waves of data are collected as part of this ongoing

study, more in-depth and longitudinal subgroup analyses will become possible. Finally, a key

emphasis of the life course perspective is to consider a long view of individuals’ lives. With two

waves of survey data, eighteen months apart, this was obviously not attainable. Only with further

data points, or the use or retrospective data, can this goal be achieved. I discuss this issue in more

detail in the next section on future research.

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Future Research The integration of the life course perspective with the Stress Process Model offers several

advantages for examining the contingent nature of stressors, and in the case of this dissertation,

the stress of job insecurity. While this dissertation has been guided by these principles, I discuss

how future research could expand on this research in order to offer a more comprehensive life

course analysis of the experience of job insecurity. First, a longer view of individuals’ lives is

necessary in order to examine how the experience of job insecurity is actively negotiated over

time, and how it may influence later life outcomes that have implications for health. How might

uncertainty over one’s continuing employment influence marital decisions or home purchases?

These are important life decisions that may be delayed until secure employment is achieved, but

whose delay may have consequences for health and well-being. In particular, this extended view

would allow for the investigation of whether more serious physical health problems develop over

time. Similarly, changes in personality traits like the sense of personal control—that change

slowly over the life course—may be more noticeable when a longer view of workers’ lives is

adopted. Following workers over a period of five or ten years may therefore shed light on

whether a prolonged history of job insecurity results in the accumulation of problems, or whether

individuals develop resistance to uncertainty, either due to a process of normalization or active

renegotiation of the experience.

Given that men and women navigate work and family roles across the life course in different

ways, another area warranting further research is a consideration of how the experience of job

insecurity may shaped by, or contingent on gender (Winslow 2005). Men and women navigate

distinct career paths due to gendered meanings about work and family roles that serve to

constrain women’s career decisions—decisions that are further challenged by a social

organization of working time that considers continuous, full-time employment as normative and

expected throughout adulthood (Moen 1992). Given a continuing gender division household

labour (Hochschild 1989), the career paths of middle age women, in particular, often diverge

noticeably from their male counterparts. Moen and Sweet (2004), for example, describe a

dominant neotraditional strategy enacted by dual-earner households, which specifies that

husbands have the ‘main’ career job and wives work in less demanding jobs with shorter hours in

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order to deal with domestic and family responsibilities. Thus, given gender differences in the

nature and level of labour force participation across the life course, there may be gender

differences the extent that the stress of job insecurity is contingent on life course position.

Specifically, it is possible that job insecurity may be more stressful for men because of their

higher levels of labour force participation on one hand, and continuing gender role stereotypes

that equate masculinity with the “good provider” (Christiansen and Palkovitz 2001). Future

research should therefore build off the age contingencies revealed in this dissertation by

considering how the stress of job insecurity may be influenced by the intersection of gender and

age as key social statuses.

Another issue deserving of further investigation is the extent that regional labour market

differences influence both the extent that an individual perceives job insecurity, and the health

consequences of those perceptions. Research has shown that local labour market conditions can

have important consequences for individual and household economic outcomes (Cohen and

Huffman 2003; Heckman et al. 1999). Regional unemployment rates have been shown to

influence the effect of specific instances of job loss on individual health, for example (Turner

1995). Similar regional effects may therefore exist with regard to the health penalties of job

insecurity. High unemployment rates may increase the anxiety that individuals attach to the

threat of job loss if they perceive few alternative employment opportunities in the event of being

laid-off. Conversely, a high unemployment rate may make job insecurity a more normative

experience, and thus less distressing. Additionally, rural-metropolitan differences may shape the

meanings that individuals attach to job insecurity. Job loss in a rural setting may require

individuals to commute further or move in order to find new work for example; causing greater

disruption than for individuals living in metropolitan areas. Further research is necessary to

examine these possibilities.

Finally, since the findings of this study suggest differences in the experience of job insecurity

across social statuses, future research should investigate how other groups of workers may

respond uniquely to the threat of job loss. Certain advantaged groups, such as professional

workers, for example, may not be worried about a lack of job security because they are rich in

human capital and have ‘market power’ (Kalleberg 2011). Here, then, it is important to

distinguish between job insecurity and ‘employment’ insecurity. The health penalties of

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perceived job insecurity may be low or non-existent among workers who believe they can easily

attain new employment in the event of job loss. As job insecurity becomes an increasingly

common experience for workers, future research should consider whether it is encountered

uniquely across different social statuses and occupations with respect to its health penalties.

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References Cohen, Philip N, and Matt L. Huffman. 2003. "Occupational Segregation and the Devaluation of

Women's Work Across U.S. Labour Markets." Social Forces 81:881-907.

Christiansen, Shawn L. and Rob Palkovitz. 2001. “Why the ‘Good Provider’ Role Still Matters: Providing as a Form of Paternal Involvement.” Journal of Family Issues 22:84–106.



Heckman, James, Hidehiko Ichimura, Jeffrey Smith, and Petra Todd. 1999. “Characterizing Selection Bias Using Experimental Data.” Econometrica 66:1017-1098.

Hochschild, Arlie. 1989. The Second Shift. New York: Viking.

Kahn, Lawrence M. 2012. “Labour Market Policy: A Comparative View on the Costs and Benefits of Labour Market Flexibility.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 31:94-110.

Kalleberg, Arne L. 2009. “Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition.” American Sociological Review 74:1–22.


Moen, Phyllis, and Stephen Sweet. 2004. “From ‘Work-Family’ to ‘Flexible Careers’: A Life Course Reframing.” Community, Work and Family 7:209-226.





Turner, J. B. 1995. “Economic Context and the Health Effects of Unemployment” Journal of Health & Social Behavior 36:213–229.

Vosko, Leah F. 2006. Precarious employment: Towards An Improved Understanding of Labour Market Insecurity. In L. F. Vosko (Ed.), Precarious Employment: Understanding Labour market insecurity in Canada (pp. 1–33). Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Appendix I Predicting the Hazard of Attrition I follow a procedure used by Mirowsky and Ross (2001) to correct for potential attrition related bias. If baseline health influences attrition, unobserved changes in health may also. Controlling for the hazard of attrition corrects for this possibility. The appendix table below presents probit regression analyses with absent from wave 2 regressed on health outcomes, insecurity and controls at wave 1 (model 1). None of the baseline health measures predict attrition from the sample at wave 2. The low pseudo R-square of .063 also shows that attrition is largely random with respect to the model’s baseline measures. In model 2, age-by-insecurity interactions are added to examine whether older workers with job insecurity are more likely to be absent from the sample at wave 2. Both interactions are non-significant, indicating that older workers with job insecurity are equally as likely to present at wave 2 as younger workers. APPENDIX TABLE: Probit Regression of Absent from the Sample at Time 2 on Time 1 Health Outcomes, Perceived Job Insecurity and Age

Model 1 Model 2 Distress .030 .027 Anger -.021 -.018 Self-rated Health -.032 -.033 Sense of control -.026 -.023 Age 40 to 54 .009** .011** Age 55 to 65 -.312** -.311** Perceived Job Insecurity -.014 .080 Employed in Public Sector .004 .004 Work Hours .001 .001 Job Pressures .009 .009 Job Autonomy .090** .090** Married -.295*** -.292*** Children in the Household -.026 -.031 Spouse Works -.013 -.012 Household Income -.000 -.000 Female -.141 -.140 White -.216** -.214** Education -.103*** -.104*** Insecurity × Age Interactions Age 40 to 54 × Job Insecurity ——

-.007 Age 55 to 65 × Job Insecurity ——

.001 Constant .237 .216

R2 .063 .064 * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two–tailed test).

perceived job insecurity and health across the life course · perceived job insecurity and health...

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