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

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.