The effect of job insecurity on employee health complaints: A within-person analysis of the explanatory role of threats to the manifest and latent benefits of work.

Abstract

The current study contributes to the literature on job insecurity by highlighting threat to the benefits of work as an explanation of the effect of job insecurity on health complaints. Building on the latent deprivation model, we predicted that threats to both manifest (i.e., financial income) and latent benefits of work (i.e., collective purpose, social contacts, status, time structure, activity) mediate the relationships from job insecurity to subsequent mental and physical health complaints. In addition, in line with the conservation of resources theory, we proposed that financial resources buffer the indirect effect of job insecurity on health complaints through threat to the manifest benefit. Hypotheses were tested using a multilevel design, in which 3 measurements (time lag of 6 months between subsequent measurements) were clustered within 1,994 employees (in Flanders, Belgium). This allowed for the investigation of within-person processes, while controlling for variance at the between-person level. The results demonstrate that job insecurity was related to subsequent threats to both manifest and latent benefits, and that these threats in turn were related to subsequent health complaints (with an exception for threat to the manifest benefit that did not predict mental health complaints). Three significant indirect effects were found: threat to the latent benefits mediated the relationships between job insecurity and both mental and physical health complaints, and threat to the manifest benefit mediated the relationship between job insecurity and physical health complaints. Unexpectedly, the latter indirect effect was exacerbated by financial resources.

Incertidumbre laboral y salud mental: una revisión meta-analítica de las consecuencias del trabajo precario en trastornos mentales

“…One of the most accurate approaches when establishing an empirical hypothesis is based on the studies that have aimed at adapting the deprivation model (Jahoda, 1982) to job insecurity. It has been empirically shown that the expectation of losing latent working functions has similar effects on health as those of the real loss that occurs with unemployment (Vander Elst et al, 2016). Thus, the fact that the impact on mental health caused by unemployment is comparable to the impact resulting from a job insecurity situation is supported.…”

“…Scientific literature often addresses the impact of job insecurity on workers' mental health (Vander Elst, Näswall, Bernhard-Oettel, De Witte, & Sverke, 2016), but there is currently no systematic review that focuses specifically and deeply on this relationship. While the previous meta-analyses (Cheng & Chan, 2008;Sverke et al, 2002) carried out a global diagnosis of the consequences of job insecurity, this study establishes three ground-breaking and priority objectives: (1) to clarify the direct relationship between job insecurity and psychological health, (2) to update the results of the existing reference meta-analyses with the recent research findings of the last decade, (3) study if job insecurity affects people from countries in the north and south of Europe in a different way, based on the differences in labour market and social circumstances of each territory, and (4) to evaluate the different types of job insecurity scales to determine their appropriate characteristics for a good evaluation of the phenomenon.…”

The impact of job insecurity on long-term self-rated health – results from the prospective population-based MONICA/KORA study

“…Results from the present study overall corroborate findings from previous cross-sectional [ 17 – 22 ] studies, as well as prospective studies that have established the association between job insecurity and impaired SRH both in the mid-and long-term [ 23 – 26 , 29 ]. It is evident that time plays an important role in this relationship: findings from cross-sectional [ 17 – 22 ] and prospective studies, with time windows between 1 and 12 years, have convincingly shown an association [ 26 , 27 , 29 ]. The present study is partly in line with these findings.…”

On the scarring effects of job insecurity (and how they can be explained)

“…The perceived probability of losing the actual job (eg, job insecurity) threatens the satisfaction of these needs and can negatively impact health and well-being. Research indeed shows that threats to the various benefits of work mediate the association between job insecurity and subsequent mental and physical health complaints (17,18). A related logic stems from Self-Determination Theory (19), which states that the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs is crucial for individuals to flourish, namely, autonomy, belongingness, and relatedness.…”