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Labor market insecurities have been growing in Europe and previous research has illustrated that unemployment and insecure jobs negatively affect individuals’ wellbeing and health. Although empirical evidence suggests that these effects vary substantially across different welfare states, we still know little about the moderating role of specific labor market policies. Taking a cross-national comparative perspective, this article investigates how passive and active labor market policies (PLMP, ALMP) as well as employment protection legislation (EPL) shape the experience of unemployment and insecure jobs. We complement micro data of round 1–6 (2002–2012) of the European Social Survey with time-varying macro indicators of PLMP, ALMP, and EPL. The data include about 89,000 individuals nested in 112 country-rounds and 26 countries respectively. We apply three-level random intercept models as well as pooled linear regression models including country fixed effects. The results show that labor market policies are important in shaping the experience of unemployment, but are less relevant for workers in insecure jobs. Specifically, higher unemployment benefit generosity buffers the negative effects of unemployment on well-being but not health. Moreover, we discuss different interpretations for the finding that higher ALMP expenditures are associated with more negative effects of unemployment on well-being and health. With respect to EPL it is found that in countries with high insider protection, deregulating the restrictions on the use of temporary employment increases the negative effects of unemployment on well-being and health.

The industrial relations (IR) environment in India and its labour market, have been undergoing significant transformations in multiple domains for around two decades after the economic liberalization. Gillan and Lambert (2013) observe several restructurings at the workplace level in the country. These include, among others, farming out job functions or services to any third party through outsourcing, engaging contract labour in the organized sector, the tendency among managers to avoid acknowledging the right of trade unions to collectively bargain and the prevalence of voluntary retirement schemes for having numerical flexibility of the workforce.

On average, temporary jobs are far less stable than permanent jobs. This higher instability could potentially lower workers’ incentives to relocate towards the workplace, thereby resulting in longer commutes. However, surprisingly few studies have investigated the link between temporary employment and commuting length. Building on the notion that individuals strive to optimize their utility when deciding where to work and live, we develop and test a theoretical framework that predicts commuting outcomes for different types of temporary workers – fixed-term, casual and temporary agency workers – and in different institutional contexts. We estimate fixed-effects regression models using 17 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). As expected, the results show that the link between temporary employment and commuting length varies by employment type and institutional context. Agency work is associated with longer commutes than permanent work in both countries, whereas this applies to fixed-term contracts for Germany only. For casual work, the findings suggest no commuting length differential to permanent employment. In terms of policy, our findings suggest lengthy commuting can be a side effect of flexible labour markets, with potentially negative implications for worker well-being, transportation management and the environment.

Straw return is a crucial method for utilizing agricultural waste as a resource. Against the backdrop of increasing straw production in China, most scholars focus only on the behavioral decision of whether farmers choose to transfer land. However, few studies have touched on the specific content of the land transfer contract and its impact on farmers’ behavior. This paper innovatively starts from the perspective of land transfer contracts to explore the impact of land transfer contracts on straw return in terms of standardization, stability, and profitability and to make theoretical contributions to the rational use of straw and the protection of arable land resources. Using data from the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey (CRRS) database, this study empirically analyzed the effects of different elements of land transfer contracts on straw returns to the field. The results show that: (1) Written transfer contracts are more effective than verbal contracts in encouraging farmers to adopt the straw return behavior. (2) Fixed-term contracts are more stable and can effectively promote farmers’ adoption of straw return technology. (3) The remunerative transfer method is more profitable and can effectively encourage farmers to adopt straw return technology compared to the non-remunerative transfer method. (4) Farmers in mountainous areas or with smaller areas of farmland have a lower probability of adopting straw return technology. Therefore, the important role of remunerative, fixed-term, written land transfer contracts in the process of straw return should be emphasized, and the adoption rate of straw return should be increased through differentiated policy guidance and comprehensively promoting the sustainable development of agriculture.

The authors investigate the impact of a change in employment protection laws in Portugal that increased the maximum legal duration of fixed-term contracts. They find that this reform led to a reduction in the probability that a worker on a fixed-term contract would be converted to a permanent contract. In addition, those workers who had their contracts converted experienced a significantly higher hourly wage growth at the time of conversion and faced a lower reduction in wage growth during the years in which the changed legislation was in force. Consequently, the implementation of this law led to a 27% increase in the wage-growth differential between the two contracts. The findings are based on an endogenous regimeswitching model using rich administrative linked employer–employee data.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers across the whole wage distribution, not just at the mean, and the evolution before and after the Great Recession on this gap in Spain. Design/methodology/approach An extended Mincer-type wage equation is estimated using ordinary least square regression and unconditional quantile regression. Then, the decomposition of the wage gap between workers with fixed-term and permanent contracts for each quantile is made using the Fortin, Lemieux and Firpo decomposition. Findings The results show that two workers, with identical characteristics, earn different salaries if they have a different type of contract. However, the wage gap is not constant across the wage distribution. The penalty for temporary workers is wider for higher wages. Moreover, the main part of the gap is due to observed characteristics, but other factors (unobserved characteristics and discrimination) become more relevant in the upper part of the wage distribution. Originality/value The study expands upon available studies for Spain in two points. First, it is the first paper to the knowledge that analyse both the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers across the wage distribution and its decomposition. Second, the paper explores what happened before and after the Great Recession. In the years that the paper analyses there is also a labour market reform.

The current wording of Art. 25 § 4 point 4 of the Labor Code, valid since 22.02.2016, is an example of a general clause in labor law. At the same time, the “objective reasons” of the so--called “unlimited” fixed-term contracts entered into belong to the clauses that change their meaning depending on the person who applies an established rule of law. The use of “objective reasons on the part of the employer” on purpose to limit the abuse of “temporary employment” should generally be assessed as incorrect. According to this, the Court of Justice of the European Union may judge this regulation to be illegal according to Clause 5 of Council Directive 99/70 / EC of 28 June 1999, and as incompatible with the purpose and the effectiveness of the framework agreement. Therefore, it is necessary to replace the general clause used by the legislator with further, more specific premises of “objective reasons” for entering into “unlimited” fixed-term employment contracts.

This article investigates precarious working conditions and their effects on female academics working in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in Hungary. We aim to show how precarity in different formats, such as contractual and economic precarity combined with gender-based discrimination, is present through career stages based on twenty-six individual and group interviews conducted with female PhD holders, including both researchers at the early and mature stages of their careers. The results confirm a precarity paradox whereby those with the highest level of education experienced fixed-term contracts, low incomes and gender-based discrimination over time at different career stages, and junior and senior female teachers and researchers suffered significant impacts at the personal, job, career and organisational levels, undermining their research excellence, well-being and career progress.

In 2018, 14% of employees in the European Union had fixed-term contracts. Fixed-term contract positions are often less secure than permanent contract positions. Perceived job insecurity has been associated with increased rates of mental ill health. However, the association between fixed-term contract positions and mental ill health is uncertain. A recent review concluded that the quality of most existing studies is low and that the results of the few studies with high quality are contradictory. This study aims to estimate the incidence rate ratios (RRs) of psychotropic drug use and psychiatric hospital treatment. These ratios will be considered, first, in relation to the contrast fixed-term versus permanent contract and, second, to fixed-term contract versus unemployment. Interview data with baseline information on employment status from the Danish Labor Force Surveys in the years 2001-2013 will be linked to data from national registers. Participants will be followed up for up to 5 years after the interview. Poisson regression will be used to estimate incidence RRs for psychiatric hospital treatment for mood, anxiety, or stress-related disorders and redeemed prescriptions for psychotropic drugs, as a function of employment status at baseline. The following contrasts will be considered: full-time temporary employment versus full-time permanent employment and temporary employment (regardless of weekly working hours) versus unemployment. The analyses will be controlled for a series of possible confounders. People who have received sickness benefits, have received social security cash benefits, have redeemed a prescription for psychotropic drugs, or have received psychiatric hospital treatment for a mental disorder sometime during a 1-year period preceding baseline will be excluded from the study. The study will include approximately 134,000 participants (13,000 unemployed, 106,000 with permanent contracts, and 15,000 with fixed-term contracts). We expect to find approximately 16,400 incident cases of redeemed prescriptions of psychotropic drugs and 2150 incident cases of psychiatric hospital treatment for mood, anxiety, or stress-related disorders. We expect the analyses to be completed by the end of 2021 and the results to be published in mid-2022. The statistical power of the study will be large enough to test the hypothesis of a prospective association between fixed-term contract positions and mental illness in the general workforce of Denmark. DERR1-10.2196/24392.

The topic of work safety is a very relevant and multifaceted problem for workers, firms and policy makers. Differing from other narrow-scope studies, this article aims to enrich the understanding of workplace safety as a whole by applying econometric techniques on data from the Italian Labour Force Survey. Findings show poor working conditions are the most significant determinants of accidents and illnesses occurring at work, while having a fixed-term (temporary) contract is not significant. Other significant determinants of work safety are: not being new to the workforce; dissatisfaction with the current job; gender; and a latent proneness observed with occurrence of accident on the way to work. This article also highlights that work related accidents and illnesses are two deeply correlated phenomena and that there is a structural break after three years on the job.