Flexibilisation without Hesitation? Temporary Contracts and Workers' Satisfaction

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may March 2013 AbstractFixed-term contracts are often considered a key policy tool for increasing employment. As we show that contract limitation lowers job satisfaction using data from the German SocioEconomic Panel study, we detect a drawback of promoting temporary employment that has not been identified so far. We find that the "honeymoon-hangover" effect of a new job must be taken into account to reveal this result. We examine reasons why employees suffer from temporary contracts and analyse the "Flexicurity" idea of compensating workers with security. Our findings contribute to research on workers' well-being as well as to the debate on labour market flexibilisation.JEL Classification: J28, J41

How Job Changes Affect People's Lives Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data

“…A similar pattern is observed in studies with different research focus (e.g. Georgellis and Tabvuma 2010, Johnston and Lee 2012, Gielen 2013, Chadi and Hetschko 2013. In a comprehensive analysis of people's job satisfaction, Chadi and Hetschko (2014) clarify that the positive impact of changing jobs depends crucially on the trigger of mobility.…”

Temporary employment, job satisfaction and subjective well-being

“…Job satisfaction measures can be quite informative in this respect as they capture the workers' reactions and attitudes towards the array of job characteristics associated with each type of contract and, therefore, allow for a summary subjective evaluation of the consequences of temporary employment (Hamermesh, 2001). It seems quite surprising that previous research has not investigated this mediating influence of job satisfaction, since a substantial body of research has focused on the tendency of those employees on temporary contracts to report lower satisfaction than permanent workers, especially in domains associated with job security (see, for example, Origo and Pagani, 2009;Green and Heywood, 2011;Chadi and Hetschko, 2013).…”

“…A parallel body of literature has also examined the relationship between temporary employment and job satisfaction, with the majority of studies finding a negative relationship (Origo and Pagani, 2009;Green and Heywood, 2011;Chadi and Hetschko, 2013;De Witte and Näswall, 2003). In particular, De Witte and Näswall (2003), based on deprivation, psychological contract and job stress theories, provide a series of arguments on why those on temporary contracts may have lower job satisfaction than permanent employees.…”

“…This contribution to the literature is particularly relevant from a policy perspective, considering that contemporary labour market policy reforms throughout Europe have focused on the goal of "flexicurity", i.e. the combination of labour market policies and measures that aim to enhance both labour market and organizational flexibility and the employment security of individual employees (Origo and Pagani, 2009;Chadi and Hetschko, 2013;Berglund et al, 2014).…”

Stability and Satisfaction at Work During the Spanish Economic Crisis

“…These results confirm Origo and Pagani's (2009) idea that improvement in job security generates an improvement in job satisfaction. Chadi and Hetschko (2013) present evidence that working on a temporary contract lowers current job satisfaction. They use ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation as well as probit models.…”