A Relative Measure of Economic Insecurity and the Nexus with Job Change

Economic insecurity is attracting growing attention in the social well-being literature. However, there is still debate about its definition and measurement which deserve further and in depth study. Assuming that economic insecurity relates to the forward-looking perception of future outcomes based on past experience, we suggest a class of relative indices measuring the individual feeling of economic insecurity by considering relative past resource fluctuations. The innovation we implement in this context consists in considering relative changes, supposing that individuals evaluate each fluctuation based on their previous resource level. We take advantage of the measures suggested to study how economic insecurity may affect job mobility. Obtained results show that economic insecurity has a significant impact on the probability of changing jobs, and that its effect differs by gender and working experience.