The Reciprocal Relation Between Job Insecurity and Proactive Career Behaviour: Appraisals and Just World Beliefs

With the rise of precarious work, job insecurity has become a pervasive experience for workers worldwide. Proactive career behaviour is posited as a potential buffer against job insecurity by providing individuals a sense of control over their careers. However, engaging in proactive career behaviour is psychologically costly and requires resources that are depleted when someone already experiences job insecurity. We test the resulting reciprocal relationship between increased job insecurity and decreased proactive career behaviour over time, including when and why this relationship comes about. Using a stress‐coping framework, we investigate whether workers' primary and secondary appraisals of their working situation mediate the reciprocal relationship, and whether Just World Beliefs about oneself and others moderate it. We conducted a 6‐week longitudinal panel study ( N = 205) with temporary workers recruited via a job agency. While no reciprocal relationship between job insecurity and proactive career behaviour was found, job insecurity was consistently associated with threat, challenge, control and resource appraisals. Just World Beliefs about oneself did qualify the reciprocal relationship, suggesting that proactive career behaviours depend on fundamental fairness beliefs when workers experience job insecurity. Taken together, the findings suggest that proactive career behaviour alone is not sufficient to prevent job insecurity, emphasizing the importance of adopting a more comprehensive approach providing certainties for precariously employed workers.