(WPO4) Work, Stress, and Health

This session will include presentations focused on the work environment as a key social determinant of health. From a sociological perspective, the work role is a major source of identity for many individuals; as such, it is also a source of stress throughout the life course. This session invites papers that explore the impact of work-related stressors on various dimensions of health and well-being. Relevant questions broadly include: (1) What sorts of job conditions are particularly harmful to workers, and what mechanisms connect these conditions to health? (2) What resources protect workers from the deleterious consequences of work-related stressors? (3) How might we contextualize job conditions and situate them in broader systems of stratification that influence health and well-being? (4) How do new forms of work shape job conditions and, ultimately, health disparities? Tags: Health and Care, Work And Professions

Organizer: Philip Badawy, University of Alberta; Chair: Philip Badawy, University of Alberta

Presentations

Alexander Wilson, University of Toronto

Work as Crisis Resource or Restraint: What Job Qualities Reduced Pandemic Powerlessness?

Research into work has uncovered many job qualities—lack of schedule control, little discretion, unmeetable demands, unjust pay—that increase a worker’s powerlessness over stressors within and outside the workplace. Confronted with destabilizing contexts such as COVID-19, however, the inverse side of that question has become just as important to answer: Can work qualities reduce perceived powerlessness over stressors experienced outside the workplace? This research investigates that question in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Building on theories of powerlessness, stratification, and work qualities, this study develops and tests a conceptual model of socio-structural positon and control before and amidst crisis. Using fixed effects regressions on nine waves of a nationally representative cohort of workers sampled before the pandemic in September 2019 to April 2021 (baseline, N = 4,990; nine pooled waves, n = 44,910), this paper analyzes the effect of work resources and restraints on individual changes in perceived powerlessness over the pandemic. The findings reveal that while the pandemic generally increased levels of powerlessness, work qualities like creative work, job autonomy, and schedule control are significantly associated with reduced powerlessness. Work constraints, on the other hand, like job insecurity, job pressure, and lack of schedule control, were associated with increases in powerlessness. The findings support the persisting relevance of work resources in mediating growth in powerlessness, even amidst the pandemic (Schieman and Narisada 2014). The temporal relationship between these work resources shows that powerlessness is a contingent process based on a combination of past status ascriptions and current socio-structural positions (Pearlin et al. 1997; Mirowsky and Ross 2013). Resourceful work, above and beyond education, appeared to serve as an environment where the worker retained and improved a sense of control despite the degrading effects of the pandemic. This finding exemplifies longitudinally Schieman and Narisada’s (2014:348) “resource hypothesis prediction" outside the workplace . Their hypothesis stipulates that job qualities such as autonomy, schedule control, creative work, and authority are associated with higher levels of control. Each of these job qualities operate as a resource that helps individuals ameliorate job demands, maintaining a sense of control as job demands grow. This studys findings, particularly the significance of creative work for reduced powerlessness, provides further evidence for the profound relationship between engaging work and the sense of control beyond the workplace, over and above adverse circumstances. The increase or decline of powerlessness by socio-structural position means that a corollary to the stress process was taking place throughout the pandemic–an unequal powerlessness process that occurs through pyschological resources. Much like a rope tethers a boat to the harbour, the “cognitive link” between environment and agency which powerlessness represents can be unwound by the storm. The findings from this study suggest that resourceful work may be a key chain in that link, providing the buffering capacity to cope with threatening events. The results prompt more exploration into work resources that improve or maintain the sense of control during distressing contexts outside of work. In particular, it remains unclear whether work operates as a buffering mechanism or active coping mechanism to environmental threats. Future research could disentangle this through analysis of interactive effects between specific pandemic stressors, work qualities, and powerlessness.  

Ryan Joseph Duffy, York University

Precarious Work, Precarious Stress and Precarious Health: The interconnectedness of mental, physical and emotional health with the nature of precarious work

Work, stress and health are three words that I am deeply familiar with. The latter two, often paired with a negative adjective, seem to find their way into almost every sentence I utter and line that I write when asked to describe what it was like to work precariously at various colleges and in the service industry in Ontario for over a decade. Attempting to continue teaching outside of my PhD obligations proved disastrous for my mental health and job performance. As class sizes and workload doubled over the years due to online delivery modes, I found myself with classes of 55 students and my stress levels and anxiety grew significantly worse. Still, I tried to do both, wishing I had two TA-ships at the university instead of trying to find a way to get to different schools and campuses each day. Suddenly, I was managing 160 college students with the same pay and expectations as previous contracts with 100.  I was losing myself again. The nature of precarious work had done me in before, but I wanted to beat it. Suddenly, I found myself pushed to a new limit, and no further ahead in any other aspect of life other than having a year of PhD coursework behind me. Of which, I was very proud. However, I had become just a being in motion. I was aware I was falling apart again, but too scared to stop. I was in too deep. Finally, I was just not there anymore. I would like to point out that this presentation is not about my life story, however my own lived experience informs key aspects of it. Working precariously for so long, and my desire to know how others faced their lives living in precarity, greatly influenced my decision to enter the grueling and rewarding undertaking of graduate studies. I knew when I got in that I would be submitting to the commitment of dedicating a significant portion of my life to interrogating existing social policy surrounding precarious work and pay equity. This is the battle I have chosen to fight, a fight for real work-life balance and something better than being paid for only 42 weeks each year. This is a fight for people who can’t sleep at night or play with their kids because they are endlessly thinking about bills, groceries, rent and clothes. And there seems to be only one way to do this. For I believe that as it is with certain afflictive emotions that many precarious workers experience daily, such as fear, anger,  and insecurity – antiquated and deliberately unfair social policy - cannot withstand a direct gaze. To affect change requires staring at it eye to eye, and facing the problem directly, if meaningful change and real progress will ever be made. This presentation will discuss key findings of my masters RRP and ongoing PhD research which draws from literature, statistics and interviews written, compiled, and conducted by leading employment researchers in order to frame the precarious work environment as a key social determinant of health. My presentation aims to emphatically weave throughout its entirety an understanding of how interconnected mental, physical and emotional health complications are with the nature of precarious work. Throughout this presentation, I consider how specific characteristics of precarious work directly contribute to mental health complications and how stress may be uniquely experienced by precarious workers. In order to ground my presentation within a theoretical and historical context, I refer to Karl Marx’s concept of the industrial reserve army to help explain the prevalence, and low paying characteristics, of contemporary precarious work.  I also discuss how precarious work is often presented as a progressive, flexible and accommodating model of employment designed to benefit the employee; however, it is all too often, in fact, an employment condition that can drastically affect the health of workers, their families and communities that benefits the employer at the expense of the employees’ health in order to reduce labor costs (Vosko 2020). Precarious work is indeed a problem in Ontario, and I focus on this subset of the population as this is where I live, study, work and where I plan to conduct future research. I will also briefly explore the topic of precarious work within the context of OECD countries to further frame precarious work as a global issue. Toward its end, this presentation reveals a key insight from my research thus far; the discovery that employment insecurity - actual or perceived - has a profound, and almost equal, impact on the social, economic and psychological wellness of those who work within uncertain and changing conditions.

Noah Rodomar, Egale Canada; Brittany Jakubiec, Egale Canada

Examining employment-related stressors experienced by Two Spirit, trans, and nonbinary people in Canada in the Working For Change project

Two Spirit, trans, and nonbinary (2STNB) people in Canada face significant disparities when seeking and maintaining employment due to a range of barriers including both overt and covert discrimination, mental and physical health difficulties, and financial stressors related to the cost of transition. 2STNB workers are more likely to be subject to hiring discrimination, interpersonal harassment in the workplace, and unemployment because of the need to leave jobs that have proven hostile (Brennan et al., 2022; Kinitz et al., 2022). Furthermore, research demonstrates that 2SLGBTQI Canadians are overrepresented in precarious work, causing higher levels of stress due to financial insecurity (Kinitz et al., 2022). Using both a national survey (N = 555) and qualitative interviews (N = 79), the Working For Change project sought to better understand the employment experiences and barriers among 2STNB people in Canada. The overarching questions that guided our research were: What are the employment, underemployment, and unemployment experiences of 2STNB people? What forms of bias, discrimination, and violence are present in places of employment? Working For Change was conducted using a collaborative, community-based approach that sought the feedback of peer reviewers and recruitment assistance from other community organizations. Furthermore, our project was informed by intersectional theory, as Two Spirit identity is as much a racialized experience as a gendered one. Our findings show that most prominent barriers to gainful employment among 2STNB Canadians were related to disability and mental health challenges (see Rodomar et al., forthcoming). For participants, stress was generated from the workplace environment itself due to homophobic, transphobic, or racist coworkers, unsupportive supervisors, and discriminatory policies. Stress also originated from external difficulties, such as housing precarity or transphobic incidents outside of work, that then impacted participants' abilities to attend to their workplace responsibilities, which itself created stress within the workplace. We also found that 2STNB populations were subjected to high levels of stress both in and out of the workplace: even in workplaces that claimed to be trans-friendly, there were often policies that divided employees by gender (such as uniforms or bathrooms) or otherwise forced employees to out themselves (for example, requiring an employee's legal gender marker on applications or employee files). While 2STNB individuals are legally protected against discrimination in the workplace, this law is only effective if a worker's supervisor or human resources department is supportive and willing to act, which many noted to not be the case. Furthermore, if the perpetrator is the person to whom the employee would report any issues, workers are left with no recourse but to leave the workplace or pursue legal action, which is financially impossible for many. Even those who were able and chose to conceal their trans experience reported high levels of anxiety from the possibility of being outed against their will. Participants also frequently reported that they felt compelled to assume additional responsibilities outside of their job description--for example, serving on equity, diversity, and inclusion committees or providing education about gender to the rest of their workplace--overworking themselves, leading to more frequent cases of burnout. Across fields, working conditions for 2STNB employees caused additional stress in varying degrees due to a lack of understanding and accommodation for the needs of gender diverse people. Furthermore, 2STNB workers were also subjected to the same sources of workplace stress as cisgender workers, meaning that the volume of stressors was, for many, unmanageable, and eroded the possibility of financial security and the resulting health and wellness for 2STNB populations in Canada.

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Non-presenting authors: Dan Irving, Carleton University; Félix Desmeules-Trudel, Egale Canada; Ellie Maclennan, Toronto Metropolitan University

Isabella Matchett, Mount Allison University; Fab Antonelli, Mount Allison University

Unmasking the realities: A study of young service workers' experiences during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on workplaces, organizational processes, and workers. Due to rapid shifts in expectations, duties, and responsibilities, there has been a lack of clarity in defining roles, boundaries, and expectations for workers in relation to their employers, customers, and clients. These changes have resulted in increased stress, anxiety, and burnout among employees. What makes this particularly acute for young workers is the relative lack of power, control, and autonomy in their workplaces compared with older workers more established in their careers. Working in the service industry can be a challenging experience for young people, as the work tends to be precarious. Organizations tend to view young people as a transient labour force, leaving them vulnerable to unstable and exploitative working conditions. Young service workers are consistently navigating the expectations of their employers, managers, and customers. As a result, these workers must ensure that everyones expectations are met in ways that take considerable patience, determination, and hard work, all while engaging with public presentations and performances that keep them on the “front stage.” Despite these challenges, young people dominate work in the service industry as it is their primary way to gain valuable experience and income early in their career development. This paper presents the results of in-depth interviews conducted with eight university students between the ages of 18 and 25. The interviews focus on work experiences before and after the COVID-19 pandemic for young people engaged in paid work early in their career development. Specifically, this study examines the impact of the pandemic on the level of stress experienced by students working in entry-level service jobs. Based on the preliminary findings, it appears that the pandemic has put young service workers in exploitative work environments, leading to significant stress and health issues. For example, the workplace and social distancing protocols have added to the workers burden, creating additional stressors while dealing with customers and requiring them to perform duties outside their job description without adequate compensation. More importantly, participants have noted the challenges in addressing these workplace situations and have simply taken on the extra work and stress due to a perceived inability or a sense of futility to employ alternative approaches to their work. The studys results will shed light on the impact these experiences have on life course and career development and how measures employed during the pandemic may have impacted the relative power young service workers have in their workplaces.