Mental Well-being Among Workers: A Cross-national Analysis of Job Insecurity Impact on the Workforce

Abstract

Drawing on 2011 and 2016 European Quality of Life Survey data from eight European countries, this paper considers the importance of subjective indicators of employment conditions in impacting mental well-being. Among employment conditions, job insecurity has been discussed as having a negative impact on mental well-being by enhancing the worker’s sense of unpredictability. The idea of losing one’s job brings with it the fear of an uncertain or unclear future and the sense of lack of agency—i.e. feeling powerless with respect to the risk of becoming unemployed. Thus, we investigate two dimensions of job insecurity, namely ‘cognitive job insecurity’ and ‘labour market insecurity’. Our dependent variable is mental health well-being, measured using the 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5), which is a self-reported health scale validated by several studies and internationally adopted for measuring psychological well-being. We apply a fixed-effects model and use a set of individual control variables to obtain parameter estimates. Moreover, to control for country-level heterogeneity, two macro-level variables are considered: the type of welfare regime and employment protection. The novelty of this research lies in disentangling the concept of precariousness from the dichotomy of open-ended/non-open-ended contract and in including in the analysis subjective categories such as self-perceived job insecurity. The findings of our study suggest that self-perceived job insecurity is negatively related to mental well-being for both permanent and temporary workers, making this stressor an important feature in predicting the emergence of psychological distress (i.e. feelings of anxiety or depression) among the workforce.

Risk Factors Underlying COVID-19 Lockdown-Induced Mental Distress

“…Crosssectional analysis of these findings indicated a benefit of the generally lower mental distress in the older group despite the same susceptibility to COVID-19-induced mental distress compared to other age groups. This may be due to the association of greater worries about studies, job security, and financial stability with the younger age group, and the richer life experiences and reduced life expectations in the older group (53)(54)(55).…”

Exploring the mediation role of employees’ well-being in the relationship between psychosocial factors and musculoskeletal pain during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Beyond the pandemic context, employees experiencing heightened job insecurities are associated with higher odds with the development of MSDs [37,38], poor physical health [39], and worse mental health outcomes [22,40]. In the pandemic context, a large body of evidence shows the impact of job security on psychological wellbeing [22,41] but no information on the occurrence of musculoskeletal complaints.…”

The effect of parental roles on mental health outcomes of unemployment: a gender perspective

“…Moreover, as some scholars have argued (see, e.g. Reyneri, 2013), the process of disinvestment in welfare programs has made unemployment and job insecurity more difficult to bear and a source of greater fear and mental distress (Russo and Terraneo, 2020).…”