Reciprocal longitudinal associations between job insecurity and depressive symptoms in young working women: the SLOSH...

To investigate job insecurity and symptoms of depression in different labour market groups, with a specific focus on young women.

Data were drawn from six waves of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (n = 14,827) in 2010-2020. Differences in job insecurity between young (≤ 35) working women and other gender and age (> 35) groups, and between labour market industries with different gender composition, were estimated. Longitudinal multilevel structural equation models were fitted to estimate reciprocal associations between job insecurity and depressive symptoms two years later, while adjusting for demographic and employment factors.

Younger workers reported significantly higher job insecurity compared with older. For older workers job insecurity was significantly lower in female dominated industries, whereas this pattern was not observed among younger workers. There was a medium strong path between job insecurity and depressive symptoms in young working women (0.106, p = 0.001), and men (0.111, p = 0.011). The reverse associations were not statistically significant. For older women and men, the effect sizes for associations between job insecurity and depression were small (0.044, p = 0.000 and 0.047, p = 0.000, respectively) whereas reverse paths estimates were of medium strength (0.077, p = 0.000 and 0.109, p = 0.000).

The results indicated a clear age-related pattern. Higher levels of job insecurity and a stronger association between job insecurity and depressive symptoms were found among younger compared with older workers. No gender differences were observed. The results highlight the importance of addressing job insecurity as a concern in early working life.