The reciprocal within-person relationship between job insecurity and life satisfaction: Testing loss and gain spirals with two large-scale longitudinal studies

Abstract

Deriving from the loss and gain spirals of conservation of resources (COR) theory, this research attempts to understand the within-person, reciprocal relationship between job insecurity and life satisfaction. Using three independent samples from seven-wave, five-wave, and 21-wave annually collected data from New Zealand and Australia, and random intercept cross-lagged panel models, we find that (1) job insecurity has a negative concurrent relationship with life satisfaction at the between-person level; (2) job insecurity at an earlier time point has a negative relationship with life satisfaction and a positive relationship with job insecurity at a later time point, indicating that individuals facing an initial threat of resource losses are more prone to further resource depletion, supporting “loss spirals” in COR theory; and (3) life satisfaction at an earlier time point has a positive relationship with life satisfaction at a later time point, supporting “gain spiral” in COR theory. However, life satisfaction is not longitudinally related to job insecurity at a later time point, failing to support the reverse causality. By rigorously investigating the reciprocal within-person relationship between job insecurity and life satisfaction with two large-scale panel data sets, these findings strongly support the loss and gain spirals from COR theory.