Resilient Couples in Times of Changing Labor Markets in Germany

Flexibilized labor markets and deregulated employment relations make families more vulnerable to work-related stressors and intrafamilial planning uncertainties. In particular, social psychological research has shown that reduced job security due to flexible employment (i.e., fixed-term employment, temporary employment) is associated with reduced subjective well-being and increased subjective economic hardship. Against this background, this paper asks to what extent each partner's resources increase couples' resilience to the negative consequences of flexible employment.

Therefore, a dyadic research approach based on social exchange theory is used to examine whether the secure employment (i.e., full-time, permanent contract) of German actors decreases the partner's perception of work-related or economic insecurity. It is expected that these actor-partner effects will be most pronounced among couples with a traditional division of labor (i.e., male-breadwinner model), which, in Germany, is particularly prevalent among (married) couples with children. Thus, the gendered effects of employment constellations in couple dyads are considered.

The German case is of particular interest because of the long-lasting flexibilization processes that characterize the labor market in the context of the conservative German welfare regime. For the empirical analyses, longitudinal dyadic data of German couples (based on the German Socio-Economic Panel, GSOEP) will be used. In particular, longitudinal actor-partner interdependence models will be used, a novel methodological approach that allows for the investigation of associations between perceptions of job and economic insecurity of both actors and partners in the context of couples' (atypical) employment constellations.