The organization of work in the United States has changed dramatically over the last four decades as a result of globalization, industrial shifts, and technological innovation (Burgard et al., 2009; Seigrist & Marmot, 2005; Sverke & Hellgren, 2002). Long-term, stable employment relationships have increasingly been replaced with work arrangements characterized by shorter job tenure and fewer worker protections, leading to an increase in perceived job insecurity (Standing, 2011). Perceived job insecurity is defined as an anticipatory stressor related to the threat of losing a job, or important features of a job, and a sense of powerlessness to overcome this threat (Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 2010; De Witte, 2005). The Employment Conditions Knowledge Network of the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Social Determinants of Health (Benach et al., 2007) suggests that the effects of perceived job insecurity on health may be even more harmful than job loss itself. Although evidence for a causal relationship between perceived job insecurity and health is growing, little is known about mechanisms and group differences in this relationship. This dissertation investigates the relationship between perceived job insecurity and quality of life. Quality of life is defined in this study as a general state of health, well-being, and satisfaction across multiple dimensions of life (Drotar, 2014; Kobau et al., 2010; Bowling, 1991). Although the WHO defines health very broadly as a "complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being," health is usually assessed in studies of perceived job insecurity in very narrow terms based on the presence or absence of disease (CDC, 2011). In contrast to this deficit perspective on health, quality of life is an overall state of wellness. This dissertation makes an important contribution to the literature on perceived job insecurity and quality of life by achieving three aims: 1) identifying determinants of perceived job insecurity among adults in the United States; 2) testing causal pathways linking perceived job insecurity and perceived inequality at work to quality of life; and 3) estimating group differences in the effect of perceived job insecurity and perceived inequality at work on quality of life based on social status, social resources, and demographic characteristics. Data for this research were drawn from a U.S. sample of non-institutionalized, English-speaking adults in the 1995-1996 and 2004-2006 waves of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS). Multivariate generalized ordinal structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses for the first aim (N=5,424). Multivariate linear structural equation modeling with full information maximum likelihood estimation was used to test hypotheses for the second and third aims (N=5,113). This study was informed by Pearlin and colleagues' (1981) stress process model, which posits that unequal exposure to stressors and access to resources for coping with stressors contributes to health disparities. Key findings from this study add to existing knowledge on job stressors and health. First, for determinants, perceived job insecurity is influenced by objective job insecurity over and above the effects of psychosocial job stressors and demographic characteristics. Effort-reward imbalance also significantly increases perceived job insecurity, but job strain does not. High effort may improve security, but not in the absence of control. People of color report significantly higher perceived job insecurity than non-Hispanic white people, but there is no association between gender and perceived job insecurity, all other factors held constant. Perceived inequality at work is a strong determinant of perceived job insecurity. Second, for consequences, perceived job insecurity is associated with quality of life net of controls for demographic and health characteristics, but not when controlling for other job stressors. Perceived inequality at work confounds the relationship between perceived job insecurity and quality of life. Negative work to family spillover of stress and social support outside of work from family, friends, and spouse/partner significantly mediate the relationship between perceived inequality at work and quality of life. Third, for conditioning factors, the effect of perceived inequality at work on quality of life is conditional on household income, social support at work, age, and wave of interview. No significant group differences were found by education, gender, or race. The findings demonstrate that perceived job insecurity is associated with other psychosocial stressors from established job stress models but that inequality may be even more threatening to health and well-being than insecurity. Stress proliferation from work to family life partially explains the relationship between perceived inequality at work and quality of life. Programs to enhance social support at work and home may help to contain the negative health effects of inequality and insecurity on quality of life.

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of recent developments in research on the relationship between occupational trajectories over the life course and health. It uncovers the impact of far-reaching changes of work and employment, as evidenced by increased flexibility, discontinuity, and technological innovation, and offers insights into recent theoretical and methodological developments addressing this challenge. In its main parts, it presents the best evidence to readers about the following topics: early life influences on (un)healthy work, chronic exposure to occupational risks; nonstandard employment and poor health; work continuation with chronic disease; occupational determinants of healthy aging. In its final part, it discusses policy implications of current knowledge and points to the need of developing new solutions in research and practice, not least in times of climate crisis and the new pandemic. The important handbook has been prepared by a distinguished editorial team, with chapters written by prominent international experts. Despite its continuous reference to scientific knowledge it addresses its content to a broader, non-specialized readership.

This open access book details tools and procedures for data collections of hard-to-reach, hard-to-survey populations. Inside, readers will discover first-hand insights from experts who share their successes as well as their failures in their attempts to identify and measure human vulnerabilities across the life course. Coverage first provides an introduction on studying vulnerabilities based on the Total Error Survey framework. Next, the authors present concrete examples on how to survey such populations as the elderly, migrants, widows and widowers, couples facing breast cancer, employees and job seekers, displaced workers, and teenagers during their transition to adulthood. In addition, one essay discusses the rationale for the use of life history calendars in studying social and psychological vulnerability while another records the difficulty the authors faced when trying to set-up an online social network to collect relevant data. Overall, this book demonstrates the importance to have, from the very beginning, a dialogue between specialists of survey methods and the researchers working on social dynamics across the life span. It will serve as an indispensable resource for social scientists interested in gathering and analyzing data on vulnerable individuals and populations in order to construct longitudinal data bases and properly target social policies.

The purpose of this volume is to describe the impact of the increased demand for flexibility on employees and its impact on their individual work life trajectories and health. The volume offers concrete examples of interventions aimed to find innovative ways of sustainable work careers for today's workers. We focus on the school to work transition, job insecurity, job loss and re-employment and retirement. The interventions described offer strategies for implementing support in employment contracts, increasing preparedness of individual employees with public education programs or developing work arrangements and support systems in work organizations.

This book will change the way we understand the future of our planet. It is both alarming and hopeful. James Gustave Speth, renowned as a visionary environmentalist leader, warns that in spite of all the international negotiations and agreements of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth's environment are not succeeding. Still, he says, the challenges are not insurmountable. He offers comprehensive, viable new strategies for dealing with environmental threats around the world. The author explains why current approaches to critical global environmental problems - climate change, biodiversity loss, deterioration of marine environments, deforestation, water shortages, and others - don't work. He offers intriguing insights into why we have been able to address domestic environmental threats with some success while largely failing at the international level. Setting forth eight specific steps to a sustainable future, Speth convincingly argues that dramatically different government and citizen action are now urgent. If ever a book could be described as essential, this is it.

The purpose of this volume is to describe the impact of the increased demand for flexibility on employees and its impact on their individual work life trajectories and health. The volume offers concrete examples of interventions aimed to find innovative ways of sustainable work careers for today's workers. We focus on the school to work transition, job insecurity, job loss and re-employment and retirement. The interventions described offer strategies for implementing support in employment contracts, increasing preparedness of individual employees with public education programs or developing work arrangements and support systems in work organizations.

The Handbook of Sociology of Aging is the most comprehensive, engaging, and up-to-date treatment of developments within the field over the past 30 years. The volume represents an indispensable source of the freshest and highest standard scholarship for scholars, policy makers, and aging professionals alike. The Handbook of Sociology of Aging contains 45 far-reaching chapters, authored by nearly 80 of the most renowned experts, on the most pressing topics related to aging today. With its recurring attention to the social forces that shape human aging, and the social consequences and policy implications of it, the contents will be of interest to everyone who cares about what aging means for individuals, families, and societies. The chapters of the Handbook of Sociology of Aging illustrate the field’s extraordinary breadth and depth, which has never before been represented in a single volume. Its contributions address topics that range from foundational matters, such as classic and contemporary theories and methods, to topics of longstanding and emergent interest, such as social diversity and inequalities, social relationships, social institutions, economies and governments, social vulnerabilities, public health, and care arrangements. The volume closes with a set of personal essays by senior scholars who share their experiences and hopes for the field, and an essay by the editors that provides a roadmap for the decade ahead. The Handbook of Sociology of Aging showcases the very best that sociology has to offer the study of human aging.

Beyond the Cubicle looks at the hidden ramifications of job insecurity upon workers' intimate lives, personal relationships, and crises of identity and self-worth. The broad and wide-ranging essays explore how changes in work have altered our emotions, reworked the interplay of gender, race and class, and contributed to a contemporary radical individualism in variety of contexts.