Union formation under conditions of uncertainty: The objective and subjective sides of employment uncertainty

Abstract

BACKGROUNDThe link between economic forces and family dynamics has received renewed attention in the present era of heightened uncertainty. Economic uncertainty has usually been linked to unfavorable labor market circumstances, such as unemployment and short-term contracts. Nonetheless, union formation may also be affected by subjective appraisals of employment conditions, including employment security and -acknowledging the prospective nature of uncertainty itselfexpectations of future employment. OBJECTIVEThis study seeks to empirically disentangle the effects of the objective and subjective sides of individual employment uncertainty on the entry into union. METHODSWe apply event history techniques to longitudinal data taken from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey to examine whether and how objective measures of employment uncertainty (labor market status and contract type) and subjective measures (employment security and employment expectations) are associated with entry into a first union. RESULTSOur results show that objective markers of employment uncertainty -unemployment or temporary (casual) jobs -inhibit entry into a union for both men and women. Furthermore, different appraisals of employment uncertainty affect union formation across employment conditions. When individuals face objective employment uncertainty while still expecting their employment situation to improve, either by exiting unemployment (in particular among men) or retaining their jobs (among both sexes), union formation is not necessarily postponed.

Too many men? Subnational population imbalances and male childlessness in Finland

“…5-8). Moreover, men's employment is crucial for the partner market (Bolano and Vignoli, 2021;Bukodi, 2012), and unemployment creates uncertainty affecting fertility (Miettinen and Jalovaara, 2020). For that reason, we add the duration of unemployment as a control variable.…”

Marriage as insurance: job protection and job insecurity in France

“…Although the role of forward-looking job insecurity in partnership formation has already been mentioned in the literature , Bolano & Vignoli, 2021, we are not aware of any work that has been able to appeal to exogenous variation in job insecurity at the individual level in this context. Using difference-indifferences regressions based on a quasi-natural experiment, we here propose to estimate the causal impact of job insecurity on the probability of marriage.…”

Which Type of Employment Uncertainty Matters When Becoming a Parent? An Analysis by Educational Attainment in the United Kingdom

“…Recent empirical work utilises subjective measure of employment uncertainty, revealing that perceived employment uncertainty also negatively associates with fertility (Fahlén & Oláh, 2018;Gatta et al, 2021;Hanappi et al, 2017). To my knowledge, only one existing publication explicitly compares objective and subjective measures of employment uncertainty (Bolano & Vignoli, 2021), although in the context of union formation. Studies that focus on objective and subjective measures generally use measures with close temporal proximity to the birth event.…”