ILPC 2027

 The concept of Flexicurity has been receiving much attention as the European social model. One of the most important concepts within the flexicurity approach is employment security, the security of having secure and continuous employment career, which may entail changing employers and jobs. How do European individuals subjectively perceive their employment security? In addition, which institutional configurations perform best in providing individuals with a better security perception? Do institutions matter even when market situations are taken into account, such as in times of crisis? In this paper, we examine the impact of various national level characteristics that can explain individuals’ perception of their employment security, namely institutions such as employment protection legislation and passive and active labour policies, and labour market and economic situations, such as GDP growth rates and employment, unemployment rates. A multi-level approach is used, where contextual effects are taken into account and individuals are considered to be embedded in countries. The data used for analysis is the 4^th wave of the European Social Survey for the year 2008/2009. We find that policies to secure one’s income and employability skills, thus passive and active labour market policies, are more important than institutions that secure one’s job, thus employment protection, in providing employment security for individuals. However, when we take labour market and economic situations into account, the significance of institutions are lost. These results do seem to be influenced by the period under investigation, but does not seem to be period specific.