ALTERNATIVE WORK ARRANGEMENTS Job Stress, Well-being, and Work Attitudes among Employees with Different Employment Contracts

In recent years there has been increased employer use of alternative forms of employment contracts to supplement more traditional employment arrangements. Using data from Swedish health-care workers (N=711; 86% women), this study compares full-time and part-time permanent employees with contingent workers and sets out to answer the following questions: Do workers on non-traditional work schedules experience more or less (1) job related role stress, (2) involvement in the organization, and (3) well-being? Contingent workers were found to experience more job insecurity and role ambiguity but also lower levels of somatic complaints as compared to core employees. On a general level, contingent workers expressed levels of job involvement and organizational commitment almost comparable to full-time employees while part-time workers held less favorable work attitudes. The results also revealed gender differences among contingent workers -women on temporary contracts expressed substantially more job insecurity and somatic complaints but also felt more involved in their jobs and more committed to the organization than men. Given that there exists a variety of contingent employment arrangements and that the occupational status of these differ, additional research is needed to increase our understanding of the consequences of different forms of alternative work arrangements.