This book contains the proceedings of the First International Conference on Health Hazards and Challenges in the New Working Life, held January 11-13, 1999, in Stockholm, Sweden. The globalisation of the economies has enormous implications for work and labour market structures. Demands for rapid adjustment and flexibility can be perceived as threatening to the employees' need for security and can cause ill health, but it is also important to try to foresee the possible benefits that could result and the constructive adaptations that individuals make. These changing conditions raise new issues and research questions concerning health consequences and people's actions and constructive adaptation. The interdisciplinary research conference in Stockholm on Health Hazards and Challenges in the New Working Life covered areas such as health and social consequences of unemployment, job insecurity, labour market constraints, flexibility in working conditions, and new forms of employment relations and contracts. The proceedings give an overview of the latest research results on these issues, which will be of the utmost importance to working life in the next millennium. The book presents a selection of contributions from highly qualified researchers in psychology, occupational health and sociology and covers three main sections: unemployment and downsizing, flexibilization and stress, and opportunities and constraints in the labour market. It provides an excellent summary and overview of earlier research, together with new findings about adaptation and actions among the unemployed, the effects of new and changing employment contracts upon health, and the polarization of the labour market and itsexclusion of vulnerable groups.

Temporary employment contracts are now commonplace in business. However the move towards such employment structures has a significant, and hitherto little understood impact on 'the psychological contract' between employee and organizations. This book is amongst the first to tackle this problem. With detailed research findings from seven countries: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK and (for a non-European perspective) Israel, it presents an integrated model of the effects of temporary work. The model incorporates key recent trends, including the expansion of non-permanent employment as a persistent form of employment flexibility, the increasing importance of the psychological contract, and the diversity of the European labour market as a result of state legislation. By presenting the results of an overview of the research literature on this contemporary labour market trend this book is of real value to researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

Temporary employment has become a focus of policy debate, theory, and research. The book addresses as its core concern the relationship between temporary employment contracts and worker well-being. It does so within the analytic framework of the psychological contract, and advances theory and knowledge about the psychological contract by exploring it from a variety of perspectives. It also sets the psychological contract within the context of a range of other potential influences on work-related well-being including workload, job insecurity, employability, and organizational support. A key aim of the book is to identify the relative importance of these various potential influences on well-being.
The book covers seven countries; Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK, as well as Israel as a comparator outside Europe. Data were collected from over 5,000 workers in over 200 organizations; and from both permanent and temporary workers as well as from employers.
The book's conclusions are interesting and controversial. The central finding is that contrary to expectations, temporary workers report higher well-being than permanent workers. As expected, a range of factors help to explain variations in work-related well-being and the research highlights the important role of the psychological contract. However, even after taking into account alternative explanations, the significant influence of type of employment contract remains, with temporary workers reporting higher well-being. In addition to this core finding, by exploring several aspects of the psychological contract, and taking into account both employer and employee perspectives, the book sheds new light on the nature and role of the psychological contract. It also raises some challenging policy questions and while acknowledging the potentially precarious nature of temporary jobs, highlights the need to consider the increasingly demanding nature of permanent jobs and their effects on the well-being of employees.

This book contains the proceedings of the First International Conference on Health Hazards and Challenges in the New Working Life, held January 11-13, 1999, in Stockholm, Sweden. The globalisation of the economies has enormous implications for work and labour market structures. Demands for rapid adjustment and flexibility can be perceived as threatening to the employees' need for security and can cause ill health, but it is also important to try to foresee the possible benefits that could result and the constructive adaptations that individuals make. These changing conditions raise new issues and research questions concerning health consequences and people's actions and constructive adaptation. The interdisciplinary research conference in Stockholm on Health Hazards and Challenges in the New Working Life covered areas such as health and social consequences of unemployment, job insecurity, labour market constraints, flexibility in working conditions, and new forms of employment relations and contracts. The proceedings give an overview of the latest research results on these issues, which will be of the utmost importance to working life in the next millennium.The book presents a selection of contributions from highly qualified researchers in psychology, occupational health and sociology and covers three main sections: unemployment and downsizing, flexibilization and stress, and opportunities and constraints in the labour market. It provides an excellent summary and overview of earlier research, together with new findings about adaptation and actions among the unemployed, the effects of new and changing employment contracts upon health, and the polarization of the labour market and its exclusion of vulnerable groups.