Labour market insecurity and family relations in the United Kingdom

Thesis

This thesis investigates how the experience of labour market insecurity affects individuals’ life courses and family lives in the UK. It focuses on unemployment and temporary work as the two sources of insecurity and examines their consequences on partnership formation, transition into parenthood, the well-being within family, and partnership dissolution. It follows a longitudinal approach and uses a sample from the BHPS. The results showed that unemployment has serious negative consequences for individuals’ family outcomes. Temporary work also has some negative outcomes, particularly for the vulnerable groups. Unemployment and temporary employment seem to discourage young adults to form marital unions, whereas especially for the young and non-married men unemployment increased the risk of fatherhood. Temporary work has a similar effect for those with no educational qualification, who are more likely to have their first child. Unemployed individuals and their spouses report a drop in their life-satisfaction, psychological well-being and are more likely to feel depressed, and they face a greater risk of marital separation. Male temporary work is associated with poorer well-being for the low-skilled employees and those who report subjective job insecurity. The wives of men working on temporary contracts also suffer from a decline in the well-being. The thesis also looked into the consequences of insecurity at the couple level. Contrary to our initial assumption, dual-insecurity - where both of the spouses are in insecure employment - does not have the strongest effect on the family. Rather, role-reversal between the spouses has the largest impact for family outcomes. When a male partner is unemployed and the female partner is employed, or when the male partner is working on temporary basis and the female partner is working on permanent basis, then the couple delays transition into parenthood, it suffers from a decline in the well-being, and it is more likely to separate.

Authors: Inanc, H

• Publication date: 2013
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Partnership Formation; Well-being; Labour Market Insecurity; Partnership Dissolution; Life Course; Temporary Work; Transition into Parenthood; Unemployment
• Subjects: Households; Employment; Families; Sociology