Job Insecurity and Health in the United States

Recent changes in the labor market have increased the perception that relationships between employers and employees are less secure than in the past. This study examines the potential consequences of a rising sense of job insecurity for the health of U.S. workers. Using a nationally-representative longitudinal sample, we construct brief histories of perceived job insecurity from two measures of respondents’ fears about job loss collected three years apart. Our findings suggest that chronic fears about the likelihood of losing one’s job are associated with poorer self-rated health and greater depressive symptoms, even after adjustments for sociodemographic characteristics of workers and their experiences of actual involuntary job losses or negative health shocks. The results also suggest that perceived insecurity may have stronger effects on self rated health among private sector employees as compared to their public sector counterparts, and greater impact on depressive symptoms among black workers as compared with their non-black counterparts. Job Insecurity and Health in the United States 3