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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1463868
This article is part of the Research Topic The Interplay of Stress, Health, and Well-being: Unraveling the Psychological and Physiological Processes - Volume II View all 24 articles

Gender-specific perception of job stressors and resources -a structural equation model model-based secondary analysis

Provisionally accepted
Martin Lange Martin Lange 1*Angelina Heub Angelina Heub 1Andrea Schaller Andrea Schaller 2
  • 1 IST Hochschule für Management, Duesseldorf, Germany
  • 2 Munich University of the Federal Armed Forces, Neubiberg, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: Stress is an extensive issue in modern society, affecting men and women differently. A better understanding of these patterns is required within the work context. Therefore, this study aimed to identify gender differences in the effects of stressors (quantitative demands, qualitative demands, working time) and resources (job control, quality of leadership, co-worker support) on subjective perceived stress across occupational groups. Methods: This study was conducted as a secondary data analysis based on the ‘German Study on Mental Health at Work’ data. The national representative cross-sectional sample included 4,118 employees. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results: Correlations between quantitative demands, working time, co-worker support, quality of leadership, job control, and subjective perceived stress were first confirmed for a total sample of employees. Gender differences in these interactions were then analyzed using multi-group equation modeling and a gender-stratified sample. Men and women showed an increase in subjective perceived stress for high quantitative demands. This increase was more prominent for men. Women further showed an increase in subjective perceived stress in response to long working time. High co-worker support, quality of leadership, and job control had stress-reducing effects but did not result in significant gender differences. No association was found between qualitative demands and subjective perceived stress. Conclusion: The results underline that not all working conditions significantly impact stress for both genders and gender differences exist only within the stressors. Hence, gendered strategies may only be required in some constellations. However, specific contexts require integrating gendered approaches in research and operational practice.

    Keywords: stress, gender, job demands, Work, Leadership, work time, Coworker support

    Received: 12 Jul 2024; Accepted: 29 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lange, Heub and Schaller. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Martin Lange, IST Hochschule für Management, Duesseldorf, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.