Job insecurity and self-esteem: evidence from cross-lagged relations in a 1-year longitudinal sample

The main purpose of the study was to investigate the cross-lagged relationships between job insecurity and self-esteem during a 1-year period, and thus assess the direction of the relationships between these two phenomena. The data were obtained by means of questionnaires which were completed twice, in 1999 and in 2000, by 457 Finnish employees. The results showed a cumulative relationship between job insecurity and self-esteem. In other words, high job insecurity seemed to predict subsequent low self-esteem, but at the same time, and to the same extent, low self-esteem seemed to predict subsequent high job insecurity. In addition, both perceived job insecurity and global self-esteem turned out to be reasonably stable during the 1-year period. Altogether, our results suggest that the realm of work is crucial to self-esteem.