Causes and consequences of job insecurity in modern societies : temporary employment, employment protection legislation and turnover intentions in a comparative perspective

Job insecurity has many adverse consequences for individuals. In this dissertation, causes and consequences of job insecurity are examined in three studies. The first study examines one consequence – turnover intentions, using data from the International Social Survey Programme and finds that both job insecurity and employability increases turnover intentions in almost all of the 31 countries in the study, while perceived irreplaceability decreases turnover intentions in most. In the second study, two of the most influential determinants of job insecurity – temporary employment and employment protection legislation (EPL) are studied. By using a more elaborate operationalization for EPL than previous research, it can be shown that strong EPL increases the negative effect of temporary employment on perceived job insecurity using data from the European Social Survey 2004 and 2010. The third study examines the commonly used measure for EPL – the EPL-Index published by the OECD – in-depth and develops an indicator in a theory-driven way to closely reflect the theoretical construct of protection against dismissal. Using two examples from labour market reseach, analysing data from the European Social Survey, the European Labour Force Survey, the European Quality of Life Survey and the European Working Conditions Survey, it can be shown, that while the theory-driven new EPL-Index leads to results expected from the literature, the OECD EPL-Index does not