Dualization and subjective employment insecurity: Explaining the subjective employment insecurity divide between permanent and temporary workers across 23 European countries

Abstract

Dualization theory posits that certain institutions cause dualization in the labour market, yet how institutions deepen the subjective insecurity divide between insiders and outsiders has not been examined. This paper examines this question using data from 23 European countries in 2008/9. Results show that the subjective employment insecurity divide between permanent and temporary workers varies significantly across different countries. Corporatist countries, with stronger unions, have larger subjective insecurity divides between permanent and temporary workers. However, this is because permanent workers feel more secure in these countries rather than because temporary workers are more exposed to feelings of insecurity.

Dualization and the access to occupational family‐friendly working‐time arrangements across Europe

“…However, unlike previous studies, I found that this gap varied across countries. Similar to previous studies on dualization of labor market insecurity (e.g., Chung, ; Palier & Thelen, ; Rueda, ), it is the Nordic and continental European countries, with stronger more centralized unions, extensive childcare coverage for younger children, and high levels of family policy spending, where the division between high‐ vs. low‐skilled workers is the largest. However, it should be noted that the level of dualization is high in these countries only because of the very high provision made to insiders.…”

“…Schwander and Häusermann (2013) thus propose to use occupational categories to indicate employment biographies. Lastly, Chung (2016) argues that rather than objective insecurity statuses, subjectively perceived insecurity may be a better indicator of the actual situation the worker is placed in. Although objective insecurity is closely related to subjective insecurity, the latter relates to the psychological reactions to the worker's job insecurity, which can be affected by personal, organizational, and institutional contexts (Chung & Mau, 2014;Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 1984).…”

“…Dualization theorists argue that certain institutional configurations make it easier for dual labor market patterns to emerge (Emmenegger et al, 2012;Palier & Thelen, 2010;Rueda, 2005). Accordingly, the degree of segmentation within the labor market, and the insider/outsider divide, varies across welfare regimes where different protection mechanisms are in place (Biegert, 2014;Chung, 2016;Schwander & Häusermann, 2013). Scholars (Schwander & Häusermann, 2013;Yoon & Chung, 2016) also argue that due to these institutional and other social-economic contexts the groups that are most likely to be categorized as "outsiders" are different across countries and welfare regimes, as does the degree to which they are outsiders and insiders.…”

National-Level Family Policies and workers’ Access to Schedule Control in a European Comparative Perspective: Crowding Out or In, and for Whom?

“…Firstly, an important result from this paper is that we cannot assume an equal influence of institutions across different groups of workers (see also Chung and Mau 2014;Chung 2016). This paper has shown the usefulness of random-slopes crosslevel interaction models to explore this issue with cross-national comparative data.…”

Who Wants to Work More? Multilevel Study on Underemployment of Working Mothers in 22 European Countries

“…Nevertheless, when the analysis is brought to an individual level, the results show that 1 In this article, underemployed mothers are those who wish to work longer hours than they are currently working. This definition differs somewhat from definitions of Eurostat (2011) and ILO (2014) as availability to work longer hours and are characterized as less stable positions, nonstandard work forms, lower wages, and fewer prospects of advancement (e.g., Dickens and Lang 1985;Kalleberg 2000;Lindbeck and Snower 2001;Hudson 2007;Biegert 2014;Chung 2019). Insider/outsider-division is also gendered phenomena: women are more often than men in the outsider position (Schwander and Häusermann 2013;Green and Livanos 2015).…”