Dissertation: Job Insecurity at the Intersection of Labor Markets and Welfare States

 

Synopsis

 

My dissertation explores the link between employment structures and individual attitudes toward job insecurity. Job insecurity research has followed two distinct paths: the psychological stream and the economic stream. In the psychological stream, job insecurity is explored in terms of the characteristics of the employing organization, such as the economic stability of the employer or management/employee relationships.  The economic stream has established the correlation between job insecurity perceptions and the unemployment rate, but provides little insight into how people perceive widespread economic conditions.

 

These two streams of literature rarely overlap: psychological studies of job insecurity seldom examine the impact of structural factors, while economic studies have failed to firmly establish how political structures turn into individual attitudes. My dissertation brings these two streams of literature together to examine how workers translate political and economic conditions into perceptions of job insecurity.

 

In my dissertation I argue that macro-structural factors—welfare state characteristics and the health of external labor markets—figure importantly in workers’ evaluation of their job insecurity. Job insecurity is dependent not only on workers’ perceptions about potential job loss, but also on the perceived potential for re-employment. Both internal and external labor markets influence job insecurity perceptions, not just conditions within the employing firm.

 

To achieve variability in welfare states and labor markets, my research compares advanced industrial economies, I employ a political sociological framework derived from Gosta Esping-Andersen’s Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Data are drawn from the International Social Survey Program Work Orientations Module and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

 

The full proposal can be seen here.

On a walk in Leuven after a day at the Job Insecurity Small Group Meeting. The Grote Markt was built in the 14th Century, around the same time as Catholic University Leuven, at which the conference was hosted.