The Effects of Job Insecurity on Psychological Health and Withdrawal: A Longitudinal Study
Abstract
This paper reports on a repeated measures study of job insecurity conducted during drastic organisational change in one of Australia's large public transport organisations. In a redundant group (n = 32) and a control group (n = 63), effects of job insecurity and the availability of coping resources on psychological health and withdrawal were examined longitudinally by means of self-report questionnaires. Results indicate that job insecurity is associated with a deterioration of psychological health (i.e. leading to psychological distress and burnout), as well as job and organisational withdrawal. Contrary to expectations, however, neither support from colleagues nor management nor unions seemed to protect job incumbents from the negative effects of job insecurity. Apparently, these three sources of potential support do not have a stress-buffering effect. It was concluded that in order to combat the adverse effects of job insecurity on psychological health and morale, the job stressor itself has to be dealt with, instead of trying to render it less harmful by providing more social support.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Long-term uncertainty in a job is more detrimental than knowing whether one is going to be made redundant.
“Overall, Dekker and Schaufeli came to the conclusion that longterm uncertainty in a job was more detrimental than knowing whether one was going to be made redundant, stating that the 'silence from above surely erodes the extent to which workers experience control over the future of their jobs ' (1995: 62).”
From Smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and algorithms (STARA): employees' perceptions of our future workplace (2018) · cites this paper as Dekker and Schaufeli (1995)
Job insecurity is a predictor of psychological health (i.e., psychological stress and burnout).
“Research from Dekker and Schaufeli (1995) focussed on an organisation during a time of significant organisational change, and they observed that job insecurity was a predictor of psychological health (i.e., psychological stress and burnout).”
From Smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and algorithms (STARA): employees' perceptions of our future workplace (2018) · cites this paper as Dekker and Schaufeli (1995)
Cites
The Effect of Social Support in Moderating the Health Consequences of Unemployment
Gore, S. (1978) · Journal of Health and Social Behavior · doi:10.2307/2136531 · Cited by 762 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The job demands-resources model of burnout.
Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001) · Journal of Applied Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.499 · Cited by 13,643 · see citing works
Self-citationBrougham, D., & Haar, J. (2018) · Journal of Management & Organization · doi:10.1017/jmo.2016.55 · Cited by 1,117 · see citing works
Vander Elst, T., Van den Broeck, A., De Witte, H., & De Cuyper, N. (2012) · Work & Stress · doi:10.1080/02678373.2012.703900 · Cited by 210 · see citing works
Psychological correlates of COVID-19 pandemic in the Austrian population
Traunmüller, C., Stefitz, R., Gaisbachgrabner, K., & Schwerdtfeger, A. (2020) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-020-09489-5 · Cited by 120 · see citing works
An interpretative phenomenological analysis of burnout and recovery in elite soccer coaches
Lundkvist, E., Gustafsson, H., Hjälm, S., & Hassmén, P. (2012) · Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health · doi:10.1080/2159676x.2012.693526 · Cited by 101 · see citing works
Blom, V., Richter, A., Hallsten, L., & Svedberg, P. (2018) · Economic and Industrial Democracy · doi:10.1177/0143831x15609118 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Burke, R. J., & Greenglass, E. R. (2001) · Anxiety, Stress & Coping · doi:10.1080/10615800108248350 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Economic threat undermines the satisfaction of psychological needs for competence and autonomy
Dupuis, D. R., & Newby‐Clark, I. R. (2016) · Journal of Applied Social Psychology · doi:10.1111/jasp.12333 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
- Authors
- Dekker, S. W. A., & Schaufeli, W. B.
- Affiliations
- Utrecht University (NL)
- Venue
- Australian Psychologist
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 1995-03
- Volume
- 30
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 57-63
- ISSN
- 0005-0067 (ISSN-L)
- 1742-9544
- OpenAlex
- W2128228981
- Cited by
- 524
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 29 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 39
- FWCI
- 2.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Australian Psychologist (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Employment and Welfare Studies
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Workplace Health and Well-being
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
- Keywords
- job insecurity, mental health, work withdrawal, burnout, psychological distress, coping resources, social support, stress buffering, organizational change, redundancy, public transport workers, occupational stress
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
