What Causes Stress at Work?

From the ISSP Survey on Work Orientation

Abstract

The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute is a member of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), a cross-national collaboration group conducting surveys on social topics. This paper compares the results of the 2015 ISSP Survey on Work Orientation carried out in 31 countries/regions to examine Japanese people’s attitudes toward work and work stress factors.In Japan, roughly half of men and women respectively find their jobs stressful (“always” and “often” combined); the figures are higher than those in other countries. Regarding characteristics of jobs, while over 80% of respondents in developed countries feel “I can work independently,” those who feel so are 29% for men and 26% for women in Japan. The number of those who find their jobs “interesting” is also lower in Japan, compared to other countries.To study factors contributing to work stress, the author performed a multiple regression analysis, using data of Japan, the United States, Germany, and Norway. The results show that the feeling of “the demands of my job interfere with my family life” is a strong stress factor common to all four countries. In addition, Japanese people are more likely to feel stress by low autonomy of work or awareness that their jobs are uninteresting. For Japanese women, stress is also related to “not having a spouse.”