‘No manner of hurt was found upon him’. The role of religiousness in the mental health effect of job insecurity

Abstract

This study examines how religiousness moderates the mental health effect of job insecurity, a prevalent stressor in modern societies. We use panel data from a representative, large sample of Dutch employees from 2008 to 2018. Exploiting the longitudinal nature of the data, we control for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity. Our main results indicate that job insecurity negatively affects men's but not women's mental health. Religious employees, however, are shielded from the adverse mental health effects of job insecurity. The protective effect of religiousness seems to be different for Catholics and Protestants: Protestant employees are shielded from the adverse mental health effects of job insecurity, whereas Catholic employees are not. Differences in work ethic and social network that religiousness may provide cannot explain the protective effect of religiousness. The mechanism at work appears to be a firm belief in God, as well as belief in life after death, in particular in combination with frequent attendance of religious gatherings or daily prayer. Unlike belief in God's existence, which shields only the religious, belief in life after death shields the religious and non-religious alike. The confluence of increasing job insecurity and increasing secularisation poses a risk to public mental health. Our results contribute to identifying employees who are particularly at risk and could, by shedding light on the mechanisms, suggest directions for potential preventive and curative interventions.