Perceived employability and well-being: An overview

This article aims to provide an overview of research, theoretically and empirically, on the relationship between perceived employability and well-being, with a view on arriving at suggestions for future research and implications for practice. Perceived employability concerns individuals’ perception of their possibilities to obtain and maintain employment. A major hypothesis in the employability literature is that perceived employability causes well-being. Theoretically, the dominant assumption is that perceived employability provides individuals with feelings of control over their employment situation, which in turn promotes well-being. However, one could also argue for reversed causation, when well-being promotes perceived employability. Taken together, this may suggest reciprocal causation. Empirically, evidence for the relationship between perceived employability and well-being remains inconclusive, both concerning the strength and the direction of the relationship.