Exploring the risk-taking tendency among migrant workers in the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of ontological security

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the social environment of most laborers around the world and has profoundly affected people’s ontological security and behavior choices. Among them, the migrant workers are one of the groups most affected by the pandemic. OBJECTIVE: This study explored t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Work (Reading, Mass.) Mass.), 2021-01, Vol.68 (2), p.269-283
Main Authors: Yang, Qiang, Huo, Jiale, Xi, Yue
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
China
Cognitive ability
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - prevention & control
COVID-19 - transmission
Employment
Experimental methods
Female
Humans
Male
Mental Health - statistics & numerical data
Middle Aged
Migrant workers
Ontology
Pandemics
Perception
Risk
Risk taking
SARS-CoV-2
Scarcity
Security
Social environment
Social Security - statistics & numerical data
Social Values
Transients and Migrants - psychology
Transients and Migrants - statistics & numerical data
Workers
Workplace
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Summary:BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the social environment of most laborers around the world and has profoundly affected people’s ontological security and behavior choices. Among them, the migrant workers are one of the groups most affected by the pandemic. OBJECTIVE: This study explored the mechanism of the impact of the scarcity of ontological security caused by the pandemic on the risk-taking tendency of migrant workers in China through two studies. METHODS: This study adopts two experimental method, with 514 participants in the first study and 357 participants in the second study. RESULTS: The results show that the pandemic-induced scarcity perception of ontological security promotes their risk-taking tendency, and the migrant workers’ cognitive reflection ability, sense of unfairness and expected benefits play a significant mediating role in this process. The scarcity perception of ontological security promotes migrant workers’ risk-taking tendency by reducing the cognitive reflection ability, triggering the sense of unfairness and overstating expected benefits. CONCLUSIONS: The conclusion of this study can help migrant workers, enterprises and government to avoid potential workplace and social bad behavior.
ISSN:1051-9815
1875-9270
DOI:10.3233/WOR-205017