The asymmetric experience of gains and losses in job security on health

Abstract

Is workers' health more sensitive to losses than gains in job security? While loss aversion, whereby losses loom larger than gains, is typically examined in relation to decisions about anticipated outcomes, I first show using a large sample of workers from the European Household Community Panel and value-added models that losses in job security have a larger effect on health than equivalent job security gains. Second, I address endogeneity issues using the 1999 rise in the French Delalande tax as a quasi-natural experiment. It allows evaluating separately the causal impact of exogenous gains and losses in job security on workers' health. Difference-in-differences estimation results confirm that lower job security generates significant and robust losses in self-assessed health. Meanwhile a greater feeling of job security does not translate into a higher level of self-assessed health. These results are in line with the predictions of the model linking job security to health under the hypothesis of loss aversion built in this paper. This article also demonstrates that losses in health induced by lower job security are not transitory.

Supporting Sustainable Futures in Retail: An Exploratory Study on Worker Health, Safety and Wellbeing in Australia

“…Additionally, the associations between lower job security with HSW support, the adequacy of TEI, work environment adequacy, familiarity with OHS duties, and the frequency of exposure to psychosocial risks confirm the impact that job security has on retail employees [35]. More recent studies show that job security correlates positively with safety compliance, participation, and behaviour [80], whereas job insecurity is associated with increased depression and anxiety symptoms [81] and significantly reduces the status of self-reported health [82]. Also, perceived job insecurity correlates negatively with sustainable wellbeing [83].…”

Unsettled: Job Insecurity Reduces Home-Ownership

“…In terms of its consequences, job insecurity has been shown to affect a variety of aspects of individuals' lives outside of the strict confines of the labour market: health (Caroli and Godard, 2016;Lepinteur, 2021), fertility (Comolli and Vignoli, 2021;Da Paola et al, 2021;Clark and Lepinteur, 2022), marriage decisions (Clark et al, 2023a), and savings (Clark et al, 2023b).…”

“…We contribute to three key strands of literature: the unintended consequences of employment protection legislation, a field that has predominantly focused on labour-market outcomes (Kugler and Pica, 2008;Schivardi and Torrini, 2008;Messe and Rouland, 2014;Cingano et al, 2016;Bratti et al, 2021); the impact on greater job insecurity on individual decisionmaking (Caroli and Godard, 2016;Lepinteur, 2021;Comolli and Vignoli, 2021;Da Paola et al, 2021;Clark and Lepinteur, 2022;Clark et al, 2023a;Clark et al, 2023b); and providing a causal analysis of the link between labour-income risk and homeownership (such as Haurin, 1991;Robst et al, 1999;Diaz-Serrano, 2005;Camilli, 2020).…”