The Measurement of Precarious Work and Market Conditions: Insights from the COVID-19 Disruption on Sample Selection

Abstract

The precarious work construct combines employment instability and employment-contingent outcomes. Yet, I argue that confining the scope of the investigation to employed individuals creates a sample selection that disguises the heterogeneous nature of employment instability. The COVID-19 skyrocketing unemployment rate provides both a compelling motivation and a unique opportunity to revisit the construct of precarious work. Using pre-COVID and COVID-19 era data of the working-age population in Israel, the results demonstrate that by pushing less stable individuals out of employment, the COVID-19 recession strengthened the negative relationship between volatility and employment opportunities and accentuated sample selection. Because the selection into employment was not random, this introduces a bias into the measurement of precarious work, one that is more severe during a recession than in a full-employment market. The discussion highlights the broader significance of this lacuna and suggests a way to hone the conceptualization and operationalization of the precarious work construct.

Precarious Employment and Well-Being: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Part II includes three quantitative and two mixed-method papers tackling the theme of "The Experience and Perception of Employment Precarity" and is scheduled for publication in the May 2023 issue of Work and Occupations. Part I begins with Alon's challenge to the conceptualization and operationalization of precarious work (Alon 2023), followed by two articles on job quality (Reynolds andKincaid 2023, Rho et al 2023) and one article on workplace politics (Woods et al 2023). As Alon points out, while being useful and popular for its simultaneous consideration of employment instability and employment-contingent outcomes, a comprehensive definition of precarious work limits research to only employed individuals.…”

Underemployment, Work Needs, and Job Satisfaction: Does Social Support Matter?

“…Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic weakened the economies of many countries regardless of their development status [3]. On the one hand, it resulted in job loss; on the other, it increased the rate of precarious work (such as short-term, unstable, and insecure work) [4,5]. More specifically, this negative atmosphere in the global economy has caused an increase in underemployment rates, especially in developing countries [2,6,7], with researchers arguing that underemployment will remain a problem in the global economy after the pandemic [8].…”