Exploring Associations Between Job Insecurity and Subjective Well-Being Among Dual-Earner Couples: The Role of Spouses' Work-Family Centrality Using an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model.

Abstract

Job insecurity reflects employees' perceived threat to employment continuity and their powerlessness to retain their job. Existing research has largely focused on individual well-being outcomes, overlooking dyadic stress processes within dual-earner couples. Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory and the Spillover-Crossover Model, this study adopts the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) and APIM mediation model (APIMeM) to analyse data from 300 Chinese dual-earner couples. This study examines actor-partner associations between job insecurity and multifaceted subjective well-being, as well as the mediating function of work-family centrality. Constrained APIM results indicate robust detrimental actor associations across all well-being dimensions. Partner crossover associations are dimension-specific, linking job insecurity to elevated spousal negative affect and reduced spousal life satisfaction. Further APIMeM analyses reveal selective, role-specific mediating effects of work-family centrality, encompassing both theoretically grounded intrapersonal spillover pathways and atypical inconsistent mediation pathways. These findings refine understandings of dyadic job insecurity transmission. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.