Is More Always Merrier? Intersectionality as an Antecedent of Job Insecurity

As modern workplace environments are becoming increasingly diverse, the experiences of disenfranchised employees have become a topic of great interest to scholars and business professionals alike. While the experiences of individuals with singular stigmatized identities have been well-established, a dearth of research has assessed how intersectionality, i.e., holding multiple stigmatized identities, combine and intertwine to shape workplace experiences. We contribute to a growing literature on intersectionality by assessing the extent to which employees identifying with multiple stigmatized identities may constitute a risk factor for the experience of job insecurity, a prevalent and potent economic stressor. Additionally, we propose that job insecurity will partially mediate the relationship between intersectionality and a variety of adverse workplace outcomes associated with increased job insecurity perceptions. In order to test these hypotheses, we collected survey data from 449 employed individuals within the United States over two timepoints. Results of the tests of our direct and indirect hypotheses revealed that individuals with more stigmatized identities reported greater perceptions of job insecurity, and intersectionality indirectly affected workplace outcomes via this heightened job insecurity. Our results highlight a new antecedent of job insecurity for consideration and is meant to motivate others to approach diversity-related research questions with multiple identities in mind, in an effort to encapsulate the full spectrum of one’s experience based on their identity makeup.