This thesis investigates how the experience of labour market insecurity affects individuals’ life courses and family lives in the UK. It focuses on unemployment and temporary work as the two sources of insecurity and examines their consequences on partnership formation, transition into parenthood, the well-being within family, and partnership dissolution. It follows a longitudinal approach and uses a sample from the BHPS. The results showed that unemployment has serious negative consequences for individuals’ family outcomes. Temporary work also has some negative outcomes, particularly for the vulnerable groups. Unemployment and temporary employment seem to discourage young adults to form marital unions, whereas especially for the young and non-married men unemployment increased the risk of fatherhood. Temporary work has a similar effect for those with no educational qualification, who are more likely to have their first child. Unemployed individuals and their spouses report a drop in their life-satisfaction, psychological well-being and are more likely to feel depressed, and they face a greater risk of marital separation. Male temporary work is associated with poorer well-being for the low-skilled employees and those who report subjective job insecurity. The wives of men working on temporary contracts also suffer from a decline in the well-being. The thesis also looked into the consequences of insecurity at the couple level. Contrary to our initial assumption, dual-insecurity - where both of the spouses are in insecure employment - does not have the strongest effect on the family. Rather, role-reversal between the spouses has the largest impact for family outcomes. When a male partner is unemployed and the female partner is employed, or when the male partner is working on temporary basis and the female partner is working on permanent basis, then the couple delays transition into parenthood, it suffers from a decline in the well-being, and it is more likely to separate.

Die klassische oekonomische Theorie behauptet, dass Teams und Partnerschaften (Teilhaberschaften) vom Trittbrettfahrerproblem betroffen sind und dass kapitalistische Unternehmen besser in der Lage sind, Spieler zu gewuenschten Handlungen zu motivieren. Dies steht jedoch im Widerspruch zur Popularitaet von Teams und Partnerschaften als Organisationsform. Diese Dissertation zeigt, dass Teams und Partnerschaften keine nachteiligen Organisationsformen sind. Sie traegt verschiedenen Faktoren Rechnung, die großen Einfluss auf die Anreize zur Anstrengung haben, aber in der Literatur weitgehend vernachlaessigt wurden: 1) Turniereffekte in Teams; 2) soziale Praeferenzen; 3) Aufloesung einer Partnerschaft. Ob effiziente Anstrengung (Investition) erreicht werden kann, haengt entscheidend davon ab, welche Mechanismen angewandt werden um den Arbeitserfolg von Teams zu verteilen bzw. um eine Partnerschaft aufzuloesen. Wenn ein verrauschtes Signal der Rangfolge der Anstrengungen beobachtbar und kontrahierbar ist, dann kann effiziente Anstrengung als symmetrisches Gleichgewicht immer erreicht werden - durch Anwendung von Rangfolge-Turnieren zur Verteilung des Arbeitserfolges des Teams. Wenn die Spieler beschraenkt haftbar sind, dann muss die Rangfolge-Technologie hinreichend genau sein um effiziente Anstrengung zu generieren. Wenn die Spieler soziale Praeferenzen haben, kann effiziente Anstrengung erreicht werden durch Vereinbarung von zufaelliger Bestrafung. Wenn eine Partnerschaft von moeglicher Aufloesung bedroht ist, dann kann effiziente Investition und Aufloesung der Partnerschaft mit Hilfe eines Optionsvertrages erreicht werden. Am haeufigsten verwendet und empfohlen ist die "Texas shoot-out"-Aufloesungsregel ("Buy-sell-Regel"). Sie ist jedoch ineffizient, da sie entweder zu ueberinvestition in Verbindung mit effizienter Aufloesung oder zu Unterinvestition kombiniert mit exzessiver Aufloesung fuehrt. / Classic economic theory claims that teams and partnerships are inflicted with free-riding incentives and are inferior to capitalist firms in eliciting proper actions from players. This contradicts the popularity of teams and partnerships as organization forms. By accounting for several factors that may significantly affect effort provision (investment) but have been generally neglected in the literature: 1) tournament effect within teams; 2) other-regarding preferences; 3) possible dissolution of a partnership, this dissertation shows that teams and partnerships are not handicapped organization forms. Whether efficient efforts provision (investment) is achieved or not depends critically on the mechanisms employed in the allocation of team output and dissolution of a partnership. If some noisy ranking of efforts is observable and contractible, efficient provision of efforts can always be achieved in symmetric equilibrium by using rank-order tournaments to allocate the team output. If the players are subjected to limited liability, achievement of efficiency requires sufficient accuracy of the ranking technology. If the players show other-regarding preferences, efficient provision of efforts can be achieved through a randomly punishing contract. If the partnership faces possible dissolution, efficient investment and dissolution can be achieved through an option contract. However, the most widely used and recommended dissolution rule "buy-sell provision" fails to achieve efficiency as it leads to either excessive investment combined with efficient dissolution or underinvestment combined with excessive dissolution.