Survey - temporary employment and job insecurity

Aim of the research project
The overall aim of this research project is to add to the current understanding of how employment conditions and individuals’ perceptions of these conditions are related to different aspects of health and well-being among women and men working within academia in Sweden. Temporary employment contracts are more common within academia than in other sectors of the Swedish labour market. In contrast to permanent employment contracts, temporary contracts often involve a certain uncertainty and insecurity. This insecurity may affect individuals with temporary employment contracts but may also influence the organization of work and the work situation of colleagues with permanent employment contracts. The effects of temporary employment and job insecurity may also vary between women and men or depend on the overall life situation or other factors including health status and sickness absence. This research project also focuses on such factors and how they change over time.

This research project has been ethically vetted at the Regional Ethical Review Board in Stockholm (www.epn.se/en/start/ Project No. 2016/694-31/5).

Why are we asking you to participate?
Regardless of the individual employment contract, all SULF members are approached and asked to volunteer participation in this research project.

What does participation include?
It takes about 20 minutes to complete the online questionnaire. You are can choose between an English and a Swedish version of the questionnaire.

Your participation and information on your situation is important
Participation in this research project is voluntary. If you volunteer participation, you can, at any time without explaining why, opt out of the study. But, your participation and information on your situation is important for the project. Since we aim to compare different groups of individuals with different employment contracts, we invite both those with permanent employment contracts and those with temporary employment contracts. Your participation will improve the current knowledge of the importance of different employment contracts and working conditions within academia.
Collaboration with SULF
The collaboration with SULF means that all SULF members are invited to participate in this research project through email invitations to all members who have registered an email address with SULF. When completing the online questionnaire, the responses are sent to the research group. Specifically, the research group holds an account where all questionnaire data are collected. The researchers are the only ones with access to this account.
SULF cannot influence the scientific reporting of the research.

Data protection
Your individual details are protected according to 24 chapt. 8 § of the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400; Offentlighets- och sekretesslagen) and the Personal Data Act (1998:204; Personuppgiftslagen). Your individual details and results will be processed so that no unauthorized persons can access your data. This means that people outside the research project, including for instance employer representatives, union representatives, students or journalists will have no access to data provided by individual study participants.

During the time period when data are collected all individuals invited to the study will get an individual code number. We need this to keep track of the responses to our invitation to participate. This code number will also be used to link details from different data collections on an individual level. The code number is also needed to link self-report data collected through online questionnaires to sick-leave registry data. This linking of data from self-reports and national registry data will only be performed at the individual level for study participants who explicitly allow this.

The key including all code numbers that are needed to link different data on an individual level is stored in a safe at Stockholm University. When all data collections are finalized within the project, the key will be destroyed.

Processing of personal data
Stockholm University is responsible for processing the personal data. Individuals volunteering participation in a study are registered and entitled to information. This means that you have the right, once a year and free of charge, to get information regarding your personal data. To retrieve this information, please apply in writing and ask specifically for this information, sign the application and send it to Stockholm University (for contact details, see below). If you think that your personal data have been processed in ways that violate the Personal Data Act, you have the right to demand that your personal data are rectified.

Dissemination of findings
Findings from the research project will be disseminated through scientific papers published in scientific journals, in book chapters, exam papers and reports. Also, the results will be presented at seminars, workshops of different kinds both nationally and internationally. All results from the statistical analyses will be presented by grouping together individual data, for instance by reporting means and standard deviations. This is done to avoid the identification of single individuals.

Questions or comments?
If you have any questions, please contact the research group:

Petra Lindfors, professor, project manager (pls@psychology.su.se, 08-16 3893)

www.psychology.su.se/staff/pls/indexeng.html

Anne Richter, researcher, project manager (anne.richter@psychology.su.se)

www.psychology.su.se/staff/anri/

Magnus Sverke, professor (magnus.sverke@psychology.su.se, 08-16 1419)

www.psychology.su.se/staff/mse/indexeng.html

Postal address: Stockholm University, Department of Psychology, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Karin Åmossa, SULF´s Head of Research and International Affairs, ka@sulf.se, 08-505 836 19