IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v38y2017i1p69-98.html

Temporary employment, job satisfaction and subjective well-being

Author

Listed:
  • Chris Dawson

    (School of Management, University of Bath, UK)

  • Michail Veliziotis

    (Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK)

  • Benjamin Hopkins

    (School of Management, University of Leicester, UK)

Abstract

This article is concerned with whether employees on temporary contracts in Britain report lower well-being than those on permanent contracts, and whether this relationship is mediated by differences in dimensions of job satisfaction. Previous research has identified a well-being gap between permanent and temporary employees but has not addressed what individual and contract specific characteristics contribute to this observed difference. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, the article finds that a large proportion of the difference in self-reported well-being between permanent and temporary employees appears to be explained by differences in satisfaction with job security. Other dimensions of job satisfaction are found to be less important. In fact, after controlling for differences in satisfaction with security, the results suggest that temporary employees report higher psychological well-being and life satisfaction. This indicates that an employment contract characterized by a definite duration lowers individual well-being principally through heightened job insecurity.

Suggested Citation

  • Chris Dawson & Michail Veliziotis & Benjamin Hopkins, 2017. "Temporary employment, job satisfaction and subjective well-being," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 38(1), pages 69-98, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:38:y:2017:i:1:p:69-98
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X14559781
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X14559781
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X14559781?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Minelli, Liliana & Pigini, Claudia & Chiavarini, Manuela & Bartolucci, Francesco, 2014. "Employment status and perceived health condition: longitudinal data from Italy," MPRA Paper 55788, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Auer, Wolfgang, 2015. "Health Consequences of Starting a Career on a Fixed-Term Contract," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113080, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Manuela Ortega-Gil & Antonio Mata García & Chaima ElHichou-Ahmed, 2021. "The Effect of Ageing, Gender and Environmental Problems in Subjective Well-Being," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-14, November.
    4. Sania Zafar & Danish Ahmed Siddiqui, 2019. "Factors Affecting Employees Performance and Retention: A Comparative Analysis of Banking and Educational Sector of Karachi," Business Management and Strategy, Macrothink Institute, vol. 10(1), pages 93-124, December.
    5. Wolfgang Auer & Natalia Danzer, 2015. "Uncertainty in the labour market: How does fixed-term employment affect fertility and mental health of the young generation?," IBS Working Papers 6/2015, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    6. Milena Nikolova & Carol Graham, 2014. "Employment, late-life work, retirement, and well-being in Europe and the United States," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-30, December.
    7. Wolfgang Auer, 2018. "Empirical Essays on the Socioeconomic Consequences of Economic Uncertainty," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 79.
    8. Scheuring, Sonja & Voßemer, Jonas & Baranowska-Rataj, Anna & Tattarini, Giulia, 2021. "Does Fixed-Term Employment Have Spillover Effects on the Well-Being of Partners? A Panel Data Analysis for East and West Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(7), pages 3001-3021.
    9. Wietzke, Frank-Borge, 2014. "Pathways from jobs to social cohesion," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6804, The World Bank.
    10. Mayu Fujii, 2024. "Employment quality and employees’ health: evidence from an Internet survey in Japan," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 119-141, February.
    11. Paul Schumann & Lars Kuchinke, 2019. "Do(n’t) Worry, It’s Temporary: The Effects of Fixed‑Term Employment on Affective Well‑Being," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1065, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    12. Inga Laß & Thomas Skora & Heiko Rüger & Mark Wooden & Martin Bujard, 2024. "Does temporary employment increase length of commuting? Longitudinal evidence from Australia and Germany," Transportation, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1467-1491, August.
    13. Dawson, Chris & Veliziotis, Michail & Pacheco, Gail & Webber, Don J., 2015. "Is temporary employment a cause or consequence of poor mental health? A panel data analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 50-58.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:38:y:2017:i:1:p:69-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.