Willing Slaves by Madeleine Bunting

Author:Madeleine Bunting [Madeleine Bunting ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007405305
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Stress has risen across the board in all occupations, and is now cited by 36 per cent of professionals, 34 per cent of managers and 22 per cent of skilled workers. Three of the ten occupations with the highest rates of stress are in education, and five in the top twenty:5 Jane has plenty of company for her predicament. Forty-one per cent of those who work in education report a high level of stress, well ahead of any other occupational category (for nursing the figure is 31.5 per cent, and for management 27.8 per cent).6 Professor Michael Rose of Bath University researched stress for the Economic Social Research Council, and concluded that the education system ‘arguably lies at the core of the national stress problem’.7 Working in the public sector increases your chances of stress: nearly 40 per cent of the NHS’s workforce report stress, as do 30 per cent of employees in local government. In comparison, the private sector is doing much better, with only 21 per cent of workers reporting stress. You have a higher chance of stress if you have a degree, and are divorced, separated or widowed.8 Stress levels are highest for those in their forties, although they are rising fast in younger age groups: the number of ‘twenty-somethings’ affected by workplace stress doubled in 2001-02, according to one study.9 Stress is twice as likely for those in full-time as in part-time employment, but there is no significant difference in incidence between the sexes, nor in geographical location.

The most striking finding of the research is that stress is often the price of success. The higher your salary, the greater chance you have of stress, while assembly-line workers, cleaners and shelf-fillers are the kinds of jobs which report the lowest levels of stress. Nearly a third of people earning over £20,000 a year have high levels of stress – three times the proportion of those on salaries below £10,000.10 Interestingly, when this high-income bracket is broken down, it’s the middle-ranking managerial and technical category which suffers the highest stress levels, rather than those at the very top. The twenty-five most stressful jobs are all white-collar and mostly professional-managerial, found Professor Rose, who comments unsympathetically that ‘For the most part, they are at least well compensated both financially and in terms of status for so often living on their nerve endings.’ He found that these high levels of stress are not incompatible with job satisfaction – work can be stressful and enjoyable at the same time. But he also found that high levels of job satisfaction do not necessarily translate into high scores on the scale of contentment. An exciting, demanding job may be enjoyable and rewarding, but it won’t necessarily make you happy. In fact, contrary to what might be expected, well-being seems to be related to less job satisfaction, claims Rose: ‘Employees with low job satisfaction have high feel-good scores and vice versa.’ Six of the ten occupations with the highest proportions of ‘happy’ workers were

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