Precarious Job Conditions and Symptoms of Anxiety among Employed Women and Men

• In Event: 598 - Section on Sociology of Mental Health Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Employment and Work

Abstract

Arne Kalleberg has shown that in the mid-1970s, jobs in the United States became more precarious and less secure, with increasing time pressures and demands from employers who paid their employees less wages. However, Kalleberg has not examined the effects of precarious job conditions on anxiety and other mental health problems. This paper begins such an assessment.
Data was collected during the summer and fall of 1978 in the three-county central area of metropolitan Detroit, consisting of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties. A sample of 1,367 employed women and men (N=1,367) were interviewed by the Policy Research Corporation, with a completion rate of 70 percent. OLS regression was used to predict anxiety symptoms.
Our OLS regression models indicate that economic strain (not having enough money for food, medical care and clothing), job competition, time pressure stress, being held accountable for things beyond one’s control, and low job satisfaction are significantly related to symptoms of anxiety in both women and men (and job insecurity is significantly related to anxiety symptoms among the women). In addition, household work, low overall household work satisfaction, and the absence of children in the household are significantly related to symptoms of anxiety in both women and men. Gender role attitudes of some of the respondents are important for understanding the effects of household work and the absence of children in the household.

Authors

• Douglas A. Parker, California State University-Long Beach

• Autumn Deer McClellan, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill