Gender aspects of self-reported stress

Source: Bonke and Gerstoft, 2005

As shown in Table 2, the number of weekly working hours, contrary to expectation, has no direct impact on stress levels. Similarly, the amount of household work is negatively correlated to stress: those doing more household work seem to have lower levels of stress. At first sight, these results seem to question much of the theory and evidence regarding the work-life balance issue. However, when the data are examined more closely, they reveal that the timing of activities has a considerable impact on stress levels: constantly having to rush implies increases in stress. This increase is only statistically significant for women, indicating that women undertake more household work than men do, and that work-life balance related problems are more prevalent for women.

Moreover, the table shows that, for women, levels of stress increase with household disposable income. According to the report, the reason for this might be that income often correlates with working time: the richer people are, in terms of money, the scarcer leisure time typically becomes. People with higher incomes thus face a time constraint that might lead to increases in experiencing stress.

At first, this finding appears to contradict the data presented in Table 1, which indicate that there are no substantial differences between single and double-income couples in reporting stress. The finding that stress increases with disposable income suggests that it is necessary to distinguish between the two groups. It seems most likely that different stress factors have different impacts depending on the occupational situation. Even though the reported stress levels are similar, they may reflect completely different determinants.

For women, their partner’s behaviour also influences the experience of stress. The husband’s contribution to household work lessens the level of stress for women. On the other hand, the opposite seems to have no effect on stress levels for men. However, none of these effects are significant.

With regard to the variables, health, marital status and urbanisation, good health decreases significantly the likelihood of being stressed for both sexes. Indeed, according to the study, the most important determinant of stress might be poor health. Marriage decreases men’s stress levels, while living in a metropolitan area increases women’s stress more than men.

Surprisingly, the survey finds that the only stress-influencing variable directly related to the organisation of work is the flexibility of working time. In this, opposite tendencies may be seen for men and women. More flexibility in terms of working time reduces stress levels for men, whereas women are more likely to report stress when working times are flexible. However, this is not statistically significant in the case of the women.

When information on satisfaction is taken into account in the explanation of self-perceived stress, it becomes clear that not being satisfied with one’s economic situation increases the likelihood of reporting stress for both men and women, though this is only barely the case for men. Furthermore, not being satisfied with the number of working hours also affects perceived stress, suggesting that the number of working hours, according to what is individually viewed as appropriate, has an impact on well-being.

About the study

In the study, stress is measured through the respondents’ self-reported experiences of stress, rather than measuring different symptoms of illness and behavioural problems. Thus, it is based on a subjective rather than objective stress index. The data are based on two questions, ‘How often do you feel stressed?’ (Almost never stressed/sometimes stressed/nearly always stressed) and ‘Under what circumstances?’ (When shopping/at work/at home/on the way to and from work/in other situations/always).

The study Stress, time use and gender (630Kb pdf) can be downloaded at the Danish National Institute of Social Research website.