Article

Economic and Industrial Democracy

Labour flexibility, risks and

31(4) 593–611
© The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/0143831X10365927
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Fabian Dekker
Erasmus University, The Netherlands

Abstract
This study examines public attitudes to various social security programmes in the modern
flexible economy. While numerical and functional flexibility have become more important in most
European countries, these types of flexibility are assumed to affect job security, community feeling
and, as a consequence, public attitudes to social security in contradictory ways. An analysis of
recent Dutch survey data indicates that support for social security programmes, particularly
unemployment spending, can be understood in terms of the increased levels of internal job
insecurity experienced by ‘atypical’ workers. In contrast to some of the arguments that are
outlined in this article, it appears that the emergence of a flexible labour market has not affected
levels of community feeling.

Keywords
flexibility, job insecurity, political economy

Introduction
In recent decades, certain labour market developments have occurred in most industrial-
ized western countries. Against a background of rapid technological change and ongoing
economic interdependence, the flexibilization of the labour market has been perhaps one
of the most fundamental changes to affect work and employment conditions in western
economies (Kalleberg, 2000, 2001, 2003). Reflecting on this new flexible economy,
some expect greater labour flexibility to lead to a decline in workers’ dedication levels
(Sennett, 2006). Others, meanwhile, point to the joys and meaningfulness of contempo-
rary work (De Botton, 2009). ‘Labour flexibility’ is, however, a widely used concept that
can assume many different meanings. For example, the search for flexibility has resulted
in more flexible or ‘atypical’ employment relationships. Nowadays, people’s working
lives are frequently characterized by temporary contracts, agency work and part-time
employment. Flexible employment relationships allow workers to combine their work
and private lives, but at the same time, ‘atypical’ employment patterns often expose

Corresponding author:
Fabian Dekker, Erasmus University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, Room M6-02,
PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Email: dekker@fsw.eur.nl

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594 Economic and Industrial Democracy 31(4)

workers to the risk of future job losses. With a view to this, many commentators have
addressed the issue of rising employment instability and growing job insecurity in
modern labour markets (Castells, 1996; Gorz, 1999; Heery and Salmon, 2000; Sennett,
1998). Working in the modern labour market also brings certain risks with regard to
competences. In Ulrich Beck’s view, we are now living in a ‘risk society’, in which
skills and knowledge are increasingly becoming obsolete (Beck, 2000: 3). In this flexible
economy, having multiple skills has become an important asset when it comes to staying
in employment (Collins, 2006; Schmid, 2006). A key concern for employees is being
able to continuously improve their (flexible) skills in order to remain employed.
‘Functional flexibility’ is one type of labour flexibility that could help employees to
manage labour market risks. Functional flexibility involves new work practices, such
as job rotation, task rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment and (semi-autonomous)
team working, and emphasizes the development of multiple skills among employees.
Clearly, this type of flexibility has the potential to lessen labour market risks.
Even though many studies have examined the consequences of labour flexibility for
how employees experience risk at work, most have looked at ‘atypical’ employment and
so-called ‘internal job security’ (see, for example, De Cuyper and De Witte, 2006; De Witte
and Näswall, 2003). Studies that examine the relationship between different forms of
labour flexibility and different aspects of job security are, however, largely missing from
the literature. The first aim of this study is therefore to examine the consequences of two
types of labour flexibility – flexible employment relationships and functional flexibility –
on employees’ experiences of security in the internal and external labour markets.
As many political economists have assumed, job insecurity plays an important role in
understanding public support for social security programmes (Anderson and Pontusson,
2007). Social security programmes generally compensate for certain risks, thereby
protecting individuals in a society. At an individual level, one might expect work-insecure
people to have strong incentives for supporting broad social programmes. However,
there is little empirical evidence with regard to the relationship between job security and
public perceptions of social security. Therefore, the second aim of this study is to focus
on the specific link between security at work and the societal legitimacy of various policy
arrangements. Although it is generally assumed that economic insecurity affects the need
for social protection (Burgoon, 2001; Iversen and Cusack, 2000; Katzenstein, 1985;
Rodrik, 1995), at an individual level, this remains an open empirical question.
Another key issue, when considering the relationship between labour flexibility and
public opinion on social security, is the idea of community feeling. This article examines
whether flexible employment relationships generate less community feeling among
individuals, which, in turn, is an important reason for supporting social security arrange-
ments (Van Oorschot, 2002a). In a similar way, the article assesses how functionally
flexible work patterns affect individuals’ sense of community. Although the literature
does provide us with several arguments concerning the possible effects of labour flexibility
on community feeling, to date, little empirical research has been undertaken.
Overall, this study demonstrates how ‘atypical’ and functionally flexible employees
perceive different forms of job security, and how their sense of community feeling has
either increased or decreased in the contemporary labour market. Furthermore, this study
helps to explain support for various forms of social protection in the new flexible working

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Dekker 595

economy. Before introducing the data and results, we start by providing an overview of
relevant theories on labour flexibility and public opinion on social security.

Working in the new economy and public opinion on

social security
It is generally agreed that the experience of working in the post-industrial economy is con-
siderably different from past experiences of work. For a start, there has been a shift in the
employment structure from manufacturing towards a service economy (see, for example,
Esping-Andersen, 1993; ILO, 2006), and employment relations have become more flexible
(see, for example, Auer and Cazes, 2003; Dekker, 2007). Nowadays, people’s working lives
are often characterized by ‘atypical’ forms of employment such as temporary contracts,

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Figure 1. Employees with a contract of limited duration in 2007 (percentage of total number
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Source: Eurostat 2009; see http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu

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Figure 2. Persons employed part-time in 2007 (percentage of total employment)

Source: Eurostat 2009; see http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu

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596 Economic and Industrial Democracy 31(4)

agency work and part-time employment. Taking the EU as a whole, in 2007, 14.5 percent of
the total workforce had limited-duration contracts, while approximately 18 percent of
employees considered themselves to be employed on a part-time basis (see Figures 1 and 2).
Another feature of working in the contemporary labour market is the growing need to
offer multiple skills. Functionally flexible work practices can be extremely important
when it comes to dealing with changing conditions in a more global economy. New
flexible work arrangements, such as job rotation, task rotation and team working, are
therefore increasingly being used in most European countries (OECD, 1999).1 In 2005,
for example, 47 percent of all employees in the EU engaged in task rotation with
colleagues, while 60 percent did part or all of their work in teams (see Figures 3 and 4).

80 72.2
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Figure 3. Task rotation in 2005 (in percentage)

Source: EWCS Survey Results 2005; see www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/surveys/

90 84.8

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Figure 4. Team work in 2005 (in percentage)

Source: EWCS Survey Results 2005; see www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/surveys/

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Dekker 597

Task rotation requires people to perform some tasks that lie outside the scope of their
main jobs, while team working implies that more discretion is left to team members.
Job rotation is another form of functional flexibility, and involves an employee moving
from one position to another within an organization. We focus on the Netherlands in this
article, on the grounds that the Dutch are some of the most flexible workers in Europe. As
in many European countries, particularly due to the growing internationalization of labour
and capital since the beginning of the 1970s, flexible labour has become a central feature
of the Dutch labour market (De Jong, 2008). Approximately 18 percent of workers in the
Netherlands are employed in fixed-term positions, and approximately 46 percent of jobs
are part-time. Furthermore, approximately 62 percent of all Dutch workers engage in
task rotation with colleagues, and approximately 75 percent participate in teams (see
Figures 1–4).

Labour flexibility, risks and attitudes to social security

It is widely agreed that social security policies embody some kind of solidarity between
(future) recipients of benefits and people who are less dependent on social programmes.
At an individual level, people can have different motives for contributing to such pro-
grammes. People may be motivated by self-interest, or by feelings of moral or emotional
commitment to others (Van Oorschot, 2002a, 2002b; Van Oorschot and Komter, 1998).
Largely missing from the literature is research that examines the implications of labour
market flexibility for public attitudes to social security.
Our first hypothesis is that workers with ‘atypical’ employment contracts experience
less security at work. Although some authors find no correlation (Böckerman, 2004),
most of the literature suggests that this is indeed the case (see, for example, Clark and
Postel-Vinay, 2005; De Witte and Näswall, 2003; Green, 2003). While most scholars
focus on perceptions of internal job security, we differentiate between two types of job
security: company-specific or ‘internal job security’, and ‘external job security’, which
is the possibility of finding a job across a company.2 We expect that in both senses,
‘atypical’ employment contracts are associated with increased insecurity at work. First,
flexible working carries a higher risk of unemployment in the near future, because of the
predetermined duration of the contract. Second, ‘atypical’ employees do not experience
feelings of security outside an organization, because having to work for relatively short
periods does not allow them to develop their skills and credentials:

H1: Workers with flexible employment contracts experience lower levels of internal and
external job security than other workers.

While ‘atypical’ forms of employment may cause employees to feel less secure at
work, functional flexibility may be an important means of allowing employees to obtain
multiple skills, thus making them feel less insecure. As suggested in the introduction,
functionally flexible work practices may counter the risk of skill obsolescence. Authors
such as Forrier and Sels (2003) and Moss Kanter (1991, 1993) stress the importance of
so-called ‘employability-security’ as a new form of security in ‘modern’ labour markets.
According to these authors, the idea of ‘lifetime employment’ is being replaced with the

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598 Economic and Industrial Democracy 31(4)

notion of ‘flexible employment’. Nowadays, so-called post-Fordist regimes are charac-

terized by flexible career structures, and people can no longer expect to have a stable,
predictable career within the same organization. In this view, workers are operating in a
more unpredictable labour market, and employability may provide them with a new form
of job security (Forrier and Sels, 2003). In other words, people can no longer rely on
organizations to provide them with traditional job security: ‘jobs for life’ are said to have
disappeared, and skills are becoming obsolete. Workers are increasingly reliant upon
being able to offer multiple skills; that is, their employability (Moss Kanter, 1993). One
way to ensure ‘employability-security’ in the modern labour market is by creating chal-
lenging jobs and allowing employees to engage in assignment rotation (Moss Kanter,
1991). The development of functionally flexible jobs could offer employees opportunities
for acquiring multiple skills. As such, workers would be able to exercise more control
over their work than in the past. Greater emphasis would be placed on problem-solving
and undertaking different tasks and roles within an organization, encouraging employees
to develop different skills.
While some remain sceptical about functional flexibility and point to the possible
exploitation of employees by employers (Hyman, 2004) or the ‘time-greedy’ nature of
the high-performance workplace (Van Echtelt, 2007), functional flexibility does have the
potential to offer employees new ‘employability-security’ in the labour market. This
would mean that functionally flexible workers would experience more job security
than workers without flexible job features.3 Theoretically, functional flexibility can
provide workers with multiple skills, which is related to perceptions of increased job
security. Although the empirical evidence is scarce, a recent study by Kashefi (2007)
shows that in the US, employees who are functionally flexible experience higher levels of
job security in general. Again, our research distinguishes between two types of job
security: ‘internal job security’ and ‘external job security’. We would expect functionally
flexible work practices to be associated with increased feelings of security at work in
both senses. First, functionally flexible workers are more adaptable in their response to
demands, and are therefore more valuable to organizations. Such workers would be
unlikely to believe that they would be made redundant in the near future. Second, these
workers are also likely to feel more secure in the external labour market, because enhancing
their knowledge and skills is likely to cause them to feel more ‘marketable’. This, in turn,
leads to our second hypothesis:

H2: Functionally flexible workers experience higher levels of internal and external job security
than other workers.

Several authors argue that social arrangements must be legitimized by the public
to remain sustainable (see, for example, Burstein, 1998). An important motivational
foundation of support for social security is self-interest (see, for example, Hechter, 1987).
The basic idea is that there is a direct relationship between someone’s position in the
stratification structure and support for social policy. Following this self-interested
perspective, we would not expect secure workers to be likely beneficiaries of social
security protection. In other words, people who are not facing labour market risks, such
as unemployment, are unlikely to protect themselves by taking out social insurance.
Building on this logic, we hypothesize that this is especially true with regard to

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Dekker 599

unemployment benefits spending. Particularly, this social policy scheme reduces the
risks of unemployment, while insecurity at work is less significantly related to welfare
programmes which are not aimed at the importance of income protection during working
life, such as pensions or healthcare. The macro-level research indeed indicates that eco-
nomic insecurity affects public spending (Burgoon, 2001; Iversen and Cusack, 2000;
Katzenstein, 1985; Rodrik, 1995). At the individual level, meanwhile, some studies pro-
vide information on specific labour market risks and policy preferences. Cusack et al.
(2006), Kramer and Stephenson (2001) and Iversen and Soskice (2001) point out that
working in occupations with higher unemployment rates and level of skill specificity
spurs support for government redistribution. Nevertheless, with these few exceptions, the
micro-level picture remains largely unstudied (see, for example, Scheve and Slaughter,
2004), as does, in particular, the relationship between individuals’ insecurities about their
jobs and policy attitudes.4 This, in turn, leads to two further hypotheses:

H3: Experiencing internal and external job security is negatively related to an individual’s
support for unemployment benefits.

H4: Experiencing internal and external job security is not related to other social security
programmes (pensions and healthcare).

Labour flexibility, community feeling and attitudes to social security

Another factor that can explain attitudes towards social security is having a sense of
community, or moral sentiments. Although support for social security is most strongly
affected by perceived self-interest (Van Oorschot, 2002a, 2002b), the experience of
‘shared identity’ is also a relevant predictor (Van Oorschot, 2002a, 2002b; Van Oorschot
and Komter, 1998). This type of motivation is grounded in Durkheim’s classical approach
to sociology (Durkheim, 1964), which suggests that people feel an obligation to serve the
collective interest. Particularly, a perceived connection with others spurs solidaristic
behaviour (Polletta and Jasper, 2001). However, following Richard Sennett (1998) and
Zygmunt Bauman (2001), we may assume that ‘atypical’ employment forms have nega-
tive consequences for this sense of community.5 In their view, the erosion of long-term
employment contracts undermines loyalty, trust and the sense of belonging to a wider
collectivity. The ‘new’ short-term, unstable labour market simply leaves no room for
long-term social relations and mutual commitments. In the flexible economy, there is
no ‘shared fate’ (Sennett, 1998: 147), which makes an understanding of community
difficult. According to Bauman (2001: 24–5), the flexible labour market ‘feels like a camp-
ing site which one visits for but a few nights and which one may leave at any moment if
the comforts on offer are not delivered or found wanting when delivered’. Furthermore,
this kind of labour holds uncertainties and risks and is expected to be a strong ‘individu-
alizing force’: ‘It divides instead of uniting, and since there is no telling who might wake
up in what division, the idea of “common interests” grows ever more nebulous and in the
end becomes incomprehensible.’ Our fifth hypothesis tests this claim:

H5: Workers with flexible employment contracts report lower levels of community feeling than
other workers.

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600 Economic and Industrial Democracy 31(4)

Unlike ‘atypical’ employment patterns, functional flexibility may improve the likeli-
hood of people feeling a sense of community. While it has been argued that functional
flexibility has brought more individual responsibility and an increasing shift towards
self-management and individual performance (Amoore, 2002), which results in people
being less committed to others (Ezzy, 2001), most of the literature states that functional
flexibility requires workers to cooperate and communicate more to achieve mutual
goals than was the case in ‘traditional’ Taylorist organizations (European Foundation
for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2007a; Hempell and Zwick,
2005). While ‘Taylorism’ includes no extensive job-learning opportunities and a high
technical division of labour, functional flexibility has its emphasis rather on the learn-
ing possibilities for employees and common goals. We therefore assume that working
for a so-called ‘holistic’ organization6 (Lindbeck and Snower, 2000) enhances an
employee’s sense of belonging to a wider collectivity; people may learn more about
co-workers and their work and experience more collective tasks and needs than other
categories of workers. In other words, while workers with ‘atypical’ labour contracts
may be less likely to develop a sense of community feeling, it can also be expected that
working in a functionally flexible work environment creates a sense of community feeling.
We call this the ‘integration scenario’:

H6: Functionally flexible workers report higher levels of community feeling than other workers.

Because previous research has shown that community feeling is positively related
to support for social security arrangements, we also assume that community feeling
positively affects support for different social security programmes:

H7: Community feeling is positively related to social security programmes (unemployment,

pensions and healthcare).

Data and measures

The data in this study were drawn from the ‘Labour and Welfare Opinions’ survey, which
was conducted by a research centre at Tilburg University in the Netherlands in May and
June 2008. This data set concerns a random sample of the Dutch population aged 16 and
over. The sample comprises 1801 valid cases, which corresponds to a response rate of 77
percent. After inactive people (the unemployed, students and retired workers) and the
self-employed have been excluded from the sample,7 the survey contains data on 945
respondents. The data have been weighted against figures from Statistics Netherlands
(Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, or CBS). After weighting for age, education and
income levels, the data set can be considered representative for the Netherlands.
The first step of the analysis was to statistically test the hypotheses concerning ‘atypical’
employment and functional flexibility, and perceived security at work. Flexible employ-
ment contracts include employees with fixed-term contracts, agency workers and on-call
workers (1); all other jobs are non-flexible, including fixed-term jobs that offer the
prospect of permanence (0). While we are fully aware that flexible workers are not a

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Dekker 601

homogeneous group (Connelly and Gallagher, 2004; Gallie et al., 1998), it was statisti-
cally not possible to distinguish different types of flexible employees. Furthermore, part-
time work is not classified as flexible employment because this type of employment
can no longer be considered as ‘atypical’ in the Netherlands (Schulze Buschoff and
Protsch, 2008). According to Visser (2002: 33), ‘most part-time employees are covered by
collective agreements and most part-time jobs . . . are standard jobs of indeterminate
length, subject to full dismissal protection’ in the Netherlands. Functional flexibility
was measured using two single items, task rotation and job rotation, which cover impor-
tant forms of functional flexibility8 (unfortunately, no items were dedicated to teamwork,
job enlargement and job enrichment in the questionnaire). We measured task rotation by
asking employees how often they had been shifted towards tasks that lay outside their
own job descriptions during the last 12 months (1 = never, 2 = seldom, 3 = sometimes,
4 = often, 5 = very often). Job rotation was measured by asking how often they had been
shifted between jobs during the last 12 months (1 = never, 2 = seldom, 3 = sometimes,
4 = often, 5 = very often). Internal and external job security are defined as an individual
assessment of an employment situation. While perceived insecurity may not reflect
actual risks, ‘subjective insecurity’ is at least as severe as ‘objective insecurity’ (Lazarus,
1991). Internal job security was measured as the individual’s perception of the likelihood
of remaining employed over the next 12 months: ‘What is the probability you will lose
your job in the next 12 months?’ (1 = very high chance, 2 = high chance, 3 = neither high
nor low chance, 4 = low chance, 5 = very low chance). We used one central indicator of
external job security. The respondents were asked the following question: ‘To what
degree do you agree or disagree with the following statement: I have enough skills and
experience to find another job without any problem’ (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree,
3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree).
With regard to perceived internal and external job security, several control variables
were included in the analysis. We included age as a control variable because levels of
perceived job security might differ among age groups. Previous research has shown that
older employees experience higher levels of job insecurity (Hartley et al., 1991). Age
was measured using a continuous variable. We anticipated that a person’s level of educa-
tion might also be associated with perceptions of job security (Sverke et al., 2006). We
thus created two dummy variables: one for secondary general and secondary vocational
education, and one for higher vocational and university education. Workers with lower
general and vocational education levels formed the reference category. Gender is another
factor that may influence perceptions of security at work, but this remains a point of
debate (Sverke et al., 2006). A dummy variable was used to measure gender (1 = female).
An individual’s sector was included, because working in the private sector decreases
the likelihood of job security (Clark and Postel-Vinay, 2005) (1 = working in the private
sector). We created a dummy variable for ethnicity to determine whether immigrant
workers feel more insecure (1 = born outside the Netherlands). Furthermore, we were
interested in the influence of household income levels on job security. One might expect
people living in households with higher income levels to feel less insecure (Sverke et al.,
2006). The variable was measured using an open survey question, whereby people were
asked to fill in their net household income. As for benefit dependency, we assumed that

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602 Economic and Industrial Democracy 31(4)

people who had received no social security transfers in the past were more work-secure
than workers with a history of receiving benefits (1 = received no benefit[s] in the past).
Finally, one would expect people who feel that they have no control over their lives to be
more insecure (Ashford et al., 1987). This external locus of control was measured by a
scale of three items (alpha reliability = .75), which focused on a person’s perception that
they have no control over their own personal life (1 = totally disagree, 2 = disagree,
3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = agree, 5 = totally agree).
In the next step of the analysis, we tested the hypotheses on community feeling.
Community feeling was defined using the statement: ‘For me, paying social insurance
premiums is something that I also do because I personally sympathize with the benefi-
ciaries and their situations’ (1 = totally disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither agree nor
disagree, 4 = agree, 5 = totally agree). Although the notion of ‘community feeling’ can
be defined in various ways (McMillan and Chavis George, 1986), our measure seems to
be common in research on attitudes to social security (see, for example, Van Oorschot,
2002a, 2002b). In addition to the other control variables, we included political preference
as a control factor. In general, it can be expected that people on the political left adhere
more to the collective than individuals on the right (Van Oorschot, 2002a) (left/right
self-scaling, in which 1 = political left, 11 = political right).
To capture support for different social security programmes, the survey contained
questions on support for unemployment benefits spending, pensions and healthcare. The
following question was asked: ‘Would you like to see more, the same, or less government
spending in the case of unemployment/pensions/healthcare? Remember that if you
say more, this will require an increase in taxation’ (1 = spend much less, 2 = spend less,
3 = spend the same as now, 4 = spend more, 5 = spend much more). All effects were
calculated using multiple regression models.9

Results
The results of multivariate regression analyses are presented in Table 1. In line with our
first hypothesis, people with ‘atypical’ employment contracts feel less secure in their
current jobs. Being an ‘atypical’ worker is related to a decrease of 0.288 units on per-
ceived internal job security. This finding corroborates the results from earlier studies: job
insecurity is greater among ‘atypical’ workers. However, our findings also indicate there
is no relationship between the type of employment contract and external job security.
This means that flexible and permanent workers are not distinct from one another in their
external job security expectations. The findings on functional flexibility are different:
while functionally flexible workers find themselves more ‘employable’ on the external
labour market, there is no effect on their future career expectations on the internal labour
market. Thus, our second hypothesis is also partly confirmed. A possible explanation is
that these workers experience that functionally flexible work practices are primarily
designed to make them more capable of switching between jobs, but have little to do with
security on the internal labour market. Other significant predictors are age (older people
feel less secure in the internal and external labour markets) and education (individuals
who have completed secondary general and secondary vocational education feel less
secure in their jobs than people with lower educational levels, a result that is somewhat

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Dekker 603

unexpected). One possible explanation for this latter finding is that less well-educated
workers have already accepted that they are more vulnerable in the internal labour market,
as a way of coping with the situation. In addition, we found the following: individuals
with higher vocational and university qualifications feel more secure in the external
labour market; women feel more insecure in their current jobs; employees working in the
private sector feel less internally work-secure; individuals who were born outside the
Netherlands experience more internal job insecurity; not being dependent on benefits has
a positive impact on an individual’s perception of their internal security; and individuals
with an external locus of control feel more insecure in both labour markets. In general,
the findings on ‘internal job security’ are consistent with earlier observations. The most
interesting finding is that different types of labour flexibility are associated with different
forms of perceived security at work. This finding adds value to the existing literature,

Table 1. Support for spending on social security programmes

Dependent Internal External Community Unemploy- Pensions Health-
variable job job feeling ment care
security security
Explanatory variables
  Task rotation -.026 .183*** -.054 .020 .027 .010
   Job rotation -.018 .074* .015 -.016 .048 .022
  Type of contract -.288*** .004 .018 -.022 -.010 -.024
(1 = flexible)
   Age (actual age) -.076* -.111** .157*** .078* .081* .101*
Education (ref = lower
general and vocational
education)
   Secondary general and -.107* .017 -.034 -.102* -.010 -.011
   secondary vocational
   Higher vocational and -.044 .097* -.038 -.166*** -.210*** -.128*
   university education
   Gender (1 = female) -.070* -.049 -.024 .008 .061 .043
   Sector (1 = private) -.070* .025 -.015 -.096* -.014 -.106**
  Ethnicity (1 = born -.083* -.020 -.043 .015 .042 .051
outside Netherlands)
   Net household income .020 -.063 -.031 -.119*** -.037 -.044
  Benefit dependency .134*** .062 .017 -.012 .033 .044
(1 = no dependency)
   External locus of control -.125*** -.172*** .027 -.044 .103** -.021
  Political preference -.254*** -.139*** .012 -.094*
(1 = political left, 11 = right)
   Internal job security -.083* -.021 -.050
   External job security .030 .038 .043
   Community feeling .260*** .092* .068
N 785 775 779 710 715 715
Adjusted R2 .12 .11 .09 .15 .06 .04
Significant coefficients (standardized effects):
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

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604 Economic and Industrial Democracy 31(4)

because previous studies mainly focused on ‘atypical’ forms of employment and ‘internal
job security’.
With regard to our third and fourth hypotheses, we see that feelings of security at
work are not related to support for welfare spending in the case of pensions or healthcare.
These results thus support our fourth hypothesis. We also find that internal job security
has a significant and expected effect on support for unemployment spending, in line with
our third hypothesis. However, external job security does not affect support for unem-
ployment spending. This result implies that different types of job security must be
included in studies that explain people’s opinions on welfare spending. In previous
research into economic insecurity and political attitudes, different forms of job insecurity
were not linked to support for different aspects of social security.
We now turn to the effects of labour flexibility on community feeling. Many social
scientists assume that workers with flexible employment contracts are less inclined to
support the notion of collective interests. Nevertheless, the data show that there is no
association between contract type and community feeling, meaning that we should reject
our fifth hypothesis. Older people show higher levels of community feeling, while indi-
viduals on the right of the political spectrum show lower levels of identification with
others. Van Oorschot (2002a, 2002b) found similar results. Furthermore, the results show
that the level of community feeling does not increase when individuals are functionally
flexible; hypothesis 6 is thus rejected. In other words, there is no empirical evidence to
support the notion that working in ‘holistic’ or integrative work settings is associated
with a heightened sense of community feeling.10
The results also show that in general, community feeling is a significant source of
motivation for supporting social security arrangements, although support for healthcare
spending is significant at the 10 percent level (not shown). This means that our last
hypothesis is confirmed, in line with the existing literature. The data also reveal the
effects of age (older people are more inclined to support social security spending in all
three areas); education (more highly educated individuals show lower levels of support
for unemployment, pensions and healthcare); sector (private sector workers show less
support for spending in the areas of unemployment and healthcare); household income
(higher net household income levels negatively affect support for spending on unemploy-
ment benefits); locus of control (individuals with an external locus of control are more in
favour of spending in the case of pensions); and political preference (people on the politi-
cal right are less inclined to support spending on unemployment and healthcare). These
results are in accordance with the findings of earlier studies on attitudes towards welfare
state policies (see, for example, Blekesaune and Quadagno, 2003; Pettersen, 1995; Shivo
and Uusitalo, 1995; Yang and Barrett, 2006).

Conclusions and discussion

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of labour flexibility on job security,
levels of community feeling and public opinion with regard to social security programmes.
Although these links have been widely discussed in the literature, very little empirical
research exists to support such discussions. Our empirical results show that internal job
security is related to the type of employment contract, while external job security is

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Dekker 605

related to functional flexibility. At a theoretical level, these findings suggest that labour
flexibility creates different categories of workers: ‘atypical’ (internal) insecure employees
and a multi-skilled workforce that perceives (external) security at work. This finding
corresponds to the different strategies employed by ‘the flexible firm’ (Atkinson, 1984);
that is, the notion that flexible organizations feature a functionally flexible core and
an ‘atypical’ peripheral workforce. Differences also exist with regard to types of job
security and support for social security spending. We found internal job security to have
a significant effect on support for spending on unemployment benefits. This negative
link between internal job security and preferences for unemployment benefits spending
can be seen as a rational decision made by work-secure people. However, a comparison
of external work-secure and work-insecure individuals revealed no significant differences
in support levels. One possible explanation for this that draws on cognitive decision
theories is that people give more attention to the (consequences of) risks in the near
future (the chance of becoming unemployed in the next 12 months) than to long-term
risk situations (the possibility of finding a new job) (for the literature on evaluating risks,
see Kahneman and Tversky, 1974). We also presented evidence that shows that labour
flexibility is not related to community feeling. This suggests that community feeling is
neither being eroded (‘atypical’ employment) nor increasing (functional flexibility) in a
more flexible economy.
In sum, labour flexibility brings both opportunities and risks for employees. As far as
the welfare state is concerned, meanwhile, labour market flexibility spurs support for
unemployment spending, due to higher levels of internal job insecurity. While public
opinion seems to matter when it comes to the expansion of the welfare state (Brooks and
Manza, 2007, 2006; Burstein, 1998; Page and Shapiro, 1983), it can be expected that in
times of increased labour flexibility, individuals are likely to demand higher levels of
spending on unemployment benefits.

Limitations of the study

It is likely that economic developments and labour market conditions, such as the level
of unemployment, influence people’s perceptions of their security at work (Berntson et
al., 2006).12 Future research should thus incorporate a longitudinal design in order to
investigate these factors. Future studies should also include other countries, on the
grounds that domestic institutions, such as the type of welfare state (Esping-Andersen,
1990), production regime (Hall and Soskice, 2001) or unemployment welfare regime
(Gallie and Paugam, 2000), might play an important role in people’s experiences of job
security, and thus public opinion on social security spending. It may well be the case that
flexible workers feel less insecure within a universalistic unemployment regime, charac-
terized by comprehensive and generous unemployment coverage (Gallie and Paugam,
2000), than in employment-centred regimes, such as the Netherlands. In Denmark, for
example, ‘ “atypical” workers are protected by the same legislation and collective agree-
ments as ordinary workers’ (Bredgaard et al., 2009: 17), while flexible workers are to a
smaller degree protected in the Netherlands (Vis et al., 2008). In some Southern European
countries, like Spain, flexible workers even seem to be locked into an insecure employ-
ment situation (Polavieja, 2005: 252). Furthermore, coordinated market economies – such

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606 Economic and Industrial Democracy 31(4)

as those of the Nordic countries and the Netherlands – emphasize cooperation between
government, employers and employees (Hall and Soskice, 2001), which may result in
higher levels of external job security among functionally flexible workers in contrast to
workers in liberal market economies, like Great Britain or the US.13 In the latter, we
expect that the interests of workers are less extensively incorporated in functionally flex-
ible work practices (Godard, 2001: 799). A previous study by the European Foundation
(2007b: 53) has shown that ‘advanced’ forms of functional flexibility are, indeed, mostly
found in Northern European countries. All in all, it is important to include institutional
differences in future studies. The research would be further improved by repeating the
analyses while including more indicators on both forms of labour flexibility. With respect
to ‘atypical’ employment, it is, for example, possible that workers with fixed-term con-
tracts feel less insecure at work than on-call workers because they hold contracts of
longer duration. Another relevant avenue for future research would be to focus on how
labour flexibility can provide workers with opportunities to use a variety of skills. For
example, it can be hypothesized that flexible workers in the ‘new’ service economy
develop more generic skills (for example, communicative and analytical skills),14 thereby
enhancing feelings of job security,15 while flexible employees working in ‘traditional’
sectors of the economy develop more industry-specific skills (for example, operational
skills that are specific to certain industries). Future analyses should also take this issue
into account.

Notes
1. Job enrichment and job enlargement are other characteristics of functional flexibility.
However, the comparative surveys available contain no specific questions that relate to these
two types of functional flexibility.
2. See also Groot and Maassen van den Brink (2000).
3. One might also consider the possibility of reverse causation here, by which job-secure work-
ers might be more willing to participate in functionally flexible work practices. According to
Smith (1999), however, there is no empirical evidence to support this assertion.
4. However, several other studies take ‘class position’ as a factor in work on policy preferences
(see, for example, Svallfors, 1995, 1997, 2003).
5. In this study, we refer to the shared connection experienced among citizens of a country. On
an organizational level, Koster (2005) has shown that ‘atypical’ and permanent workers do
not differ in their solidarity towards co-workers.
6. The ‘holistic’ organization is defined by a lower task specialization among workers, featuring
job rotation, integration of tasks and learning across tasks (Lindbeck and Snower, 2000).
7. In explaining self-perceived job security, these groups are not included because they are not
employed by organizations.
8. These two items were factor-analysed, which resulted in one factor accounting for 67 percent
of the variance. However, the low number of items is not sufficient for producing a reliable
scale (alpha = .50).
9. Another way of investigating causal relationships is via ‘linear structural relations systems’
(LISREL). However, as long as all assumptions are met, path analysis is assumed to be
accurate for recursive models (see Tacq, 1997). Our data show that all statistical assump-
tions are met. Only one outcome variable (job security) is skewed to the left. This seems to

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Dekker 607

be a common problem when using self-reporting to measure security at work (De Witte,
2005; Steijn, 2000).
10. Using another measure (‘I regard it as a moral duty towards the less well-off in society’)
produces similar results.
11. According to democratic theory, opinion on policy can have a direct influence (for example,
through voting), or a more indirect influence (for example, through demonstrations).
12. We do not, however, expect the global economic crisis to have influenced our findings. Our
research was carried out in the first half of 2008. In the Netherlands during this period, the
crisis had not yet affected the real economy (DNB, 2008) and the unemployment rate remained
low (CBS, 2008).
13. Some other studies, see, for example, Gallie (2007), find mixed support for the production
regime theory.
14. See Marks and Scholarios (2008).
15. See Iversen and Soskice (2001).

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Fabian Dekker is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology of the Erasmus University
in the Netherlands. His research interests focus on issues of flexible employment, social
security and workplace change.

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