Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Environmental Influences on Psychological Distress

The Effects of Worker Insecurity on Psychological Well-being

Purpose: As employment continues to shift in the U.S., more and more workers face uncertainty in their jobs. While much of the literature has focused on the detrimental effects of job loss on individual and family functioning, more attention is now being paid to perceived job insecurity of individuals who remain employed in insecure positions. Still debated in the literature is whether job insecure workers are at greater risk than workers who have lost their jobs because of the prolonged period of stress. Some social scientists speculate there may be a cumulative effect of stress for job insecure workers resulting in greater negative psychological outcomes over time, although results have been mixed ( Heaney, Israel & House, 1994; Armstong-Strassen, 2002). The current study extends the knowledge base by 1) assessing the extent to which perceived job insecurity affects workers’ psychological well-being compared to workers who have faced job loss; 2) examining the characteristics of workers most likely to be negatively affected by job insecurity; and 3) testing the hypothesis of cumulative stress associated with prolonged insecurity and its impact on workers over time.

Sample and Methods: This paper reports on a systematic sample of three hundred manufacturing workers, 188 who were laid off and 112 who were subject to continuous job insecurity over a four year period. Seventy three percent of the job insecure sample continued to be followed for the four-year period. Psychological well-being was measured by using the depression and anxiety scale from the SCL90-R. Independent and control variables included job insecurity, a likert-type scale, demographic variables and a financial difficulty scale. Multiple regression analysis examined differential effects of perceived job insecurity on depression and anxiety, controlling for demographics and financial stress.

Results: Workers who were laid off and workers who remained employed had similar negative psychological outcomes. There were no significant differences in depression or anxiety levels, with both groups exhibiting very high levels. Both groups were above the clinical cutoff for depression (> 62). The regression models, including demographics, financial difficulty and job insecurity, were significant in predicting psychological distress, explaining 38% of the variance in anxiety and 37% in depression scores. Job security, financial difficulty and number of children were significantly related to anxiety, while job security, financial difficulty, number of children and age were significantly related to depression. Finally, there is evidence of cumulative stress over time, although it dissipates significantly at 2.5 years for anxiety and 3 years for depression.

Implications: The results suggest that job insecurity is just as difficult psychologically as actual job loss. Younger workers with children and financial difficulty are most at risk for deleterious effects. Prolonged insecurity, although not increasing depression and anxiety, also does not dissipate distress substantially for quite some time, putting families at risk for a multitude of problems and challenging social workers who work with individuals and families with chronic stressors of this type. Implications for practice are discussed.

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