Can perceived employability mitigate the negative impacts of job insecurity on wellbeing?. We address this question using fixed-effects models on panel data from. Switzerland. To measure job insecurity, we use two subjective indicators (risk of job. loss and fear of job loss in the last year) and an objective one (having a temporary contract). We assess well-being by studying job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and mental health, and perform separate analyses for men and women. Results suggest that employability does not mitigate the impacts of job insecurity on job satisfaction. For life satisfaction, employability reduces the impacts of the risk of job loss in the last year, but only among men. Regarding mental health, employability partially offsets the impacts of the risk of job loss in the last year for both men and women. We conclude that even though employability might help, it does not shield workers from the negative impacts of job insecurity. This suggests that the flexicurity strategy falls short of mitigating the non-pecuniary impacts of job insecurity.

The labour market dualisation theory claims that labour unions bargain against the interests of temporary workers and that they foster inequalities between temporary and permanent employees. Conversely, the industrial relations literature argues that unions commonly follow solidaristic strategies towards outsiders. This study contributes to the literature by analysing unions’ associations with temporary workers’ hourly wages and the wage gap between permanent and temporary workers in Spain: one of the most prominent examples of labour market dualisation. By analysing cross-sectional surveys, unions’ influence through works councils, collective agreements and union density are studied during a period of economic growth (2006–2007) and a period of recession (2008–2010). Results show that there is generally no association between these three institutions and wage differences between permanent and temporary workers. The associations with temporary workers’ wages are insignificant or positive during both the period of economic growth and the period of recession.

The consequences of temporary jobs for job satisfaction are not clear. This article examines the effect of two crucial moderators in the association between temporary contracts and job satisfaction: the reason for being a temporary worker and the duration of temporary contracts. Using the ad-hoc module of the 2017 EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS), this study examines 27 European countries separately. Results show that involuntary temporary workers (those who wanted a permanent contract but could not find one) tend to be less satisfied than permanent employees. However, voluntary temporary workers (those who prefer temporary over permanent jobs) and temporary workers in apprenticeships or probation periods are generally as satisfied as permanent employees. Shorter contracts frequently exert negative effects on job satisfaction, but only among involuntary temporary workers. Results differ between countries: the differences between temporary and permanent workers are insignificant in Scandinavian countries but large in the post-Socialist states.

Over the last three decades, the professional landscape has changed, and career paths have become more plural, complex, and flexible, as well as less predictable. Consequently, career sustainability has become a major concern. Since the framework of sustainable careers captures the complexities of modern careers, we used it in the present study to understand how various types of significant life events (i.e., negative work events, negative nonwork events, positive work events, and positive nonwork events) hinder or foster career sustainability among 870 professionally active adults in Switzerland using a longitudinal design. We used repeated measures analysis of variance to study changes in health (i.e., self-rated health and stress at work), happiness (i.e., life satisfaction, quality of life, and job satisfaction), and productivity (i.e., employability and career prospects) by the type of significant life events over time, from 1 year before the event (T0) to 1 year after the event (T2). Results indicated that work events are important to consider when studying career sustainability as there is evidence for spillover effects from work to life. Specifically, experiencing positive work events seems to foster career sustainability, and these effects seem to be stronger than the negative effect of negative work or nonwork life events on health, happiness, and productivity.

Women in Spain are normally equally or more educated than their male partners. However, the gendered division of housework and paid work remains one of the most traditional ones in Europe. Using the 2018 Fertility Survey, I studied how the division of domestic work is affected by women's egalitarian attitudes and partners' relative incomes, and explored the effects of spouses' educational differences, looking at nine possible couple compositions. Two theories of housework division were contrasted: relative resources and doing gender. The results provided little support for the former and wide evidence of the latter. After controlling for relative work and relative wages (among others), only highly educated women do less housework. Nevertheless, it only happens when they are coupled with men that are not low educated. The results suggest that there is more equity if women with upper secondary education also have highly educated partners, but the association is not clear. Simultaneously, men increase their housework contribution if they earn more or the same as women, but not when women are the main earners. No influence of gender-egalitarian attitudes was found. These results contribute to understanding the consequences of educational differences between partners and is the first one to study the effects of gender-egalitarian attitudes on housework division in Spain. Significant limitations must be considered, namely, because of the use of a subjective indicator. The results are best interpreted as pointers for future analyses with time use surveys.

El presente artículo es producto del Trabajo Final de Grado realizado por el autor y tutelado por el profesor Daniel La Parra. La información de la que forma parte el análisis procede del proyecto Estudio del estado de salud, estilos de vida y acceso a servicios de salud de la población gitana en España, financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad.