Temporary employees rank lower than permanent employees on various measures of mental and physical health, including well-being. In parallel, much research has shown that the relationship between age and well-being traces an approximate U-shape, with a nadir in midlife. Temporary employment may well have different associations with well-being across the lifespan, likely harming people in midlife more than at the start of their working lives. Using over twenty years of the German Socio-economic panel (SOEP), this investigation considers the relationship between temporary employment, age and well-being. In doing so, it both sheds new light on the relationship between temporary employment and well-being, and explores systematic differences for the oft-found U-shaped relationship between age and well-being. The results show that temporary employment deepens the U-shape in midlife, and that this result holds when many socioeconomic factors as well as the industry, region, cohort, personality, worries about the present job and about being able to finding another job are taken into account. Furthermore, the investigation considers transitions between permanent and temporary employment and uses these to assess causation and selection.

在包括身心健康在内的各种心理和身体健康指标上，临时雇员的排名低于长期雇员。同时，大量研究表明，年龄与幸福感之间的关系大致呈U形，在中年时达到最低点。临时就业可能与整个人生的幸福感有着不同的关联，可能比中年开始时对中年人的伤害更大。该调查使用了德国社会经济专家组（SOEP）二十多年的经验，研究了临时就业，年龄和幸福感之间的关系。这样做既为临时就业与福祉之间的关系提供了新的思路，也为年龄与福祉之间常见的U形关系探索了系统的差异。结果表明，临时就业加深了中年人的U形，并且当许多社会经济因素以及行业，地区，队列，性格，对当前工作的担忧以及是否能够找到另一份工作时，这一结果成立考虑在内。此外，调查还考虑了永久性和临时性就业之间的过渡，并使用这些过渡来评估因果关系和选择。