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State Contexts, Job Insecurity, and Subjective Well-being in the Time of COVID-19

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching economic and psychological consequences beyond its direct influence on population health. Guided by stress process theory, we theorize a cross-level amplified stress proliferation process. That is, macro-level epidemiological, economic, and policy shocks proliferate into individual-level perceived job insecurity, which in turn deteriorates subjective well-being; macro-level shocks may additionally amplify the well-being risk of insecurity. To test these propositions, we use fixed-effects models to analyze three-wave, nationally representative data on 1,306 U.S. workers (May 2020–June 2021). Living in states with growing COVID-19 rates, rising unemployment rates, or increasingly stringent containment policies heightens workers’ perceived job insecurity, which in turn predicts reduced mental health and life satisfaction. Additionally, workers livings in states with growing COVID-19 rates or increasingly stringent containment policies are particularly susceptible to the mental health cost of increased job insecurity. Combined, this research demonstrates the exposure and vulnerability mechanisms through which state environments shape well-being.

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Acknowledgements

Yue Qian and Wen Fan acknowledge funding support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research through the Operating Grant: Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid Research Funding Opportunity (Funding #: OV7-170372). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funder or others. The data used for this article belong to a larger collaborative project and were collected by Princeton University with approval from their research ethics board (Principal Investigator: Dr. Yu Xie). Both authors would like to thank Drs. Yu Xie (Princeton University) and Yongai Jin (Renmin University of China) for their efforts in data collection and for their collaboration in the larger project.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, USA

    Wen Fan

  2. Department of Sociology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Yue Qian

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Fan, W., Qian, Y. State Contexts, Job Insecurity, and Subjective Well-being in the Time of COVID-19. J Happiness Stud 24, 2039–2059 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-023-00669-9

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