Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

6-2024

Abstract

The current research proposes and tests a novel model explaining how job insecurity shapes well-being and has consequences for stratification and inequality. I draw on evolutionary life history theory, which proposes that growing up in a poorer versus wealthier environment impacts the sense of control people feel when exposed to threat in adulthood. I integrate this perspective with transactional stress theory to propose that job insecurity has a disproportionately negative effect on employees from poorer backgrounds, leading to lower engagement and higher emotional exhaustion among such employees, while those from wealthier backgrounds are buffered against these effects. These responses to job insecurity, in turn, amplify job loss risk for employees from poorer backgrounds, regardless of employees’ current job or financial situation. A preregistered, multisource, five-wave longitudinal study conducted at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in India found support for these predictions. A follow-up quasi-experiment conducted in India and the United States replicated the effects on engagement and exhaustion. The impact of job insecurity on well-being is stratified and acts as a mechanism that reproduces childhood inequalities.

Discipline

Human Resources Management | Organizational Behavior and Theory

Research Areas

Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources

Publication

Academy of Management Journal

Volume

67

Issue

3

First Page

679

Last Page

703

ISSN

0001-4273

Identifier

10.5465/amj.2022.0285

Publisher

Academy of Management

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2022.0285

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