Institutions and Changing Employment Relations: Country Differences in Insecurity and Subjective Well-being in Europe

• In Event: 362 - Regular Session. Labor Market 2

Abstract

In this paper, we examine differences among seventeen European countries in the extent to which institutional and labor market characteristics affect the degree of insecurity that people feel about their jobs and economic situations, and how these insecurities are related to country differences in subjective well-being (SWB). Our analyses are based on European Social Surveys collected in 2004 and 2010, which enable us to examine possible consequences for insecurity and well-being of the economic crisis in the late 2000s. We find that there is substantial country-level variation in job and economic insecurity, as well as in SWB. Active labor market policies and unemployment replacement rates are especially important in reducing job insecurity, while welfare spending helps to alleviate economic insecurity; moreover, these effects appear to be stronger after the economic crisis. We finally find that job and economic insecurity are negatively related to SWB and help to account for the country differences we observe in SWB.

Authors

• Hande Inanc-Lenowitz, OECD

• Arne L. Kalleberg, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill