JOB INSECURITY AND HEALTH: A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH 

Minerva Medicolegale 2014 September;134(3):155-62

Copyright © 2014 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: Italian

Job insecurity, health and life projects: an occupational psychology perspective

Converso D.

Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Torino, Torino, Italia

The construct of job insecurity has been studied by work psychologists since the mid 1980s; there is no univocal definition for this concept and, until recently, the focus was mostly placed on individual antecedents (personality, socio-demographic characteristics) or on the organisational context of membership. In the past few years job precariousness and flexibility phenomena in western countries have grown and consequently increased job insecurity, both objective and subjectively perceived. The attention of psychology (and more generally of social and economic sciences) turned in these years towards some extra-organisational antecedents and towards correlates in terms of health, life choices, consumer practices, as well as towards the attention for reparation or proactive strategies of intervention. This brief review aims at introducing these developing lines of research, some definitions and the comparison between traditional and atypic workers on the grounds of job insecurity.