Job insecurity causes far reaching negative outcomes. The fear of job loss damages the health of employees and reduces the productivity of firms. Thus, job insecurity should result in increasing social costs. Analyzing representative data from 17 European countries, this paper investigates self perceived job insecurity. Our multi level analysis reveals significant crosscountry differences in individuals? perception of job insecurity. This finding is not only driven by social-structural or institutional differences, but job insecurity is also shown to be affected by cultural characteristics.