Subjective job insecurity and the rise of the precariat: evidence from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States

Manning, Alan ORCID: 0000-0002-7884-3580 and Mazeine, Graham (2024) Subjective job insecurity and the rise of the precariat: evidence from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. Review of Economics and Statistics, 106 (3). 748 - 761. ISSN 0034-6535

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Abstract

There is a widespread belief that work is less secure than in the past, that an increasing share of workers are part of the “precariat.” It is hard to find much evidence for this in objective measures of job security, but perhaps subjective measures show different trends. This paper shows that in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, workers feel as secure as they ever have in the past 30 years. This is partly because job insecurity is very cyclical and (pre-COVID) unemployment rates very low, but there is also no clear underlying trend towards increased subjective measures of job insecurity. This conclusion seems robust to controlling for the changing mix of the labor force, and it is true for specific subsets of workers.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://direct.mit.edu/rest
Additional Information:	© 2022 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Divisions:	Economics Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
JEL classification:	J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Time Allocation, Work Behavior, and Employment Determination and Creation; Human Capital; Retirement > J28 - Safety; Accidents; Industrial Health; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
Date Deposited:	04 Mar 2022 18:27
Last Modified:	16 Jul 2024 00:48
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/114258

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