Paper - Web view · 2010-02-20Word count = 7022 *Full paper ... As Beck states, ... and...

International Differences in Perceptions 1

International Differences in Perceptions of Temporary Work: The Role of Relativity*

Lindsey M. KingUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Word count = 7022

*Full paper submitted to the International Labour Process Conference, March 15 – 17, 2010, Rutgers, NJDirect all correspondence to Lindsey M. King, Department of Sociology, CB #3210 Hamilton Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3210 ([email protected]).


Abstract

This research project explores the relative desirability of unemployment and temporary

work to understand how workers evaluate their career options. The decision-making

process is proposed to be influenced by welfare state and labor market structures:

employment protection legislation (EPL), prevalence of temporary employment, passive

labor market policies (LMP), and the unemployment rate. The first set of analyses test

whether individual welfare state components hold greater explanatory power than clusters

of characteristics as described by welfare regimes. Using data from the International

Social Survey Program (ISSP), country-level explanations are tested against the

predictive power of individual work values and job characteristics of currently-employed

workers. Overall, the valuation of job security significantly predicts workers’ willingness

to accept temporary employment, although the strength of the relationship varies between

countries. Perceptions of job security and employability reduce the likelihood that

workers will choose temporary work over unemployment, while the presence and

valuation of interesting work increases the likelihood. The preference for temporary work

over unemployment is explained somewhat by welfare regimes, but it appears that

workers’ values and perceptions of their current jobs hold far more explanatory power.


International Differences in Perceptions of Temporary Work:

The Role of Relativity

The rise of precarious employment means that workers must often face an

unpleasant reality of choosing between less-than-ideal employment options. If “[b]eing

employed on a fixed term contract at some point in the course of a career is…the rule

rather than the exception” (Auer & Cazes 2003b: 46), understanding how workers

perceive temporary jobs as an employment option is of critical importance. If temporary

jobs are viewed as (1) a “trap”—part of an inescapable cycle of precarious employment

—rather than a bridge to permanent work (Booth, Francesconi, & Frank 2002), (2) “bad”

jobs in comparison to permanent employment (Kalleberg, Reskin & Hudson 2000), or (3)

an employment situation workers choose out of necessity rather than a desire for

flexibility (Feldman, Doerpinghaus, & Turnley 1995), workers may evaluate these jobs

unfavorably.

To comprehend how workers evaluate their options, decisions must be analyzed

with consideration of their relative attractiveness to workers (Gallie & Alm 2000).

Generally, unemployment is cast as the ultimate undesirable employment outcome, yet

for some workers the drawbacks of temporary work may outweigh the drawbacks of

unemployment. In unemployment, there exists a strong possibility for skill degradation

which increases exponentially as the length of unemployment increases (Gangl 2006).

Yet many countries offer unemployment benefits with a fairly high replacement rate,

reducing at least the wage-loss aspect of unemployment. Workers may underestimate the

length of time they will be unemployed, believing they will move quickly into a new job

and therefore believing the risks of unemployment to be minimal (Feinberg 1977). Thus,


many workers may opt for unemployment if they lose their current job, believing a

temporary job to be an disagreeable and unnecessary step.

Although precarious forms of employment have undoubtedly gained a larger

share of the labor force since the 1980s (Booth, Dolado, & Frank 2002a), nations have

developed vastly different responses to precarity and risk. As Beck states, “All Western

countries are similarly affected by the informalization and individualization of paid work.

But this epochal change is perceived and valued differently in different cultures.” (2000:

111). How nations handle the risks inherent in labor markets is central to understanding

how workers evaluate their employment trajectories.

In this paper, I explore how currently-employed workers weigh the relative

desirability of unemployment and temporary work. When forced to select one or the

other, which will workers choose? The extent to which workers view temporary work as

a riskier prospect than unemployment indicates the degree to which temporary jobs are

viewed as “bad.” The decision-making process is proposed to be influenced by welfare

state and labor market structures: unemployment insurance, legal protections for

temporary workers, and the like. The explanatory value of welfare state structures will be

tested against the predictive power of individual value systems and current job

characteristics.

WELFARE STATE AS RISK MITIGATOR

Welfare states frame labor markets: Employment trajectories are strongly

determined by the legal and political framework in which labor markets are embedded.

Allocation of people to jobs can be facilitated or hindered by the institutional structures,

and workers move through labor markets bounded to various degrees by systems of rules


governing their mobility. The interconnectedness of welfare states and labor markets

means that labor markets can only be understood in terms of the overarching political

agenda (Esping-Andersen 1990).

The welfare state is, at its core, a system of risk management for its citizens.

Edwards and Glover (2001) provide a succinct summary of the function of the welfare

state:

The traditional model for extensive or developed welfare states is an institutional nation-state response to coping with unforeseen but broadly predictable consequences, based on actuarial principles and collectively shared rights and responsibilities. It is founded on a solidaristic and state-centered response to the meeting of risks encountered within a typical lifecourse on the basis of broad social obligation as part of citizenship, together with the creation of mutual security. (P. 3)

In this conceptualization, strong welfare states make ample provisions for the risks

people are likely to encounter during the course of their lives. For workers, some of these

risks include unemployment, involuntary job loss, skill obsolescence, insufficient wages,

or insufficient work. Weak welfare states leave risk management to individuals or

employers; concertive responses to labor market failures or fluctuations are minimal.

WELFARE REGIMES

Welfare regimes categorize countries according to the level of decommodification

—the extent to which citizens are reliant on paid employment for their material well-

being—and stratification experienced by its citizens (Arts 2002). Esping-Andersen’s

(1990) original conceptualization of welfare regimes contained three categories: liberal,

social democratic, and conservative. Liberal regimes contain deregulated labor markets

and high citizen commodification: Limited social protection means that citizens are

reliant on an uninterrupted career of paid employment for income maintenance. Social-


democratic regimes emphasize decommodification and equality. Labor market

protections are enjoyed by a broad spectrum of workers who are not exclusively

dependent on employers for income. Benefits are universal and redistribution high.

Conservative regimes offer moderate decommodification, but benefits are tightly linked

to occupational status (Arts 2002). Workers with an occupational affiliation receive

strong protections, and conservative regimes provide ample income security to cushion

the impact of labor market turbulence.

The limited scope of Esping-Andersen’s original formulation omits many

countries; repeated attempts have been made to expand the typology’s purview beyond

three worlds of welfare capitalism. Other countries that show distinct similarities can be

grouped into the Mediterranean, post-communist, and productivist regimes.

Characterized by strong worker protections and moderate-to-high decommodification,

Mediterranean regimes display high labor market stratification. Certain classes of

workers receive extremely high protection, lessening their reliance on the state for

income provision, but other workers are effectively shut out of the labor market and

depend on social welfare programs for income (Dolado, García-Serrano, & Jimeno 2002).

Still left with the residue of a centrally-planned economy, post-communist

welfare regimes have historically contained labor markets entirely dominated by the

state: “[U]nder the full employment policy it was the responsibility of the state to

provide employment to all able-bodied persons of working age” (Cazes & Nesporova

2003: 7). Employment protection has since been softened, although economic limitations

prevent the state from being able to supplement increased labor market turbulence with


income protection. The lingering effects of communism mean that low stratification

remains a priority.

In productivist regimes, the company takes over functions usually performed by

the state. Holliday (2000) describes the focus and welfare strategy of productivist

regimes:

Here, social policy is strictly subordinate to the overriding policy objective of economic growth. Everything else flows from this: minimal social rights with extensions linked to productive activity, reinforcement of the position of productive elements in society, and state-market-family relationships directed towards growth. (P. 708)

Decommodification is therefore low and stratification high. Those without access to the

social safety nets offered by employers have little recourse for income maintenance. Full-

time, tenured employment is therefore highly desirable as citizen welfare depends on

employer magnanimity. Social structure is shaped more by norms than legislation, a

feature unique to the productivist regime type (Passet 2003).

Having outlined the major regime types under analysis, I shall now elaborate on

the structure of temporary work and unemployment in each regime.

TEMPORARY WORK AND THE WELFARE STATE

Employment protection legislation (EPL) governs the conditions under which

employers may fire individual workers, lay off groups of workers, or employ temporary

workers. “The primary task of EPL is to give more employment and income security to

workers, both in their current jobs and in the case of redundancy” (Cazes & Nesporova

2003: 3), but legislation may have unintended effects. Strong EPL for permanent workers

may cause employers to rely more heavily on temporary employees as a means of

circumventing strict restrictions on the hiring and firing of permanent employees. If


permanent workers cannot be easily fired when employers desire or require flexibility,

the converse implication is that employers will be reluctant to hire permanent workers,

preferring instead to deploy temporary workers (Employment in Europe 2006).

The most notable instance of this perverse effect of EPL is Spain. Although

temporary work was originally implemented to reduce high unemployment rates, EPL for

permanent workers remained high. Creating flexibility in one arena while maintaining

rigidity in another resulted in over-reliance on temporary workers: Over one-third of

Spain’s labor force is currently on a temporary contract (Polavieja 2003). Despite

attempts to reduce the disparity, Spain retains a two-tier labor market in which the market

for permanent work is difficult to penetrate (Polavieja 2003).

Figure 1 summarizes the proportion of temporary workers in the labor force as a

function of employment protection legislation. Liberal regimes (represented by the

United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Ireland) cluster in the lower-

left corner of the scale, indicating that this regime type tends to be low on both EPL and

temporary work. Mediterranean regimes (Spain and Portugal) exhibit the opposite

pattern: EPL is extremely high, as is the proportion of temporary workers. The social

democratic regimes (Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark) are centrally located on

the scale, although their use of temporary workers is generally lower than their levels of

EPL would suggest. Post-communist regimes (Hungary and the Czech Republic) are

moderate to low on EPL and display a correspondingly low incidence of temporary work.

Although productivist regimes (Japan and South Korea) have moderate employment

protection legislation, the prevalence of temporary work is higher than expected. In South

Korea, for example, a massive 36% of workers are on fixed-term contracts. Conservative


regimes (Germany, France, Belgium, and Switzerland) offer moderate to high levels of

employment protection, and the incidence of temporary work is similarly moderate to

high.

Figure 1. Strength of Employment Protection Legislation and the Proportion of Temporary Workers in the Labor Force, 2005

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 40

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Australia

Germany

UKUS

Hungary

Ireland

Norway

Sweden

Czech Republic

Canada

Japan

Spain

France

Portugal

Denmark

Switzerland

Belgium

Finland

South Korea

Employment Protection Legislation

Tem

-po

-ra

ry

Wor

ker

s as

a Pr

o-

por-

tion

of

the

Civ

il-

ian

Labo

r Fo

rce

Notes: Data come from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Employment protection legislation is a weighted average of regulations covering regular workers, temporary workers, and collective dismissals. The scale ranges from 0 (least restrictive) to 6 (most restrictive).

UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE WELFARE STATE

“While unemployment is not the only risk temporary workers face…temporary

workers are also exposed to repeat spells of temporary work,…unemployment remains a

clear indicator of temporary work’s inability to integrate workers” (Gash 2008: 651). To


the extent that temporary work becomes a “trap” of endless spells of temporary contracts

and unemployment rather than a “bridge” into permanent work (Booth et al. 2002),

workers will avoid temporary jobs. Workers’ ability to search for alternate employment

depends heavily on their ability to maintain an income during spells of unemployment.

For this reason, the amount of state spending on passive labor market protections (LMP),

such as unemployment benefits and early retirement, is associated with high

unemployment rates partly because workers have the luxury of seeking a job that fits

their skills and expectations (Gangl 2008; Nickell 1997). In countries with weak passive

LMP, unemployment is a highly undesirable prospect for workers due to the high

likelihood of poverty (Gallie & Paugam 2000). Low replacement rates encourage workers

to find new employment quickly, regardless of how well the new job matches their skill

set.

Figure 2 compares passive labor market policies to the unemployment rate. With

the exception of Switzerland, conservative regimes provide strong unemployment

protection to workers and unemployment rates in these countries are among the highest

of all regime types. Mediterranean regimes also tend to have high unemployment rates,

although their spending on passive labor market policies is slightly less than that of

conservative regimes. Social democratic regimes vary widely in their spending on passive

labor market policies, from the substantial expenditures of Denmark to the more modest

spending levels of Norway. Unemployment is similarly varied: Norway and Demark

enjoy extremely low unemployment rates, while the unemployment rates of Finland and

Sweden are higher than expected. Liberal regimes, once again, cluster at the low end of

both scales: expenditures on passive labor market policies are exceedingly low and are


Figure 2. Passive Labor Market Policies and the Unemployment Rate, 2005

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 30

2

4

6

8

10

12

Australia

Germany

UK US

Hungary

Ireland

Norway

SwedenCzech Republic

Canada

Japan

SpainFrance

Portugal

DenmarkSwitzerland

BelgiumFinland

South Korea

Passive Labor Market Policies

U n e m p l o y m e n t R a t e

Notes: Data come from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Passive labor market policies measure government expenditures as a percent of GDP spent on unemployment income maintenance and early retirement schemes.

matched with correspondingly low unemployment. Productivist regimes resemble liberal

regimes in their minimal spending on passive benefits such as unemployment insurance.

Productivist regimes also parallel liberal regimes in exhibiting low levels of

unemployment. Spending on passive labor market policies in post-communist regimes

compares to levels in liberal and productivist regimes but unemployment is much higher

than other regimes with similar spending levels.


Hypotheses

From the outline of welfare regimes and welfare state structures described above,

two competing hypotheses are presented. The first hypothesis proposes that the

aforementioned components of labor markets—employment protection legislation,

temporary workers as a proportion of the labor force, passive labor market policies, and

the unemployment rate—individually affect workers’ willingness to accept temporary

employment. The competing hypothesis proposes that clusters of labor market

characteristics, as embodied by welfare regime typologies, are better able to predict

workers’ acceptance of temporary employment.

WORK VALUES AND PERCEIVED JOB CHARACTERISTICS

Work Values: The importance of job security

Work values encapsulate the desired characteristics of a work situation (Judge &

Bretz 1992; Kalleberg 1977). As defined by Kalleberg and Reynolds (2003), work values

encompass:

1) the extent to which people are involved in work, or the centrality of work to their lives; 2) the importance people place on various job facets, or their ‘conceptions of the desirable’ with regard to their work activity; and 3) the extent to which people work in the particular arrangement voluntarily or involuntarily.” (P. 425)

The “conceptions of the desirable” pertain to workers’ attraction to or revulsion from

temporary work: to the extent that temporary employment matches desired work

characteristics, workers should seek out, or at least not actively avoid, this type of

employment arrangement. To the degree that the precarious nature of temporary work

fails to fit workers’ ideals, these types of jobs should be avoided when possible.


Work values are hypothesized to affect the willingness to accept temporary work

thusly: Workers who value the extrinsic rewards of work—“ rewards provided by the

organization for the purpose of facilitating or motivating task performance” (Mottaz

1985: 366) such as job security, promotion prospects, and pay—should show an aversion

to temporary work. Conversely, workers who value the intrinsic rewards of work—

rewards “ derived from the content of the task itself” (Mottaz 1985: 366) should prefer

temporary work over no job at all because work itself is seen as a rewarding undertaking.

The relationship between work values and willingness to accept temporary work

may differ across countries. Specifically, the relationship between job security valuation,

an extrinsic work reward, and willingness to accept temporary employment may vary.

Denmark, for instance, is well known for its system of “flexicurity:” flexible work

combined with high levels of social protection (Madsen 2008). The combination removes

the uncertainty usually associated with temporary work, giving rise to labor markets

characterized by high flexibility. Because job security in Denmark is not associated with

“good” jobs, the link between job security valuation and willingness to accept temporary

work may be weak.

Conversely and as previously noted, Spain exhibits a two-tier labor market in

which it is difficult for temporary workers to transition into permanent work (Polavieja

2003). A similar scene unfolds in Japan: Permanent workers enjoy a host of protections

provided by their employers, while temporary and other non-standard workers are

relatively deprived (Passet 2003). The divide between “good” and “bad” jobs being

determined by permanent or temporary employment status, it seems that job security


valuation would exhibit a strong relationship with amenability to temporary work in these

cases.

The hypothesis derived from these examples is broad, and designed to test if job

security valuation does indeed vary in the strength of its relationship to workers’

willingness to accept temporary employment.

Job Characteristics and Aversion to Temporary Employment

De Witte and Näswall (2003) differentiate between objective and subjective job

insecurity. Objective insecurity is a state of precariousness deriving from a time-limited

contract or employment with an uncertain future. Subjective insecurity describes

workers’ perceptions that job loss is possible or imminent. Thus, temporary workers, who

are employed in an objectively insecure type of work, also display high levels of

subjective job insecurity. Job insecurity is not solely the domain of temporary workers,

however: Any worker may be concerned about the future of their job, and the incidence

of job insecurity even among permanent workers is well documented (Green 2006;

Bockerman 2004; De Cuyper & De Witte 2005).

Hypotheses regarding perceived job characteristics mirror those of job values:

workers who perceive their jobs to be secure should show a lower inclination toward

temporary work than workers who feel insecure in their jobs. Also, workers who feel

their jobs are interesting should exhibit a stronger desire to remain employed, even in

temporary work, than enter unemployment. A related construct is employability, “a form

of work specific adaptability that enables workers to identify and realize career

opportunities” (Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth 2004: 16). Both job security and

employability imply control over one’s employment outcomes. In the case of job


security, workers feel that their future with their current employer is certain and

predictable; in the case of employability, workers feel they would be able to easily find

another job were the current job to be involuntarily lost or voluntarily abandoned. Both

employability and job security indicate that the worker believes himself or herself to be in

a strong labor market position (De Cuyper et al. 2008). These workers should exhibit a

preference for unemployment, a seemingly low-risk endeavor for a highly employable

worker, over temporary work.

METHOD

Data

Individual-level data.

Individual-level data come from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP),

a cross-national survey designed to capture attitudes on various topics. The ISSP includes

countries with a broad range of political and economic configurations and is thus ideally

suited for cross-national research. One of the primary goals of the ISSP is to make cross-

national surveys as comparable as possible. This by no means eliminates the possibility

that concepts are understood differently across nations (Hult, 2005), but this confounding

factor is given special attention in the drafting of the survey, reducing the chance that any

finding of international differences is merely a product of research design.

This research project will focus exclusively on the 2005 Work Orientations

Module. Respondents are asked about their preferences for various employment

situations and job characteristics; and are also asked to evaluate their current work

situation. The analytic sample is restricted to non-agricultural workers ages 18 to 65 who

are working for pay at the time of the survey. Workers who are employed less than part-


time, here defined as less than ten hours a week, are omitted. A total 12,822 cases are

eligible for inclusion in the analysis.

Country-level data.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) compiles

detailed information on welfare state components. All information on the welfare state

components is extracted from the OECD Employment and Labor Market Statistics

database. Although the ISSP contains more countries than are included in the present

study, data were unavailable on employment policies and labor force characteristics for

many countries. Countries for which the OECD lacked the requisite data were omitted,

leaving nineteen countries in the sample: Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech

Republic, Denmark, Finland. France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Japan,

Norway, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.

Dependent Variable

Preference for temporary work over unemployment.

Workers’ preference for temporary work over unemployment is measure by a

single item. Respondents are asked their level of agreement with the statement “In order

to avoid unemployment I would be willing to accept temporary employment.” Response

categories range from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree,” with higher scores

indicating a higher willingness to accept temporary work rather than enter

unemployment.


Independent Variables

Country-level variables.

As previously described, welfare regimes are classified according to the expanded

“Three Worlds” typology developed by Esping-Andersen (1990) and elaborated by Arts

(2007). The liberal welfare regime type is represented by Australia, Canada, Great

Britain, Ireland and the United States. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland represent

the social democratic regime type. Conservative regimes include Germany, Switzerland,

France, and Belgium. Hungary and the Czech Republic represent the post-communist

regime type. Spain and Portugal exemplify the Mediterranean regime type in the dataset.

The productivist regime type is represented here by South Korea and Japan.

The OECD distills measures of employment legislation into a single-item scale

indicating the overall strictness of EPL. The scale contains three components: “(i)

employment protection of regular workers against individual dismissal; (ii) specific

requirements for collective dismissals; and (iii) regulation of temporary forms of

employment” (OECD N.d.: 1). The scale ranges from zero to six: Low scores correspond

to weak employment protection, whereas high scores indicate stringent employment laws.

The prevalence of temporary work is measured as a proportion of the civilian

labor force, as is the unemployment rate. Passive labor market policies measure public

expenditures on programs such as unemployment insurance and early retirement as a

percentage of GDP.

Individual-level variables: work values.

Measures of work values encompass both intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics.

Extrinsic work values assess the importance placed on job security, advancement, and


high wages. Intrinsic work values include the importance of interesting work,

independent work, and flexible scheduling. For each value, respondents are asked to

indicate how important each aspect is to them. The scale ranges from 1 to 5, with 1

signaling “very unimportant” and 5 indicating “very important.” Respondents are also

asked to indicate whether they would prefer to work full-time or at most part-time.

Individual-level variables: Perceived job characteristics.

Perceived job characteristics assess the same dimensions as the job value

measures outlined above, with the exception of preferences for full-time versus part-time

work. Respondents are asked to indicate how strongly they agree that their job possesses

the aforementioned characteristics. Scores range from 1, which indicates strong

disagreement, to 5, which represents strong agreement.

To assess perceived external labor market prospects, workers are asked, “How

easy or difficult do you think it would be for you to find a job at least as good as your

current one?” Scores are reverse coded such that higher scores correspond to a greater

perceived ease in finding an equivalent job. Table 1 provides the means for job values,

perceived job characteristics, and perceptions of employability, averaged across

countries.

Control variables: Demographics and job characteristics.

Analyses control for gender, age, marital status, presence of a working spouse,

educational level, occupation, union status, employment type (private sector dependent,

public sector dependent, or self-employed), and work status (full-time or part-time). Each

has been shown to impact workers’ attitudes (Neil & Snizek 1987; Boyce et al. 2007;

Henson & Krasas-Rogers; Feldman et al. 1995; Tarnai et al. 1995; Mottaz 1985).


Table 1. Grand Means and Standard Deviations of Job Values, Perceived Job Characteristics, and Perceived Employability, 2005 ISSP Work Orientations Module

Mean (standard deviation)

Job values (1=Not important at all; 5=Very important)

Job security 4.48 (.703)High income 4.01 (.773)Good opportunities for

advancement3.82 (.958)

An interesting job 4.47 (.626)A job that allows one to work

independently4.08 (.827)

A job that allows someone to decide their days and times of work

3.71 (.970)

Preference for full-time over part-time work (proportion)

0.63

Perceived job characteristics (1=Strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree)

My job is secure 3.61 (1.137)My income is high 2.69 (1.056)My opportunities for advancement

are high2.66 (1.079)

My job is interesting 3.88 (.971)I can work independently 3.87 (1.046)

Freedom to choose schedule (1=Worker has no discretion; 3=Employee has full discretion)

1.64 (.679)

Difficulty in finding a job at least as good as the current one (1=Very difficult; 5=Very easy)

2.62 (1.130)

N=13073

Analytical Strategy

The data necessitate hierarchical generalized linear modeling to account for

individuals nested within countries. Due to the nature of the response variable—a five-

category agreement scale—a nonlinear model must be fitted to account for an ordinal


dependent variable. Ordinal regression employs a cumulative probability model to

account for ordered response categories (Raudenbush & Bryk 2002). A key assumption

of this model is proportional odds: Odds ratios for each response category are similarly

affected by the regressors (Raudenbush & Bryk 2002). The multilevel model for

proportional odds is:

log [ P ijc

1−Pijc ]=γ c+x 'ij β+z ' ij T θ j(c=1, …C−1)

in which C represents the number of ordered response categories with C – 1 thresholds γc

and z ' ij T θ j represents a vector of standardized Level-2 random effects (Hedeker 2008).

This particular model results in regression coefficients that have the correct coefficient

but the opposite sign. The cumulative probabilities conditional on Level-2 random effects

are given as:

Pr (Y ij=c|θ )=P ijc−Pij ,c−1

Between-country variability is modeled using restricted penalized quasi-

likelihood. PQL approximates maximum likelihood estimates for the Level-1 random

coefficients and the Level-2 fixed effects and variance (O’Connell et al. 2008). With

PQL, a deviance statistic that might be used to compare models is not available, and the

non-nested structure of many of the models invalidates likelihood ratio tests. Model fit

will be assessed by comparing the amount of between-country variance accounted for by

each model. While such informality is obviously less than ideal, it does provide a way to

compare the propriety of non-nested models. The general Level-2 model specification is:

βqj=γq 0+∑s=1

sq

γ qsW sj+¿uqj ¿

(1)

(2)

(3)


Where:q is the number of level-1 coefficientsj is the number of level-2 coefficientsβqj is a set of random level-2 coefficients j across q level-1 predictors,γ00 is the level-2 overall intercept,γq0 yields the level-2 regression slopes across q level-1 predictors,W sj denotes the summed effects of coefficient set W which contains j level-2 predictors, performed for s number of level-1 coefficient (where s = 1,…, Sq), multiplied by the fixed level-1 coefficients γqs, uqj is the level-2 random effect, andu0 j is the level-2 intercept for unit j.

Analyses proceed in two stages: In the first stage, the welfare regime model is

compared to the welfare components model. Comparisons are conducted using a random-

intercept-only model as the baseline. In the second stage, the country-level model that

best fits the data will be incorporated into a model that includes individual-level

variables.

RESULTS

Descriptive Analysis

For each country and regime type, levels of willingness to accept temporary work

to avoid unemployment in presented in Table 2. Workers in liberal regimes show the

strongest agreement that they would accept temporary work rather than be unemployed,

with workers in Ireland and the United States displaying the highest level of agreement of

all countries. Overall, 72% of workers in liberal regimes agree that they would take a

temporary job to avert a spell of unemployment. Conservative regimes follow closely in

their willingness to accept temp work, with an average 69% of workers agreeing that they

would take temporary work over unemployment. Workers in social democratic regimes

show less willingness than workers in liberal or conservative regimes to accept temporary

employment. Sixty-three percent of workers in social democratic regimes agree that they


would take temporary work to avoid unemployment. Slightly more than half of workers

in Mediterranean and post-communist regimes agree that, to avoid unemployment, they

would take a temporary job. Workers in productivist regimes evidence, by far, the lowest

levels of agreeableness to temporary work.

Table 2. Percentage Distribution of Responses to the Question “In Order to Avoid Unemployment I Would Be Willing to Accept Temporary Employment,” by Country and Welfare Regime Type

Welfare regime type Country

Strongly

disagree

Disagree

Neither

agree nor

disagree Agree

Strongly

agree

Average who agree or strongly agree by regime

type

Liberal

Australia 3.44 11.65 11.85 58.66 14.39

71.98*

Canada 5.70 13.50 17.30 48.95 14.56Great Britain 3.43 18.31 16.02 52.86 9.38

United States 3.46 9.41 8.76 54.70 23.68

Ireland 2.49 9.56 5.20 59.04 23.70

Conservative

Germany 5.08 9.31 13.12 53.88 18.62

69.29*France 13.18 14.08 15.39 40.04 17.30Switzerland 2.54 9.86 7.47 64.39 15.74

Flanders 4.03 10.99 17.80 57.86 9.32

Social democratic

Norway 4.17 11.72 15.63 55.60 12.89

62.59*Sweden 4.75 11.87 19.69 50.28 13.41Denmark 12.27 9.14 16.09 37.50 25.00

Finland 8.30 19.06 16.98 38.87 16.79Mediterranean

Spain 11.95 21.82 19.92 26.57 19.73 55.09*Portugal 8.67 11.15 16.31 44.48 19.40

Post-communist

Hungary 18.49 17.03 18.49 31.63 14.3654.97*Czech

Republic

3.23 11.56 21.26 54.93 9.01

Productivist Japan 36.19 11.26 17.96 16.89 17.69 40.32*


South Korea 11.93 23.02 19.00 33.43 12.62

Total 7.88 12.97 15.24 47.40 16.50 63.90* Within-regime chi-squared test for country differences is significant at p<.01N = 12822

A series of Pearson’s chi-squared tests were performed within each regime type to

assess whether countries showed significant differences in their levels of willingness to

accept temporary work. Tests indicate significant differences in amenability to temporary

work within welfare regime type. Because there exists a high level of within-regime

variation, the next step is to explore the welfare state components that may contribute to

attitudes toward temporary work and unemployment.

Welfare Components Model Compared to Welfare Regime Model

Table 3 compares the welfare regimes and welfare components models (Models 2

and 3, respectively) to a baseline level-2 model containing only an intercept (Model 1).

For clarity of presentation, only the coefficients are provided. The explanatory power of

the welfare components model is poor: None of the individual welfare components

significantly affect the relative attractiveness of temporary work and unemployment. The

welfare-components model explains 13% of between-country variance, a small

percentage relative to the greater explanatory power of Model 2, which is able to account

for half of the between-country variance in levels of agreeableness toward temporary

employment compared to unemployment. Because the welfare-regime model provides a

better fit for the data, this model is preferred as the level-2 predictor.


Table 3. Regression of Workers’ Preference for Temporary Work on Welfare Regimes and Welfare Components, HLM Ordered Logit Models

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3Intercept 2.462** 2.804** 2.463**Welfare state components

Employment protection legislation -0.140Passive labor market policies 0.227Unemployment rate -0.006Proportion temporary workers in labor force

-0.020

Welfare state regimes (Comparison: Liberal regime)

Conservative -0.144Social democratic -0.276Post-communist -0.650*Productivist -1.260**Mediterranean -0.484

Threshold 2 1.157** 1.158** 1.158**Threshold 3 1.951** 1.952** 1.952**Threshold 4 4.208** 4.210** 4.210**Variance components

Intercept (Between-country variance) 0.226** 0.112** 0.196**Variance explained 50.4% 13.3%N (Level 1) 12818 12813 12814

* p <= .05; ** p <= .01

Individual Values

In this stage of analysis, individual-level predictors and random slopes are

successively included into the model to test their predictive power. Model 4, the baseline


model, contains level-1 predictors and level-2 random intercepts. Models 5 through 7

account for welfare regime type after a baseline of level-1 effects is established. Table 4

compares the findings of the various models.

Looking first at the baseline Model 4, several job values significantly impact

respondents’ agreement that they would prefer a temporary job over unemployment. In

particular, workers who value the extrinsic rewards of job security and high income show

less amenability to temp work than workers for whom less importance is placed on

extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic job values exhibit the opposite pattern: As the value of

Table 4. Regression of Workers’ Preference for Temporary Work on Job Values, Perceived Job Characteristics, Perceived Employability, and Welfare Regimes, HLM Ordered Logit Models

Model 4

Model 5

Model 6

Model 7

Intercept -2.874** -3.204** -3.217** -3.216**Job values

Job security 0.100** 0.100** 0.067 0.078High income 0.112** 0.110** 0.123** 0.125**Advancement prospects 0.032 0.032 0.030 0.029Interesting work -0.184** -0.183** -0.173** -0.169**Independent work -0.057* -0.056* -0.051* -0.050Flexibility 0.006 0.006 0.007 0.008Preference for full-time work (Compared to part-time or less)

-0.005 -0.006 -0.001 -0.001

Perceived job characteristicsJob security 0.054** 0.054** 0.055* 0.055**High income -0.019 -0.019 -0.021 -0.021Advancement prospects 0.047* 0.047* 0.046* 0.046*Interesting work -0.072** -0.071** -0.071** -0.071**Independent work 0.002 0.004 0.002 0.002Flexible hours -0.017 -0.017 -0.015 -0.015Ease in finding a good job 0.034* 0.036** 0.035* 0.035*

Individual characteristicsGender (Male=1) 0.342** 0.342** 0.344** 0.345**

Job characteristicsUnion member 0.106* 0.108* 0.104* 0.102*

Welfare state regimes (Comparison: Liberal regime)

Conservative 0.191 0.151 0.197Social democratic 0.269 0.120 0.296


Post-communist 0.511 0.586 0.529Productivist 1.359** 1.436** 1.340**Mediterranean 0.350 0.683* 0.404

Slope coefficientsConservative 0.056Social democratic 0.182Post-communist -0.121Productivist -0.151Mediterranean -0.399*

Threshold 2 1.209** 1.210** 1.212** 1.212**Threshold 3 2.020** 2.021** 2.025** 2.025**Threshold 4 4.378** 4.380** 4.390** 4.392**Variance components

Intercept (Between-country variance)

0.232** 0.114** 0.122** 0.111**

Value of job security 0.037** 0.017**Variance explained 50.9% 63.4% 59.5%df (Level 1) 10858 10853 10853 10848 Controls: Age, marital/cohabitation status, presence of a working spouse/partner, educational attainment, sector (private or public), dependent employment status (dependent or self-employed), full-time/part-time status, occupation* p <= .05; ** p <= .01interesting and independent work rewards rises, workers are more likely to agree that

they would accept temporary employment as a means of avoiding unemployment.

Willingness to accept temporary employment also appears to be a function of the

characteristics of one’s current job. Workers who feel their job security and advancement

prospects are high are less likely than workers who perceive that their jobs possess fewer

of such extrinsic rewards to prefer temporary work over unemployment. The current level

of intrinsic rewards matters only insofar as workers higher ratings of interesting work are

associated with a higher likelihood of agreeing that temporary work would be preferable

to unemployment.

A high evaluation of one’s external labor market prospects decreases agreement

that temporary work is a preferable alternative to unemployment. As the perceived ease

with which a comparable job could be found increases, willingness to accept temporary

employment over unemployment decreases. In sum, intrinsic values and rewards,


particularly the value and presence of independent work in one’s job, tend to predispose

workers toward temporary employment. Conversely, the presence and valuation of

extrinsic rewards show the opposite effect, with higher rewards and values associated

with a lower inclination toward temporary work rather than unemployment.

Models 5 through 7 add various country level differences to the level-1 model.

Model 5 tests the significance of welfare regime in the presence of individual-level

indicators. Even after accounting for workers’ values, subjective job characteristics, and

objective job characteristics, the welfare regimes model still explains half of the between-

country variance. Although there is a great deal of variation within each country, there

remains significant variation between countries.

Model 6 explores the role of random slopes in between-country variation.

Allowing variation in the slopes of job security valuation increases the proportion of

explained between-country variance to 63.4%. It was hypothesized that the value placed

on job security may function differently in various countries. This does indeed appear to

be the case. The influence of job security valuation on the willingness to accept

temporary work varies between countries, although the model does not allow statements

on the nature of the difference. Interestingly, the coefficient for job security valuation is

no longer significant after accounting for random slopes, but this may be attributable to

the structure of the model: At the individual level, regressions include 10,853 cases.

Calculating random slopes for each country converts job security valuation into a level-2

variable, dramatically reducing the number of cases to 13. Thirteen cases may simply be

too few to determine significance if the effect is small.


Model 7 attempts to establish if this difference can be accounted for by welfare

regimes. The relationship between job security valuation and temporary work inclination

is significantly stronger in Mediterranean regimes than in liberal regimes, but none of the

other regime types differ from liberal regimes in the explanatory power of random slopes.

Welfare regimes do a poor job of explaining why the influence of job security valuation

differs between countries. Thus, Model 7, which accounts for 59.5% of between-country

variance, is rejected in favor of Model 6, which is able to account for a greater proportion

of between-country variance.

According to Model 6, the post-communist regime is no longer significantly

different from the liberal regime, as it was in Model 2, although the Mediterranean

regime now displays significance. The productivist regime still exhibits the greatest

difference from the liberal regime, with workers who are considerably more averse to

temporary work even after accounting for work values and job characteristics.

DISCUSSION

Individual-level hypotheses were supported: Extrinsic work rewards and the value

placed on them significantly related to workers’ relative preference for temporary work

over unemployment. Workers who value either job security or high income show a lower

willingness to accept temporary work as a means of avoiding unemployment than

workers for whom extrinsic rewards are less present or important. Workers who believe

they could easily find a good job also display an aversion to temporary work. The value

and presence of interesting work exhibited the opposite effect: Workers who valued or

possessed interesting work showed a higher preference for temporary work to escape

unemployment.


Workers who value intrinsic job rewards may be more inclined to accept

temporary work rather than be unemployed because work itself is a perceived as valuable

pursuit. This finding may also be interpreted to mean that workers with interesting jobs

have access to temporary jobs of good quality. Several studies have noted that workers in

highly skilled jobs may prefer to operate in the external labor market. Although contract

jobs carry the risk of finite and fixed duration, such jobs may provide opportunities for

skill enhancement, self-determination, and income leveraging (Kunda, Barley, & Evans

2002; O’Mahoney & Bechky, 2006).

The finding that job security, both its valuation and its presence, are associated

with a decreased willingness to accept temporary work to avoid unemployment merits

further investigation. Given that many workers place a high premium on job security,

their avoidance of temporary work could be interpreted to mean either that (1) workers

are inflexible when it comes to time-limited employment or (2) temporary jobs are

perceived as comparatively bad in relation to permanent employment. In reality, a

combination of both factors is likely.

Perceived job security and employability both reduce the likelihood that workers

will express a preference for temporary work over unemployment. This finding in

particular carries the most serious implications for workers. If temporary work is

available but viewed as undesirable, workers may choose unemployment instead, thereby

leading to wasted human capital and creating an unnecessary burden on labor market

protection programs. Few workers anticipate being unemployed for months, let alone

years. If people systematically overestimate their chances in the external labor market

and underestimate the length of time they will be unemployed, workers may choose an


employment outcome that carries far worse repercussions—skill degradation and income

loss being the most salient possibilities—than they originally anticipated.

An obvious limitation of the present study is the lack of information about

whether respondents currently work in a temporary job. The ISSP does not assess

temporary or permanent status of survey respondents. Measures of perceived job

characteristics, particularly measures of perceived job security, should partly compensate

for this deficiency, as temporary workers tend to feel less secure in their jobs than

permanent employees (DeCuyper 2008; De Witte & Näswall 2003).

Temporary workers’ representation in the ISSP should be higher in countries

containing a high proportion of temporary workers (South Korea, Spain, and Portugal). If

workers currently employed in temporary contracts were more amenable to temporary

work, then countries with a high proportion of temporary workers should show greater

inclination toward temporary work. Instead, the opposite is found. Workers in

Mediterranean and productivist regimes show a stronger aversion to temporary work than

workers in liberal regimes. Although temporary work is prevalent in other regimes—the

social democratic and conservative regimes in particular—the Mediterranean and

productivist regimes contain two-tier labor markets divided along the lines of permanent

versus temporary status. This feature is not present to the same degree in other welfare

regimes. In addition to the relative quality of unemployment compared to temporary

employment, the relative quality of permanent employment also seems to figure heavily

in workers’ evaluations of temporary jobs. In sum, it seems that career researchers would

do well to take a cue from the workers themselves and consider the role of relativity in

decision making.


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