Job Insecurity and Quality of Life: Testing a Causal Model of Job Stress Proliferation

Background: The organization of work in the United States has changed dramatically over the last four decades as a result of globalization, industrial shifts, and technological innovation. Long-term, stable employment relationships are increasingly being replaced with insecure work arrangements characterized by shorter job tenure and fewer worker protections such as safeguards against termination, health insurance, and retirement security. The rise in temporary and insecure employment has disproportionately affected the low-wage workforce composed mainly of women and people of color. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the next decade will bring rapid labor force participation decline at approximately 0.5% per year, hindering economic growth and exacerbating existing intersectional patterns of labor stratification based on gender, race, and class.  

Purpose: This study investigates the relationship between job insecurity and quality of life. The specific research aims of this study are to: 1) Examine the mental health consequences of job insecurity; 2) Test specific causal pathways through which job insecurity affects quality of life; and 3) Investigate group differences in the effect of job insecurity on quality of life. 

Methods: This study tests a causal model of job stress proliferation among a longitudinal sample of working adults in two waves (1995-1996 and 2004-2006) of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (N=3,292). Structural equation modeling with robust standard errors is used to test all research aims. The study is informed by Leonard Pearlin’s stress process model, which suggests that unequal exposure to stressors (e.g., job insecurity) as well as unequal access to resources to cope with stressors (e.g., social support, mental health services, etc.) leads to health disparities.

Results: Job insecurity is negatively associated with quality of life net of controls for personality, demographic, job, and health characteristics, as well as variables representing competing job stress hypotheses from Robert Karasek’s job strain model and Johannes Siegrist’s effort-reward imbalance model. Negative work-to-family spillover of stress significantly mediates the relationship between job insecurity and quality of life. Having at least a bachelor's degree, being white, and being married buffers the effect of job insecurity on quality of life. The largest negative effects of job insecurity on quality of life are observed among people of color with less than a college degree. There are no significant gender differences in the effect of job insecurity on quality of life. The results provide support for the stress process model of job insecurity and quality of life mediated by spillover of stress from work to family life and moderated by race, marital status, and education.

Implications: These findings suggest that structural patterns of inequality in labor force composition predispose certain groups of workers to have fewer personal and social resources for coping with the consequences of job insecurity. As a result, policy and intervention strategies to address job insecurity must act on underlying causes of inequality such as institutional racism and disparities in educational attainment.