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Introduction It is the purpose of this paper to examine the issue of federal deficits from a general, and thus, a broader perspective than is traditionally employed. It is maintained in this paper that the deficit is not simply a “government” problem — because a representative government can do little to balance the budget if the people are doing all they can, not only to reduce their tax liabilities but also to demand a continuous increase of benefits from government. The deficit should thus be considered as a problem of the entire society and analysed accordingly. Also, it is not merely an economic problem, but also a moral problem. More specifically, from a general equilibrium viewpoint (i.e. both the public and the private sectors are considered), the federal budget deficit can be regarded as a consequence of a society that places a high value on individual economic freedom, economic efficiency, as well as on competition for economic success. This is the case because economic freedom and competition tend to create economic insecurity and immorality, both of which incline to cause government expenditures to increase, taxes to decrease, or both. Hence, a long term solution for budget shortfalls would depend upon the possibility of whether the society as a whole can be made more economically secure and moral without the unnecessary encroachment upon individual liberty and upon the opportunity for competitive success.

Employees today face a number of threats to their work and financial well-being (i.e., economic stress). In an aim to provide an agenda and theoretical framework for research on multilevel outcomes of economic stress, the current chapter considers how employees’ economic stress gives rise to emergent outcomes and how these emergent outcomes feed back to influence well-being. Specifically, we draw from Conservation of Resources theory to integrate competing theoretical perspectives with regard to employees’ behavioral responses to economic stress. As employees’ behaviors influence those with whom they interact, we propose that behavioral responses to economic stress have implications for group-level well-being (e.g., interpersonal climate, cohesion) and group-level economic stress. In turn, group-level and individual-level behavioral outcomes influence well-being and economic stress in a multilevel resource loss cycle. We discuss potential opportunities and challenges associated with testing this model as well as how it could be used to examine higher-level emergent effects (e.g., at the organizational level).

Precarity is a condition that exists when there is little predictability or security with respect to people’s material well-being or psychological welfare. It is a condition that often increases during times of economic uncertainty. But there can be a paradox associated with precarity: the sense of doom can become worse even as objective conditions improve.

Using data from the 2006–2012 American National Election Surveys and other sources, this chapter examines precarity and economic insecurity in the United States before and during the Obama era. It provides an overview of patterns that undergird the sense of insecurity by presenting trends in economic well-being before, during, and after the Great Recession.

The results show that supporters of President Obama were more optimistic about the future. Those who voted for Bush, despite precarity is a racialized, politicized, and partisan condition. It is not simply based on objective conditions. Precarity has far-reaching social effects.

Current perceptions of insecurity are complex and cannot be traced to a single source such as precarity at work. The problem of economic insecurity provides some formidable challenges to policymakers concerned with reducing the waste of human capabilities. Ultimately, the only true solution for precarity is sustained, vigorous economic growth with fairness for all, but how to get there and to get people to believe that such growth is real and sustainable remain a challenge.

This paper aims to examine the prospect of utilising corporate social responsibility and entrepreneurship (CSRE) as antidotes for mitigating the incidences of poverty, insecurity and underdevelopment in Nigeria. The paper derives its theoretical foundation from the stakeholder, instrumental and legitimacy theories, which all justify the use of CSRE for actualisation of Triple Bottom Line (i.e. the social, economic and environmental concerns of business organisations).

The study used the quantitative research method relying on the use of secondary data published by institutional bodies. The quantitative method entail a systematic extraction of reliable data on corporate social responsibility (CSR), insecurity, poverty and development from the publications of Office of the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria, CLEEN Foundation, National Bureau of Statistics and Central Bank of Nigeria, respectively. For missing years, the authors improvised using projections as well as proxies. The extracted data, which spanned a period of 13 years, were subjected to econometric tests using SPSS, on the basis of which informed conclusions were drawn.

The first econometric result indicates a negative relationship between gross domestic product and poverty. The second result indicates that there is a positive significant relationship between gross domestic product and total crime rate. The third result indicates that there exists a positive relationship between gross domestic product and unemployment rate. The fourth result indicates that there is a negative relationship between gross domestic product and industrial growth rate. The last result indicates that there is a significant positive relationship between gross domestic product and CSR.

The results of this research have macro-level application, hence the outcomes cannot be narrowed to any particular sector of the economy. A micro-level analysis across diverse sectors of the economy is recommended in future studies. The implication of this empirical research is that policymakers in the Nigerian private sector need to reinvent their CSR programmes as mechanisms for poverty eradication, entrepreneurship development (CSRE), dousing tension of restive youth, empowerment/support for security agencies for better crime prevention and for impacting on sustainable development.

In the face of dwindling financial resources in the treasury of governments, the reinvention of CSRE by private sector organisations as complementary mechanisms for combating social problems is becoming acceptable in both developed and developing nations. This paper therefore boldly recommends that policymakers reinvent CSRE as development mechanisms through a sound partnership between government, advocacy groups and business corporations in Nigeria.

The paper explicates that CSR can indeed be reinvented by corporations as part of their social concerns to their operating environment instead of leaving all social problems to governments.

The research lends credence to stakeholder, instrumental and legitimacy theories of CSR. It also justifies the plausibility of CSRE, a novel concept being promoted in this research.

Economic stressors such as job insecurity, job loss, unemployment, and underemployment cause severe difficulties for the workers affected, their families, organizations, and societies overall. Consequently, most past research has taken a thoroughly negative perspective on economic stress, addressing its diverse negative consequences and the ways that people try to cope with them. And even when following the advice provided by the scientific literature, people affected by economic stress will usually end up being off worse than they were before the onset of the stressor.

The current chapter pays credit to this perspective yet also tries to counterbalance it with an alternative one. While acknowledging the vast amount of literature outlining the negative consequences of economic stress on peoples’ well-being and careers, some literature also points at opportunities for a more positive perspective. More specifically, we argue that affected people can use a wide repertoire of behaviors for handling their current situation. Of particular promise in this regard is the concept of career adaptability, generally defined as the ability to change to fit into new career-related circumstances. Indeed, studies show that under certain conditions, career adaptability can facilitate people's search for not just any job but for a qualitatively better job, thus breaking through the spiral of losses usually associated with economic stress.

For the purpose of this argument, we link career adaptability to the concept of proactive coping, analyzing how and under which conditions career adaptability may present a contextualized form of proactive coping. We then address known personal and situational antecedents of career adaptability and show how career adaptability may be fostered and trained among different types of job seekers. We end this chapter with a discussion of open questions as well as directions for future research.

International security is a constant threat to the pursuit of economic optimum. In the traditional economic analysis history, states are seen as agents in constant search for power, which leads to the emergence of conflicts of interests. The modern concept of security can be defined as the economic study of all the risks of short, medium and long term on the functioning of economic and social life. It can be divided into four sublevels: individual security, national security, international security and global security. The adoption of an enlarged approach to international security by integrating economic and environmental conditions highlights the expression of new collective priorities. Today, theories of security take into account the economic, human and social relationships, societal priorities and the balance of power in the international system. Human security implies a multi-disciplinary analysis, including human rights, state organisation, international relations and strategic studies. Security and sustainable development are deeply interconnected, which involves bearable production conditions for the environment in the long term, the end of extreme poverty, the creation of social stability and the rejection of discrimination.

Water insecurity is a big threat and a defining global challenge that causes social dilemma in the society. Analyzing all the previous chapters in this volume, this final chapter will discuss water use and its consequence of social dilemma, the key lessons and observations that trigger water insecurity, major challenges and success factors toward water insecurity, and how water insecurity can be minimized through the involvement of community people, and improvement of social stability in the form of common understanding. This chapter also emphasizes the linkage between local and national levels by the development of Integrated Water Resource Management both in quantity and quality aspects.

Extant literature indicates the influence of anxiety on job insecurity (JI). However, the effect of financial anxiety (FA) on JI has received lesser attention. Further, there is a dearth of literature on this relationship during a global crisis, such as COVID-19, and more so in the Indian context. This study attempts to empirically explore the relationship between FA and JI in presence of moderators, such as gender, tenure and individual annual income.

Data were collected from 584 employees engaged in remote working in the information technology (IT) sector in India during the COVID-19 crisis. The data were analysed using SPSS 25 and AMOS 24. A hierarchical regression method was followed to test the hypothesis. In step 1, JI was regressed on FA in presence of control variables. In step 2, moderators, such as gender, tenure and individual annual income, were entered along with interaction terms.

Findings revealed a significant positive relation between FA and JI. The moderating effects of gender, tenure and annual income on the relationship between FA and JI were significant and interesting.

The paper empirically studies the role of FA on JI of Indian IT employees during COVID- 19. It is a response to researchers' call to integrate the effect of different moderators on the relationship between FA and JI during a crisis that has direct impacts on both. The influence of moderators on JI was interesting in the reversal effects produced.

The experience of the first decade of state independence changed the mood of the Ukrainian people from hope and enthusiasm to frustration and apathy. The reasons for this are manifold, including widespread corruption and the evident failure of Ukrainian democracy. For most families, the major challenge was the severe economic crisis of the 1990s. A combination of factors led to economic decline and stagnation, a dramatic decrease in the standards of living, and economic and social insecurity. Firstly, the Soviet system and its common economic space of which the Ukraine was a deeply integrated member, collapsed. Following this downfall, there was a persisting dependence on Russia in terms of oil and gas supplies. What is more, Ukrainians lacked a clear strategy for economic reforms and a political will to enforce them. Finally, a business elite, interested in suspending privatization and in blocking the implementation of a viable rule of law, was formed. Although the official unemployment rate is rather low (3.8% in 2002), the estimated rate according to the ILO (International Labour Office) methodology is over 9.8% (Uryadovy Kuryer, 28.02.2003). Estimations including those who are employed but on “administrative leave” raise the total unemployment rate to almost 24% (ILO, 2001). Permanent delays in the payments of salaries, pensions and social allowances became normal practice during the 1990s. Moreover, inflation and monetary reform devaluated the saving of most families. Economic insecurity forced many to look for low wage jobs and to enter informal and often illegal businesses. Between 1.5 and 2 million Ukrainians are working abroad, most of them in the low-skilled labor force.