JOB INSECURITY AND GENERALIZED TRUST The role of labour market policies and institutions in mitigating or exacerbating the effects of job insecurity on generalized trust

Abstract

The labour market in Europe har for decades now seen a radical shift from traditional full-time labour with unlimited contracts to a new flexible labour market designed to the economy of today, with temporary employment and employment contracts of limited duration with lesser security than the traditional ones. This development has coined the term insiders and outsiders which by all means have different labour market situations. The group that belongs to outsiders are growing in numbers. Theories on social cohesion and generalized trust also tells us that as people is distancing themselves from each other in various forms, generalized trust tends to fall as well as we are getting more unlike others in our society. This thesis investigates just that, does this new group of employees in the labour market show lesser generalized trust? Using a multilevel analysis, this thesis shows that outsiders do express lesser generalized trust than insiders across countries. Using different intervening labour market policies and institutions, this thesis also shows that four different labour market policies and institutions, ALMPs, PLMPs, and EPL for regular and temporary contracts all exacerbate the negative effect of being an outsider in the labour market.