Abstract
The present study investigates the relationship between job insecurity and well-being (psychological distress and life satisfaction), and the potential role of employability in this relationship. With regard to job insecurity, we hypothesize that job insecurity may be related to poor well-being. Regarding employability, two avenues are taken. First, we argue that employability may be beneficial in much the same way that job security is. Second, we suggest that employability may mitigate likely unfavourable consequences of job insecurity for employees’ well-being. Hypotheses are tested with a sample of 639 Belgian employees from six organizations. The results suggest that job insecurity is related to poor well-being, while no such association is found for employability. Furthermore, employability moderates the relationship between job insecurity and life satisfaction, as expected. Specifically, the model accounts for 8% of the explained variance. However, this pattern of results is not replicated for psychological distress.
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Notes
The GHQ-12 included four error variances, while life satisfaction included three error variances.
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Acknowledgments
Inmaculada Silla-Guerola, Francisco J. Gracia and José M. Peiró acknowledge the support of the following *CONSOLIDER EJEC* (SEJ 2006-14086/PSIC). Nele De Cuyper’s contribution was supported by a grant from the FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek—Vlaanderen; post-doctoral fellowship).
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Silla, I., De Cuyper, N., Gracia, F.J. et al. Job Insecurity and Well-Being: Moderation by Employability. J Happiness Stud 10, 739–751 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-008-9119-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-008-9119-0