Perceptions of job insecurity and the impact of world market competition as health risks: Results from Belstress

Concern has been raised about the impact of job insecurity and fierce world market competition on the well‐being and health of workers (Marmot, 1999). For that reason, the Job Content Questionnaire was supplemented with items that relate to the wider organization and, especially, global economy level. Two items relate to the ‘perception of job insecurity’ (JIS) and three items relate to the ‘perception of impact of world market competition on one's own job’ (WMC). In the Belstress study, which comprises a sample of 16,335 men and 5084 women aged 35–59 years recruited from 25 companies across Belgium between 1994 and 1998, crosssectional associations of both factors with health status indicators, health behaviour and cardiovascular risk factors were studied. Scores for JIS and WMC were dichotomized yielding high (upper quartile group) and low levels (else). JIS and WMC are independently associated with job strain and with some health status indicators. No clear or consistent associations are found with health‐related behaviours or with cardiovascular risk factors.