Claudia Bernhard-Oettel

Comparing three alternative types of employment with permanent full-time work: How do employment contract and perceived job conditions relate to health complaints?

Abstract Previous research has found that alternative employment arrangements are associated with both impaired and improved well-being. Since such inconsistencies are likely to derive from the type of employment contract as well as the characteristics of the job, this paper compares permanent full-time work with forms of alternative employment (permanent part-time, fixed-term and on-call work) in order to investigate how different employment contracts and perceptions of job conditions relate to individual well-being. This study contributes to the literature by addressing several questions. Different forms of alternative employment are distinguished and individual background characteristics that might be intertwined with the employment contract are controlled for. Moreover, the scope of this study extends to the effects of perceived job conditions, and possible interactive effects with type of employment are tested. Analyses of questionnaire data from 954 Swedish healthcare workers show that perceptions of the job (job insecurity, job control and demands), but not the type of employment contract, predicted health complaints. However, type of employment interacted with perceptions of job insecurity, in that insecurity was associated with impaired well-being among permanent full-time workers, while no relationship was found for on-call or core part-time employees. Despite the absence of interactions between employment contract and job demands or job control, it can be concluded that knowledge about the relationship between alternative employment arrangements and the well-being of workers can be enhanced when the combined effects of employment contract and job conditions are studied.

Motives for accepting temporary employment: a typology

Purpose - This paper aims to offer a typology of temporary workers, based on their motives for accepting their work arrangement, which includes voluntary, involuntary and stepping-stone motives, and relate this typology to various individual and work-related variables. Design/methodology/approach - Latent class analysis of 645 European workers was used to construct a typology of temporary workers. Variation of individual and work-related variables between types of temporary workers was analyzed using ANOVA. Findings - The analyses suggest that there are three types of workers: involuntary temporary workers highlight the involuntary motive and the stepping-stone motive; the stepping-stone type stresses the stepping-stone motive only, and the non-involuntary group disagrees with all three motives. Moreover, the groups differed significantly on important work-related variables such as occupational position, tenure, employability, and work-involvement. However, differences in individual variables were limited. Research limitations/implications - The research puts forward a more complex typology of temporary workers than is usually suggested. Moreover, the study shows a non-involuntary group for which temporary employment can become a trap, and hence these workers should be targeted by future policy and interventions. Originality/value - The research offers a typology of temporary workers, which is founded on motivation theory, and existing research on motives for accepting temporary employment.

Job insecurity and well-being: The moderating role of job dependence

Job insecurity has become more relevant during the last decades as more flexibility from the workforce and organizations is demanded in the labour market. It has frequently been suggested that job insecurity is a more severe stressor for those who are more dependent on their job. The present study investigates the association between job insecurity and employee well-being by focusing on how employees’ dependence on the job moderates this relationship. Two types of financial dependence (subjective financial dependence and relative contribution to the household income) were studied, along with an indicator of a more psychological dependence on work in general (work involvement). In addition to this, both quantitative and qualitative job insecurity were included. The proposed relations were tested in a sample of Swedish accountancy firm employees. The results of moderated hierarchical regression analyses showed that subjective financial dependence, household contribution, and work involvement moderated the relation between both job insecurity dimensions and job satisfaction. No moderations were found with mental well-being as an outcome. This implies that the extent to which someone depends on their job is important for how job insecurity relates to job satisfaction.

Patterns of Contract Motives and Work Involvement in Temporary Work: Relationships to Work-Related and General Well-Being

Temporary work is characterized by heterogeneity, and contract motives and work involvement are believed to differentiate temporary workers, which may explain their divergence in terms of subjective well-being. Applying a person-oriented approach using questionnaire data from a sample of Swedish temporary workers (N = 184), this study identified six patterns, characterized by distinct combinations of voluntary and involuntary contract motives and work involvement. While controlling for demo-graphics, comparative analyses found differences between these patterns in terms of work-related and general well-being. These findings indicate that knowledge about temporary work and its various consequences is enhanced by considering whole patterns instead of single variables in a person-oriented approach.

Expanding the temporal context of research on non‐permanent work: Previous experience, duration of and time remaining on contracts and employment continuity expectations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore an expanded temporal context of non‐permanent work through an examination of the influence of previous experience of temporary working, contract duration and time remaining on contract and expectations of continued employment on reports of job insecurity, job satisfaction, in‐role performance and organisational commitment.Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses were tested using responses of 1,169 temporary workers from a multi‐national, cross‐sectional questionnaire study.Findings – Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that having previous experience of temporary work was associated with higher in‐role performance. No significant effects were found for contract duration, but shorter time remaining on present contract was associated with greater job insecurity and also greater in‐role performance. However the strongest effects were found for expectations of continued employment, with stronger expectations being linked to more positive reports of eac...

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.

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.

Stuck in a job: being “locked-in” or at risk of becoming locked-in at the workplace and well-being over time

ABSTRACT In this study, being “locked-in” at the workplace is conceptualized as being in a non-preferred workplace while at the same time perceiving low employability. The aim of the study was to investigate how being locked-in or at risk of becoming locked-in (being in a non-preferred workplace yet currently satisfied, combined with perceiving low employability) relates to well-being (subjective health and depressive symptoms). The hypotheses were tested in a Swedish longitudinal sample (T1 in 2010 and T2 in 2012) of permanent employees (N = 3491). The results showed that stability with regard to locked-in-related status (being non-locked-in, at risk of becoming locked-in, or locked-in at both T1 and T2) was related to significant and stable differences in well-being. The non-locked-in status was associated with better well-being than being at risk of becoming locked-in. Moreover, those at risk of becoming locked-in showed better well-being than those with stable locked-in status. Changes towards non-locked-in were accompanied by significant improvements in well-being, and changes towards locked-in were associated with impairments in well-being. The relationships that were found could not be attributed to differences in demographic variables and occupational preference. The findings indicate that being locked-in is detrimental to well-being. This has implications for preventative interventions.

Nonlinear associations between breached obligations and employee well-being

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nonlinear association between proportions of breached obligations within the psychological contract (PC) and three dimensions of employee well-being, and the mediating role of contract violation in these relationships. With this study the authors gain a more detailed understanding of PC evaluations and their consequences for well-being. Design/methodology/approach – The authors build on asymmetry effects theory and affective events theory to propose that breached obligations outweigh fulfilled obligations in their association with well-being. The hypotheses are tested using a sample of 4,953 employees from six European countries and Israel. Findings – The results provide support for the hypotheses, as the effect sizes of the indirect relationships for breached obligations on well-being via violation are initially strong compared to fulfilled obligations, but decrease incrementally as the proportion of breached obligations become greater. At a certain p...

The influence of and change in procedural justice on self-rated health trajectories: Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health results

OBJECTIVES Procedural justice perceptions are shown to be associated with minor psychiatric disorders, long sickness absence spells, and poor self-rated health, but previous studies have rarely considered how changes in procedural justice influence changes in health. METHODS Data from four consecutive biennial waves of the Swedish Longitudinal Survey of Health (SLOSH) (N=5854) were used to examine trajectories of self-rated health. Adjusting for age, sex, socioeconomic position, and marital status, we studied the predictive power of change in procedural justice perceptions using individual growth curve models within a multilevel framework. RESULTS The results show that self-rated health trajectories slowly decline over time. The rate of change was influenced by age and sex, with older people and women showing a slower rate. After adjusting for age, sex, socioeconomic position, and marital status, procedural justice was significantly associated with self-rated health. Also, improvements in procedural justice were associated with improvements in self-rated health. Additionally, a reverse relationship with and change in self-rated health predicting procedural justice was found. CONCLUSIONS Our findings support the idea that procedural justice at work is a crucial aspect of the psychosocial work environment and that changes towards more procedural justice could influence self-rated health positively. The reciprocal association of procedural justice and self-rated health warrants further research.

New work demands in higher education. A study of the relationship between excessive workload, coping strategies and subsequent health among academic staff

This study investigates the relationship between the work conditions in higher education work settings, the academic staff’s strategies for handling excessive workload and impact on well-being and work-life balance. The results show that there is a risk that staff in academic work places will start using compensatory coping strategies to deal with excessive demands and that this might seriously impair their health. The compensatory strategy cluster emerged as a ‘risk group’ among the three identified strategy clusters, having a lower work-life balance and suffering from stress-related symptoms more often than the other two strategy clusters. The results also show that high educational level, management position and wide discretion as regards regulation of work in time and space (when and where to work) are factors that might contribute to a lower work-life balance. In practice, the results can contribute to create more sustainable work environments by detecting risk behaviours and risk factors.