Use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches to study job stress in different gender and occupational groups.

Abstract

Gender differences in job stress were investigated, collecting both qualitative (stressful incidents at work) and quantitative (rating scales of commonly experienced job stressors and strains) data from a sample of university employees. Content analyses of the qualitative data revealed 5 major job stressors, 5 major psychological strains, and 4 major physical strains experienced by both genders. When comparisons are made between men and women on their job stress experiences, a potential confounder is occupation, for which the authors controlled. While the authors controlled for occupation, women reported more overall psychological strains (as indicated by the qualitative data) and depression (as indicated by the quantitative data) than did men. Conversely, while the authors controlled for gender, faculty reported more anger and less frustration (as indicated by the qualitative data) and less turnover intentions (as indicated by the quantitative data) than did support staff. In this study, both qualitative and quantitative data indicated interaction effects between gender and occupation in predicting job stressors and strains. Finally, there was a stronger relation between interpersonal conflicts and negative emotions/job satisfaction were stronger for faculty than for staff.