The impact of job insecurity on risk perceptions: The case of Sweden

This paper sets out to investigate the impact of subjective job insecurity, i.e. expectations of job loss within the next 12 months, on general risk perceptions. The paper builds on earlier research of the so called White Male Effect (WME) showing that women and people with foreign background perceive risks higher than women and native people. It is well known that women and people with foreign background on an aggregated level have a more insecure labour market situation compared to native people. Hence, the assumption is that perceived job insecurity influence risk perception; people with a less secure employment situation will perceive risks as comparably higher than people with a more secure employment. The empirical analyses are based on a Swedish national survey (n=510) about risk perceptions conducted autumn 2008. The results indicate that there is a relation between perceived job insecurity and risk perceptions in general. Introduction This paper addresses the impact of job insecurity, in terms of subjective expectations of job loss within the next 12 months, on current general risk perceptions. The paper builds on earlier research showing that women and people with foreign background perceive risks higher than men and native people e.g. the white male effect “WME” (Finucane et al. 2000, Flynn et al. 1994, Jones, Abbot & Quilgars 2006, Olofsson & Rashid 2007). The reasons behind this difference are however not sufficiently investigated. A number of explanations have been proposed among which inequality and differences in values are common (e.g. Flynn et al. 1994, Kahan et al. 2007, Palmer 2003, Quilgars, Jones & Abbott 2008, Satterfield, 1 Anna Olofsson, Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Social Sciences, Mid Sweden University Sweden, [email protected], www.miun.se/crihs 2 Saman Rashid, Fil. Dr. of Economics, Department of Social Sciences, Mid Sweden University, Director of Statistics, Swedish Institute for Communication Analysis, Sweden, [email protected] www.miun.se/crihs