A longer, more academic piece that considers the rise of insecure and precarious work, the impacts on our collective well-being, and how we can respond to the social rupturing that it causes:
What is insecure and precarious work?
Insecure work is characterised by uncertainty, limited worker control, low and/or fluctuating pay, limited access to employment benefits such as sick leave and domestic leave, limited worker rights, and a lack of union representation (Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 2012). Such work is referred to by Guy Standing in his seminal book The Precariat: The Dangerous New Class, as precarious work. Precarious work is insecure, short- or fixed-term work, whereby the worker has no guarantee of on-going, secure, permanent employment. Standing (2011) explains:
The precariat are induced to intensify their effort and the hours they spend in their labour, for fear of falling short of expectations [this] intensifies a form of inequality, resulting in more exploitation of the precariat … the precariat is at the risk of being in a permanent spin, forced to juggle demands on limited time. It is not alone. But its difficulty is particularly stressful. It may be summed up as a loss of control over knowledge, ethics and time … The precariat may take on several jobs at the same time, partly because wages are falling, partly for insurance or risk management. Women, faced by a triple burden, are being drawn into a quadruple one, of having to care for children, care for elderly relatives and do perhaps not one but two jobs. (Standing, 2011, pp. 203-205)
Standing uses precarious work to refer to low-waged, casual labour. However, increasingly, higher-waged and skilled work (contingent work) is becoming casualized and precarious (Kuhn, 2016). In these instances, employment is short- and/or fixed-term with no pathway into long-term, permanent employment (Tran & Sokas, 2017). It includes independent contractors, on-call workers, subcontractors, freelancers, and non-standard work arrangements.
Insecure and precarious workers all experience the same lack of employment benefits such as the absence of paid sick days, domestic leave, and compensation; chronic job insecurity and associated poor health; psychological distress and somatic complaints; and the expectation of unpaid labour (Kuhn, 2016; Tran & Sokas, 2017). For contingent workers, unpaid labour takes the form of not being paid for ‘spec work’ (such as writing research proposals), as well as difficulty in collecting payments owed (Bergman & Jean, 2016). Rather than being able to concentrate on the employment and projects to hand, one is required to prepare and plan for the next round of research funding, create new and innovative research proposals that match the criteria and values of funders, and engage with key stakeholders in preparation for potential research projects. This adds to the workload, takes mental and emotional energy, and occurs alongside limited control, a reduced sense of autonomy, and increasing stress levels.
Previously secure workplaces such as universities (Junor, 2004) are increasingly employing people to undertake academic work (such as research and teaching) in a casualized and/or fixed term manner (Stringer, Smith, Spronken-Smith, & Wilson, 2018). While academic work is higher paid than low-waged forms of work typically associated with precarity, the vulnerabilities and stressors for workers remain (Tran & Sokas, 2017). Academics precariously employed by universities describe “waning motivation, discouragement and stress” due to the insecurity associated with prolonged periods of job uncertainty (Stringer et al., 2018, p.190). The stress of continually having to renew one’s contract and apply for research funding each year results in detrimental impacts on the individuals personal and family life (Junor, 2004; Stringer et al., 2018).
Other forms of difficulty and disadvantage experienced by precarious academics include poor resources and support, inadequate remuneration, lack of health insurance and retirement benefits, precarity stress, unrecognised and unremunerated service and administrative work, compromised academic freedom, and a sense of being undervalued, exploited and expendable (Junor, 2004; Rothengatter & Hil, 2013). These impacts are all exacerbated by inadequate research funding: in OECD countries, an amount of 2% of GDP for R&D is considered adequate. Currently, NZ sits on around 1.5%.
Health and social impacts of insecure work
Job insecurity has been shown to have causal detrimental effects on physical health (Green, 2015), including increased occupational injury (Benavides et al., 2006) and adverse mortality rates (Howard, 2017). Job insecurity also negatively impacts on mental health; the more insecure a person’s work is, the higher the risk of poor psycho-social health (Bartley, 2005). Overall, work-related insecurity has harmful consequences for peoples physical and mental health (Sverke, Hellgren, & Naswall, 2002). Correspondingly, having secure employment in favourable working conditions greatly reduces the risk of healthy people developing limiting illness (Bartley, Sacker, & Clarke, 2004). To this end, reducing job insecurity and minimising precarious work improves population health and reduces health inequalities.
Alongside impacts on individual health, precarious work increases the vulnerabilities and levels of distress for the whole of society. Precarity in employment has led to a fracturing of social systems and a decline in social cohesion (Standing, 2011). This rupturing of the social integration that previously occurred through work manifests itself in increases in depression and anxiety, higher rates of family dissolution, political indifference and lack of political activism (Ehrenberg, 2012). Subsequently, job precarity translates into social precarity and contributes to a sense of detachment from others and to marginalisation from the political levers available for enacting change (Wilson & Ebert, 2013). This contrasts strongly with the documented benefits of secure employment, which provide a sense of meaning, belonging, purpose and the satisfaction of achievement (Hodgetts et al., 2010).
High levels of employment, decent income levels, individual autonomy, and a good work–life balance are regarded as positive for social cohesion (Mirowsky & Ross, 2003), as well as freeing up individuals and societies to deal with concerns in everyday life and politics outside of work (Kalleberg, 2009). In this way, the very drivers of precarious work act to prevent workers from accessing the forms of support and political action most likely to achieve change. Community Psychology has potential here to disrupt social isolation and detachment and to drive political action. I discuss this further in the next section.
Contemporary precarity has arisen out of the combination of the erosion of regulated employment relationships alongside the implementation of neoliberal ideals that emphasised the centrality of market-driven solutions and privatised government resources (Kalleberg, 2009). The weakening of employment protections for workers that led to the resurgence of precarious work in New Zealand began during the 1980s, when successive New Zealand governments implemented a series of neoliberal reforms (Kalleberg, 2009). These reforms were based on the belief that market forces, competitive globalization, and individualised choice would better promote individual freedom and wellbeing (Humpage, 2015; Larner, 2000).
Together with mounting competitive pressures, an expanded labour market, and the growth of the service industries, the need for greater labour flexibility for employers further threatened standard employment relationships (NZCTU, 2013). Structural phenomena, such as downturns in the economy, unemployment, a weakened trade union presence, and welfare reform created a climate of insecure work and employee powerlessness (Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 2012). Previously strong collective agencies of social integration, such as workplace solidarity, unions, strong regulation of work and an emphasis on sustainable full employment were weakened and/or erased (Wilson & Ebert, 2013). Together, this combination of events has seen the re-emergence of insecure work and subsequent economic and social stressors.
What can be done?
Communal responses and addressing wider social issues are one way to address the rupturing of the social fabric created by precarious work.
One example is through fostering communal hope. Hope is an important emotion and a crucial human need (Scioli & Biller, 2009). Communal hope is a type of hope that extends beyond simply striving for personal goals and individual wellness (Scioli & Biller, 2009). Requiring creativity and agency, communal hope is enacted (Lynch, 2004) and sustained by ‘liberating relationships’ and ‘collaborative mutuality’ (Scioli & Biller, 2009). Cultivating a sense of hope is particularly important in a landscape of endless short-term work, which is more often textured by feelings of stress, hopelessness, and disempowerment (Stringer et al., 2018). Social contexts such as Unions, mutually supportive partnerships with like-minded persons, socially engaged research, and engaging in forms of activism that challenge the status quo are all mechanisms for fostering communal hope.
In Psychology and the moral imperative Prilleltensky and Walsh-Bowers (1993) discuss the need to promote human flourishing for all, and describe the ways in which psychology can support or challenge the social order. Similarly, Gokani and Walsh (2017), draw on the values of self-determination, distributive justice, democratic participation, and collaborative relationality in their arguments for achieving social transformation. These values are applicable to the nature of work and employment and are useful in arguing for the need for secure employment beyond economic benefits for employers.
Approaches that challenge the rising tide of precarious and insecure work involve any and all of the following:
Re-politicising work and income by arguing for the following:
Stronger legal protections to prevent insecure work
Improved income support mechanisms for insecure workers
Support for the Living Wage with greater security of hours
Government procurement to promote decent work
Union campaigns and bargaining to support secure work
Challenge capitalism and provide alternative economies
Promote individual and social agency
Creatively re-engage with people through the arts
Integrate workers into new community alliances
Promote solidarity and a sense of connectedness
Create communal hope for change
Each of the above can be actioned at individual, local community, and government levels. We saw a great example of this at the recent May Day union meetings and the doctors strike.

Conclusion
Overall, the rise of insecure and precarious work across both low- and higher-waged work has resulted in negative consequences for employees. These include the fracturing of social systems, disenfranchisement, and an erosion of solidarity and political action. At an individual level, insecure work negatively impacts on physical and mental health. An emphasis on communal responses, political action, and wider social issues, helps to address the negative individual and social consequences caused by the re-emergence of precarious work within a political landscape driven by neoliberal ideals.
References and further reading
Bartley, M. (2005). Job insecurity and its effect on health. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 59, 717-718. doi: 10.1136/jecdh.2005.036608
Bartley, M., Sacker, A., & Clarke, P. (2004). Employment status, employment conditions, and limiting illness: prospective evidence from the British household panel survey 1991-2001. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 58(6), 501-506. doi: 10.1136/jech.2003.009878
Benavides, F. G., Benach, J., Muntaner, C., Delclos, G. L., Catot, N., & Amable, M. (2006). Associations between temporary employment and occupational injury: what are the mechanisms? Occupational and environmental medicine, 63(6), 416-421. doi: 10.1136/oem.2005.022301
Bergman, M. E., & Jean, V. A. (2016). Where have all the "workers" gone? A critical analysis of the unrepresentativeness of our samples relative to the labor marker in the industrial-organizational psychology literature. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 9, 84-113.
Ehrenberg, A. (2012). Das Unbehagen in der Gesellschaft. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag GmbH.
Gokani, R., & Walsh, R. T. G. (2017). On the Historical and Conceptual Foundations of a Community Psychology of Social Transformation. American Journal Of Community Psychology, 59(3-4), 284-294. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.12141
Green, F. (2015). Health effects of job insecurity. IZA World of Labor, 212, 1-10. doi: 10.15185/izawol.212
Greenhalgh, L., & Rosenblatt, Z. (2012). Evolution of research on job insecurity. International Studies of Management and Organization, 40(1), 6-19.
Hodgetts, D., Drew, N., Sonn, C., Stolte, O., Nikora, L. W., & Curtis, C. (2010). Social psychology and everyday life. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Howard, J. (2017). Nonstandard work arrangements and worker health and safety. Am J Ind Med, 60(1), 1-10. doi: 10.1002/ajim.22669
Humpage, L. (2015). Policy change, public attitudes and social citizenship: Does neoliberalism matter? Bristol, UK: Policy Press.
Junor, A. (2004). Casual University Work: Choice, Risk, Inequity and the Case for Regulation. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 14(2), 276-304. doi: 10.1177/103530460401400208
Kalleberg, A. L. (2009). Precarious work, insecure workers: employment relations in transition. American Sociological Review, 74(1), 1-22.
Kuhn, K. M. (2016). The rise of the "gig economy" and implications for understanding work and workers. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 9(1), 157-162.
Larner, W. (2000). Neo-liberalism: Policy, ideology, governmentality. Studies in political economy, 63(5-25).
Lynch, M. J. (2004). Mao: Routledge historical biographies. London/New York: Routledge.
Mirowsky, J., & Ross, C. (2003). Social Causes of Psychological Distress. Hawthorne, NY: Transaction Publishers.
NZCTU. (2013). Under Pressure: A details report into insecure work in New Zealand (No. ISBN 978-0-9922639-0-4). Auckland, NZ: New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. Retrieved from www.union.org.nz/underpressure
Prilleltensky, I., & Walsh-Bowers, R. (1993). Psychology and the moral imperative. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 13(2), 90-102.
Rothengatter, M., & Hil, R. (2013). A precarious presence: Some realities and challenges of academic casualisation in Australian universities. Australian Universities’ Review, 55(2), 51-59.
Scioli, A., & Biller, H. B. (2009). Hope in the age of anxiety. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Standing, G. (2011). The precariat: the dangerous new class. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic.
Stringer, R., Smith, D., Spronken-Smith, R., & Wilson, C. (2018). “My entire career has been fixed term”: Gender and precarious academic employment at a New Zealand university New Zealand Sociology, 22(2), 169-201.
Sverke, M., Hellgren, J., & Naswall, K. (2002). No security: a meta-analysis and review of job insecurity and its consequences. J Occup Health Psychol, 7(3), 242-264.
Tran, M., & Sokas, R. K. (2017). The gig economy and contingent work: An occupational health assessment. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 59(4), e63-e66.
Wilson, S., & Ebert, N. (2013). Precarious work: Economic, sociological and political perspectives. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 24(3), 263-278. doi: 10.1177/1035304613500434
Doctor, you just described the structural situation in Latin America since at least the 1970s, certainly since the 1980s. In Perú, the case I know well, the 80s saw the “informal economy” appear - micro entrepreneurs selling wares on street corners and without permits or licenses. The neoliberal reforms of 1990 onwards legalised the use of “service contracts”, this is paying employees as contractors (sans workers benefits) but in theory with more cash in pocket - no PAYE but for a little income tax retention.
Should you like, I can put you in touch with the people at the Universidad del Pacífico CIUP (the research centre at the UP). You will find a treasure trove of colleagues and analysis that describes how this one plays out (Cliff Note: you end up with impoverished Latin America, Africa, and a large swath of Asia).
Timely and so so helpful right now.