Abstract
The high level of stress among teachers is a frequently reported problem globally but less is known about how demands and resources among teachers affect depressive symptoms, and to what extent gender differences in these conditions can explain potential differences in depressive symptoms. The present study investigated gender differences in teachers’ self-reported depressive symptoms, and differences in their demands and resources in both work and home spheres. Associations between demands and resources, respectively, and depressive symptoms as well as gender differences in these associations were examined. Results from univariate and parallel growth modelling (N = 1,022), using data from six time points (2008 to 2018), found higher levels of depressive symptoms, higher emotional and quantitative work demands, and more time doing unpaid work among female teachers, whereas male teachers reported more time on leisure activities. Emotional and quantitative work demands were associated with depressive symptoms at baseline, and these associations also developed in parallel over time. Leisure time had a negative association with depressive symptoms at baseline. There were no gender differences in the strength of these associations. Findings suggest that gender differences in teachers’ depressive symptoms could be attributable to women’s greater demands in the work sphere and fewer resources in the home sphere than men as opposed to their being more vulnerable to workplace stressors.
Highlights
According to national-level data from Sweden, teachers are among those professionals who have the highest prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses and report the poorest psychosocial working conditions (Swedish Social Insurance Agency, 2014)
We investigated the development of demands and resources in paid and unpaid work, whether these trends were related to the development of depressive symptoms, and whether there were gender differences in associations between teachers’ demands and resources and their depressive symptoms
Our finding that depressive symptoms slightly decreased over time for female teachers – besides the observed link to the development in both emotional and quantitative work demands over time – may be explained by the fact that the respondents grow older and psychiatric diagnoses are most common among the “younger” age group of 30–49 years, and between 30–39 years (Lidwall & Olsson-Bohlin, 2016). This may have been reflected in the study sample, because 1) we found that older female teachers compared to younger peers reported lower depressive symptoms and 2) during the study period the mean age changed from 46 to 56 years for female teachers, indicating that a change towards lower depressive symptoms across time may be associated with the increasing age of the study population
Summary
According to national-level data from Sweden, teachers are among those professionals who have the highest prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses and report the poorest psychosocial working conditions (Swedish Social Insurance Agency, 2014). In the present study we investigated whether the work environment, as well as conditions in the home sphere, differed between male and female teachers. The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker et al, 2003; Demerouti et al, 2001) provides a theoretical framework for understanding the relation between the work environment and depressive symptoms. The JD-R model postulates that psychosocial work characteristics, defined as job demands and job resources, have implications for workrelated outcomes through two rather independent processes (Bakker et al, 2005). These are 1) the health impairment process, basically stating that high job demands predict burnout, and 2) the motivational process, basically stating that high job resources predict work engagement (Bakker et al, 2014). Because work engagement has been found to negatively predict depressive symptoms
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