Under-rewarded Boss: Gender, Workplace Power, and the Distress of Perceived Pay Inequity

• In Event: 230 - Section on Sociology of Mental Health Paper Session. Social Relationships and Mental Health

Abstract

What happens when the boss feels under-rewarded? The relationship between perceived pay inequity and distress depends on a complex intersection of job authority and income—and differences between women and men further complicate the narrative. Using data from the 2005 Work, Stress, and Health study (N = 1,476), we observe that job authority, income, and gender interact to modify the distress of under-reward. We examine anger and anxious malaise as two forms of distress. Among male managers, lower earnings exacerbate the anger associated with severe underpayment—but higher earnings have a protective function. Among female managers, the patterns are strikingly different: Levels of anger are highest among female managers who feel severely underpaid—and higher earnings exacerbate the pattern. The difference between higher earning male and female managers is dramatic: Among managers who feel underpaid, women average about 3.5 days per week of anger index compared to men’s one day per week of anger. Similar patterns are observed between male and female managers when we consider anxious malaise as the outcome. Importantly, these differences hold net of adjustments for the gender composition of the workplace role-set (e.g., superiors, subordinates), the gender composition of the occupation, and stress exposures (e.g., conflict at work, work-nonwork interference, time pressure). Collectively, our findings speak diverse social-psychological theoretical traditions related to distributive justice, status structures, expectations, and legitimacy. Moreover, our efforts dovetail with (and informed by) recent interest in the sociology of mental health about the gendered implications of the status-power nexus and emotional well-being.

Authors

• Scott Schieman, University of Toronto

• Atsushi Narisada, University of Toronto