A cross-sectional population-based survey was conducted by telephone from a random sample of White Pages listings in the state of Victoria in Australia. To reflect general population occupational group proportions, quotas were set to match Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) census proportions of upper white-collar, lower white-collar, and blue-collar groups. The inclusion criteria were 1) age 18 years or older, and 2) working at the time of the survey for profit or pay. Interviews were completed in November 2003 with a 66% response rate from in-frame households to yield a semi-representative sample of 1,101 working Victorians (526 men and 575 women).

In Australia, the growth of temporary employment (much of it part-time) over the past two decades has been more pronounced than in the US and most EU countries (except Spain) (Campbell and Burgess, 2001a, 2001b). Two subcategories of temporary employment, namely, fixed term contracts and labour hire/temporary agency labour have grown rapidly in the past decade coinciding with a significant de-collectivization of industrial relations laws, especially at the increasingly dominant federal level (Burgess, Rasmussen and Connell, 2004). While there has been an overall decline in permanent full-time work and an associated increase in more temporary and insecure work arrangements across developed nations, the precise mix of employment arrangements in Victoria, Australia might differ from those in other developed countries.

Socio-demographic data were collected on gender (male or female), age (18–29, 30–40, 41–50, and ≥ 51 years), marital status (categorized as “married or living with partner,” “single,” “divorced/separated,” and “widowed”), number of children living at home, highest level of education completed (post-graduate qualifications, undergraduate qualifications, vocational qualifications, high school completion, and some primary or secondary school completion), and location (urban versus rural/regional, based on post code).

With regard to their current employment status, participants were asked whether they were employed as Permanent Full-time, Permanent Part-time, Casual/Temporary (with no annual or long service leave), Fixed Term Contract, Labour Hire, or Self-employed. Those employed by Labour Hire agencies were further queried as to whether they were hired out to work in different workplaces, or alternatively, if they worked directly for the Labour Hire company (e.g., in the agency office).

Occupations were assigned to five ranked skill levels, according to the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO) which applies skill level and skill specialization as major criteria (ABS, 1997). Income, based on average gross weekly earnings in all jobs, was treated categorically and collapsed into quintiles (0–$299, $300–499, $500–699, $700–999, and ≥ $1000) to approximate ABS percentile data on weekly total earnings (ABS, 2002). Weekly working hours in a main job were calculated as the average number of hours worked per week over the previous month, and treated categorically (< 35 hours/week, 35–49 hours/week, and 50 hours/week, based on ABS cut-points for part-time/full-time hours and “very long working hours” (ABS, 2003). Average weekly hours for all jobs were totalled from hours in a main job and hours in all other jobs and treated categorically in the same way. Other employment characteristics in the questionnaire included number of jobs held, public versus private workplace, industrial sector (service versus manufacturing), union membership, payment arrangements (paid on the basis of performance, annual salary, hourly wage, or a combination of these), establishment size (total number of people employed at the workplace location) and unwanted periods of unemployment (any in the last five years).

Job insecurity was operationalized using two items from Siegrist’s effort-reward imbalance model (Siegrist, 1996): 1) “My job security is poor” (agree or disagree) and 2) if agreed, “How distressed are you by this situation?” The second item was scored on a four-point scale ranging from not at all distressed to very distressed. These items were combined to create an ordinal variable (0 = Job security is not poor, 1 = Job security is poor, but not at all distressed, 2 = Somewhat distressed by job insecurity, 3 = Distressed by job insecurity, 4 = Very distressed by job insecurity), and a dichotomous variable, “Distressed by job insecurity” (0–1 = yes, 2–4 = no).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defines “traditional employees” as having ongoing full-time employment, not receiving their remuneration through a Labour Hire firm, and having both paid sick and holiday leave (2000a). It contrasts this to four types of “non-traditional” employment arrangements in the Australian Social Trends (AST) survey:

• On going part-time employees are defined as those employed under the conditions of a traditional employee, but on a part-time basis (less than 35 hours per week).

• Casual employees are those who do not have both paid sick and holiday leave and who also identified themselves as being employed as a casual (however, the definition of a casual employee used in other ABS surveys is an employee with no access to paid leave).

• Restricted tenure employees are employees who have a preset period of employment. The group comprises seasonal, temporary and fixed-term employees.

• Employees paid by a Labour Hire firm are employees who receive their payment from a Labour Hire firm and who may or may not have a preset period of employment.

Of these four categories designated by the ABS as “non-traditional,” the last three groups are not mutually exclusive (see Olsen and Kalleberg, 2004 for a similar, but mutually exclusive categorization of non-permanent workers in the US and Norway). ABS definitions of employment and non-employment forms further complicate quantification and analysis of the self-employed (Waite and Will, 2001). “Employees” include owner managers of incorporated enterprises, also known as limited liability companies, with or without paid help (ABS, 2000b). “Employers” and “own account workers” (formerly entitled self-employed) include persons who operates their own unincorporated economic enterprise or engage independently in a profession or trade. While the ABS classifications reflect important labour force conditions specific to Australia (such as the definition and regulatory protection of casual employees), categories of non-traditional employment tend to overlap, and self-employed figures are understated. In an attempt to quantify the diversity in casual employment, Murtough and Waite (2001) found that in 1999, one tenth of those categorized as casual employees by the ABS were owner managers. The Statistics Canada self-employment definition includes working owners of an unincorporated or incorporated business, and persons who work on their own account but do not have a business (Statistics Canada, 2002). Both Statistics Canada and the ABS dichotomize the self-employed into either own account workers (without paid help) and employers (with paid help).

Building on the ABS and Canadian measures, we evaluated the following eight mutually exclusive employment status categories: Permanent Full-time, Permanent Part-time, Casual Full-time, Casual Part-time, Fixed Term Contract, Labour Hire, Own Account Self-employed, and Other Self-employed. These employment status categories are based on self-reported data on the person’s main job (Figure 1). Individuals classified as Own Account Self-employed reported that they work alone in their main job, while those classified as the Other Self-employed reported two or more people employed in their workplace.

Permanent employees could self-identify as part-time or full-time, allowing for comparisons between the workers’ perceptions/expectations of the employment arrangement (perhaps based on the understanding at the onset of employment) and the actual hours worked. For example, of self-identified Permanent Full-time employees, 19 (3.8%) worked less than 35 hours weekly in the main job. Of self-identified Permanent Part-time employees, 33 (16.6%) worked 35 or more hours weekly in the main job, and 7 (3.5%) worked 50 or more hours in a main job they identified as part-time.

Casuals were divided into part-time and full-time employment according to the ABS definitions, with the exception that they are based on hours worked in the main job, rather than in all jobs held. According to the ABS (2004) definition using hours in all jobs worked, a person holding two ongoing part-time jobs could be counted as a full-time employee. This can over-estimate casual full-time work while under-estimating casual part-time work. Since 1997, Statistics Canada has defined part-time employment by hours per week at a main job (Vosko, Zukewich, and Cranford, 2003). We adopted this approach in order to capture differences between single job holders and multiple job holders.

The Labour Hire group contains those workers hired out by a Labour Hire company. It does not include 16 respondents who worked directly for a Labour Hire agency (e.g., in the agency office). These are contained in categories 1–4 (7 Permanent Full-time, 2 Permanent Part-time, 2 Casual Full-time, 5 Casual Part-time).

In addition to the 8-way employment status category variable, we created a 10-way variable in which Labour Hire and Fixed Term Contract were also divided into part-time and full-time employment, in order to assess job insecurity between the full-time and part-time non-permanent categories.

For categorical socio-demographic and job characteristics, Chi-square tests were used to compare proportions of individuals across the employment status categories (p < 0.05 significance). The association between hours worked and employment status category was tested using a median test. The analyses were performed using SPSS statistical software (Version 12, SPSS Inc., Chicago).

Two employment arrangement typologies (8-way and 10-way) were used to compare differences and similarities in job characteristics and socio-demographics between potential sub-categories of permanent, temporary and self-employed workers. Statistical tests comparing associations between job characteristics and employment status categories, along with comparisons of similarities and differences between potential sub-categories in the descriptive data, were used to select an optimal typology.

Sample characteristics are presented in Tables 1 and 2. Over one tenth held more than one job. The median for hours/week worked in the main job was lower for women (35) and higher for men (40). The median hours/week worked in all jobs was 40 for both women and men, with ranges 3–146 and 6–110. This is consistent with women’s higher likelihood of holding more than one job. One tenth of the sample had average weekly earnings less than $300, and roughly one fifth earned $1000 or more per week. One fifth worked in a government workplace, almost half worked in the service sector, one fourth were in the lowest occupational level, and almost one third were union members. Almost half worked in establishments employing fewer than 20 persons, three tenths were employed at their main job for under two years, and one fifth reported unwanted periods of unemployment in the last five years.

Just over half of the sample were women, and 45.9% were living with at least one child. Nearly a quarter of the participants were under age 30. Almost one third held a bachelor degree or higher, and slightly more than one fifth had completed only some primary or secondary school. The majority of the study sample lived in urban Melbourne, with 28% of participants located in regional and rural areas of the state of Victoria.

Job characteristics across the eight employment categories are presented in Table 1. Employment status category was significantly associated with all job characteristics assessed, supporting the value of distinguishing categories to this degree.

Number of jobs: Overall, 13.0% of workers held multiple jobs. This figure is higher than an ABS (2001) estimate that 7.3% of the workforce (and 8.4% of female workers) held two or more jobs, but this survey preceded ours by three years (conducted in 2000) and previous ABS surveys indicate a growth in multiple jobholding. Most importantly, our survey found non-standard workers were much more likely to hold more than one job when compared with Permanent Full-time employees. Men in categories 3–6 (Table 1) were more likely to hold two or more jobs than women in the same categories.

Hours (main job): Overall, the Other Self-employed tended to work the longest weekly hours in the main job, followed by Own Account Self-employed, Permanent Full-time, Casual Full-time, Fixed Term Contract, Labour Hire, Permanent Part-time, and Casual Part-time. We observed a polarization of part-time and longer hours when weekly hours were stratified by gender, particularly in the self-employed categories, with men more likely to work longer hours and women more likely to work part-time hours. Men were more likely to work longer hours in a main job than women in most other categories. Of those employed Permanent Part-time, women tended to work longer hours per week in a main job relative to men. Similarly, of those employed Casual Part-time, women tended to work longer hours per week in a main job relative to men (median of 15 versus 14).

Hours (all jobs): For average weekly hours worked in all jobs totalled, the Other Self-employed were again mostly likely to work longer hours. The two self-employed groups were most likely to work over 50 hours in their main job, and tended to move above 70 hours for all jobs relative to the main job. For Casual Full-time employees as a group (the most likely to hold more than one job), median weekly hours increased from 40, for the main job, to 42 for all jobs. For part-time workers, average weekly hours tend to move above 35 hours for all jobs relative to the main job.

Income: Other Self-employed were most likely to be high-income earners (over $1000 per week), followed by Own Account Self-employed and Permanent Full-time employees. Casual Part-time employees were much more likely than any other category to be low-income earners (less than $299 per week). Labour Hire employees were most likely to earn mid-range incomes ($500–699 per week). This is consistent with patterns across these categories in terms of education level and weekly hours worked.

Occupation: Corresponding to patterns in education and earnings across employment status categories, Casual Full-time employees were mostly likely to be employed in the lowest occupational level, followed by Casual Part-time employees, Labour Hire and Permanent Part-time. Fixed Term Contract workers were most likely to be employed in managerial/professional and intermediate level occupations, followed by Other Self-employed, Permanent Full-time and Own Account Self-employed. The Own Account and Other Self-employed categories also had the largest proportions of tradespersons.

Workplace characteristics: While there was a fairly even split between total respondents in the manufacturing and service sectors, Permanent Part-time employees, Casual Part-time employees, and Labour Hire workers were more likely to be working in the service sector. Fixed Term Contract workers were much more likely to be employed in public workplaces than were the other categories, while the Casual Full-time and Self-employed categories were the least likely. Permanent Full-time employees were most likely to be union members, and Own Account Self-employed were the least likely. Fixed Term Contract workers were most likely to work in larger establishments (20 or more employees), Other Self-employed tended to work in smaller establishments, and by definition, all Own Account Self-employed work alone.

Duration of employment: The overwhelming majority of Own Account and Other Self-employed have been employed at their main job for over two years, as have the majority of Permanent Full-time and Permanent Part-time. Of those employees who self-identified as non-permanent (categories 3–6), 82 out of 193 (42.4%) respondents had been employed at the same workplace for more than two years.

Unwanted periods of unemployment: Labour Hire employees were most likely to report unwanted periods of unemployment (over half), and Other Self-employed were the least likely.

Socio-demographic characteristics across the eight employment status categories are presented in Table 2. Employment status category was significantly associated with gender, age, education, children at home, and location (urban versus rural/regional).

Gender: Women were more likely to be employed part-time and non-permanently, holding the majority of Permanent Part-time (83.7%) and Casual Part-time (67.6%) jobs, and just over half of Fixed Term Contract and Labour Hire jobs. Men held just over half of Permanent Full-time jobs. Men were more likely to be self-employed, holding 72.0% of Own Account jobs and 59.0% of Other Self-employment.

Age: There was a fairly even age distribution within the two permanent categories. The self-employed tended to be older, with one third over age 50. Mainly self-employed men drove this difference, with 44.7% being over age 50 for Own Account, and 29.2% for Other Self-employed. However, self-employed women also tended to be older, 38.6% over age 50 for Own Account and 29.8% for Other Self-employed. Workers under age 30 made up large proportions of the Casual Part-time, Casual Full-time, and Labour Hire categories. Male temporary workers tended to be younger, with more than a third (5/13) under age 30 for Casual Full-time, and even greater percentages for Casual Part-time and Labour Hire. Female Casual Part-time workers also tended to be younger, with 38.2% under age 30. Workers over age 30 made up large proportions of Fixed Term Contract holders.

Children at home: Permanent Part-time employees were most likely to be living with at least one child, while Casual Full-time employees were least likely, overall. Of women, those working Casual Part-time were most likely to be single with children, those working as Other Self-employed were most likely to be partnered with children, and those working Casual Full-time were least likely to live with children. Of men, those working for Labour Hire were most likely to be single and report children at home (22.2%, n = 4); however, all of these four were aged 18–24, suggesting that the children in their households were siblings or dependents of other adults in the household. Men working Permanent Full-time were most likely to be partnered with children, and men working Casual Part-time were least likely to live with children.

Education: Consistent with their age distribution, Fixed Term Contract holders were more likely to hold a bachelor degree or higher than any other category, while Casual Full-time employees were most likely to have less than a high school education.

Location: Casual Full-time employees and Own Account Self-employed were more likely to live outside of Melbourne than other categories of workers. Workers living outside of Melbourne were less likely to hold Permanent Full-time jobs, while those living in Melbourne were more likely to be hired out by a Labour Hire agency.

When job insecurity was assessed across the eight employment status categories, we found prominent divisions between the Other Self-employed (least insecure), permanent and non-permanent (most insecure) categories (Table 3). Permanent Full-time employees reported slightly higher job insecurity than did Part-time Permanent employees. When Labour Hire and Fixed Term Contract employees were divided by weekly hours worked to create a 10-way employment status category variable, Labour Hire Part-time and Fixed Term Part-time employees reported substantially higher job insecurity relative to Casual Part-time (Table 4). Significant associations were found with job insecurity using each of the employment status category variables (8-way and 10-way). Using the 10-way typology, we found more striking similarities than differences in job characteristics (e.g., income, weekly hours, occupation, union membership) between the Labour Hire sub-categories and between the Fixed Term Contract sub-categories, and so we opted to retain the 8-way variable.