Explaining the relation between precarious employment and mental well-being. A qualitative study among temporary agency workers

Abstract

BACKGROUND: From an employee-perspective, temporary agency employment can be considered in two ways. According to the first perspective, agency jobs are associated with job characteristics that adversely affect mental well-being: job insecurity, low wages, a lack of benefits, little training, poorer prospects for the future, high working time flexibility, minimal trade union representation and problematic triadic employment relations. The other perspective underlines that flexibility, learning opportunities and freedom in agency employment enable workers to build the career of their choice, which may positively affect mental well-being. OBJECTIVE: This article aims at interpreting and explaining these conflicting perspectives. In particular, we discuss the role of coping resources (control, support, trust and equity) in the stress pathway between characteristics of temporary agency employment and mental well-being. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with 12 Belgian temporary agency workers were conducted and analysed from a phenomenological perspective. RESULTS: The results reveal mainly how a lack of coping resources plays a key role in how (precarious) characteristics of temporary agency employment affect employees' mental well-being. CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates the earlier assumed stress pathway between precarious employment and mental well-being, in which coping resources play an intermediary as well as a moderating role.