Job strain, effort-reward imbalance and employee well-being: a large-scale cross-sectional study

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Abstract

This study investigated the effects of the Job Demand-Control (JD-C) Model and the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model on employee well-being. A cross-sectional survey was conducted comprising a large representative sample of 11,636 employed Dutch men and women. Logistic regression analyses were used.

Controlling for job sector, demographic characteristics (including educational level) and managerial position, employees reporting high job demands (i.e. psychological and physical demands) and low job control had elevated risks of emotional exhaustion, psychosomatic and physical health complaints and job dissatisfaction (odds ratios ranged from 2.89 to 10.94). Odds ratios were generally higher in employees reporting both high (psychological and physical) efforts and low rewards (i.e. poor salary, job insecurity and low work support): they ranged from 3.23 to 15.43. Furthermore, overcommitted people had higher risks of poor well-being due to a high effort — low reward mismatch (ORs: 3.57–20.81) than their less committed counterparts (ORs: 3.01–12.71). Finally, high efforts and low occupational rewards were stronger predictors of poor well-being than low job control when both job stress models were simultaneously adjusted.

In conclusion, our findings show independent cumulative effects of both the JD-C Model and the ERI Model on employee well-being and are not significantly different in men and women as well as in young and old people. In particular, high (psychological and physical) efforts and low rewards adversely affected employee well-being. Preliminary findings also indicate excess risks of poor well-being in overcommitted persons suffering from high cost — low gain conditions at work.

Introduction

The relationship between job characteristics and employee well-being has attracted considerable attention in the job stress literature. A number of conceptual models have been developed that relate job characteristics to the health and well-being of working populations (cf. Cooper, 1998, Parker and Wall, 1998). Among these, two theoretical frameworks have been particularly successful in generating and guiding job stress research: the Job Demand-Control Model (Karasek, 1979, Karasek and Stellman, 1998, Karasek and Theorell, 1990) and the Model of Effort-Reward Imbalance at work (Siegrist et al., 1986, Siegrist, 1996, Siegrist and Cooper, 1998).

The Job Demand-Control (JD-C) Model is a situation-centred model on which much of the current job stress research is based. In its basic form, the JD-C Model postulates that the primary sources of job stress lie within two basic characteristics of the job itself: (1) “psychological job demands” and (2) “job decision latitude” or “job control”. Psychological job demands, or workload, are defined by Karasek (1979) as psychological stressors present in the work environment (e.g. high pressure of time, high working pace, difficult and mentally exacting work). The term “job decision latitude” has been described as the worker's ability to control his own activities and skill usage (Karasek and Theorell, 1990). Psychological strains are a consequence of the joint effects of the demands of a job and the range of job control available to the employee. These joint effects are also called interaction effects. The first major prediction of the JD-C Model is that the strongest adverse strain reactions (e.g. poor subjective health) will occur when job demands are high and worker's control is low (i.e. so-called high strain jobs). The second prediction of the model is that work motivation, learning and growth will occur in situations where both job demands and worker's control are high (i.e. so-called active jobs). Recent reviews of the model contend that the JD-C Model is appropriate for further investigation since the model has been shown to predict health and both motivational and productivity outcomes (e.g. see Bosma et al., 1997, van der Doef and Maes, 1998, Hemingway et al., 1998, de Jonge and Kompier, 1997, Kristensen, 1995, Kristensen, 1996, Schnall et al., 1994).

An alternative theoretical model, the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model (Siegrist, 1996, Siegrist and Cooper, 1998) puts its emphasis on the reward rather than the control structure of work (Marmot et al., 1999). Additionally, the model also includes personal characteristics (i.e. a specific coping pattern).

The focus of the ERI Model is put on the centrality of paid employment in adult life. The model posits that effort at work is spent as part of a socially organized exchange process to which society at large contributes in terms of occupational rewards. Rewards are distributed to employees by three transmitter systems: money (i.e. adequate salary), esteem (e.g. respect and support) and security/career opportunities (e.g. promotion prospects, job security and status consistency). The ERI Model claims that lack of reciprocity between ‘costs’ and ‘gains’ (i.e. high effort/low reward conditions) may cause a state of emotional distress which can lead to cardiovascular risks and other strain reactions (like poor subjective health and sickness absence). Having a demanding, but unstable job, achieving at a high level without being offered any promotion aspects, are examples of stressful imbalance.

Importantly, the ERI Model makes an explicit distinction between extrinsic (situational) and intrinsic (personal) components of effort-reward imbalance. It assumes that a combination of both sources provides a more accurate estimate of experienced stress than a restriction to one of these sources. Extrinsic or situational components consist of efforts (like psychological and physical demands at work) and the three dimensions of occupational rewards mentioned above. No a priori specification is made concerning adverse health effects of different types of both demands and rewards. Rather, it is the mismatch between high cost spent and low gain received which matters most. With regard to intrinsic or personal components, a specific pattern of coping with job demands and of eliciting rewards, termed ‘overcommitment’ is introduced. This pattern of coping defines a set of attitudes, behaviors and emotions reflecting excessive striving in combination with a strong desire of being approved and esteemed. People characterised by overcommitment tend to exaggerate their efforts. There is evidence that excessive efforts result from perceptual distortion (e.g. underestimation of challenge) which in turn may be triggered by an underlying motivation of experiencing esteem and approval (Siegrist, 1996).

The number of published empirical studies with the ERI Model are growing rapidly and the combination of high effort and low reward at work was found to be a risk factor for cardiovascular health, subjective health, mild psychiatric disorders and reported symptoms (e.g. Bosma et al., 1998, Peter et al., 1998a, Peter et al., 1998b, Peter and Siegrist, 1997, Siegrist et al., 1990, Stansfeld et al., 1998a, Stansfeld et al., 1998b).

It is important to note that the two job stress models differ in at least two important ways. Firstly, while the JD-C Model puts its explicit focus on task characteristics of the work place, the ERI Model covers a broader range of stressful experience at work as it includes more distant macroeconomic labor market aspects, such as job security, mobility and salaries. In terms of current developments of the labor market in a global economy, the emphasis on occupational rewards including job security reflects the growing importance of fragmented job careers, of job instability, underemployment, redundancy and forced occupational mobility including their financial consequences. Therefore, it is of special interest to know whether both models explain employee well-being in a comparable way, or whether the model that addresses more fully these more recent trends produces relatively stronger effects.

Secondly, while the JD-C Model puts its attention only on situational characteristics, an explicit distinction is made between situational and personal characteristics in the ERI Model. In addition to the first research question a second question is analyzed that is related to the role of personal characteristics in studying associations of stressful job conditions and health. In particular, the ERI Model provides information on one such important personal characteristic, the coping pattern ‘overcommitment’. Thus, the second research question explores whether a moderating effect of the intrinsic component of the ERI Model (i.e. overcommitment) is observed on associations between effort-reward imbalance (extrinsic component) and employee well-being. This second research question is restricted to analyses related to the ERI Model.

Both research questions add to the current state of the art. As Kasl mentioned in a recent contribution (Kasl, 1998), it is worth studying the relative contribution of each model to the explanation of well-being and health, in view of their differences and complementary aspects. So far, one first attempt has been made to compare the two models, showing that both effort-reward imbalance and job demand-control (low job control only) were independently related to the risk of developing coronary heart disease (Bosma et al., 1998). However, this study did not explore subjective well-being, nor was there information available on the relative contribution of psychological versus physical demands at work, a distinction that is clearly important as a substantial segment of the current workforce is still exposed to physical demands (e.g. Houtman, 1997, Paoli, 1997). In the current investigation we put special emphasis on this difference. With regard to the second research question it should be mentioned that statistical modelling so far, to a large extent, explored main effects of two summary measures of effort-reward imbalance (e.g. Peter et al., 1998a, Peter et al., 1998b) or of an aggregate measure combining the two components (e.g. Bosma et al., 1998, Siegrist, 1996). Yet, from a theoretical point of view it is of interest to specify the role of personal characteristics in an interactional perspective. Therefore, we provide preliminary information on the hypothesis that in overcommitted as compared to non-overcommitted employees, effects of effort-reward imbalance on employee well-being are substantially stronger. Finally, we analyse interaction effects of gender and age on the associations under study as these variables have shown to confound the relationship between job characteristics and employee well-being (cf. Karasek and Theorell, 1990, Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998, Spector, 1997).

The present study addresses the research questions in a large sample of male and female employees representative of the Dutch workforce, with regard to four different measures of employee well-being; that is, emotional exhaustion, psychosomatic health complaints, physical health symptoms and job satisfaction.

Section snippets

Procedure and participants

Participants were part of a large risk assessment project in the Netherlands, commissioned on behalf of the Dutch Labour Legislation (e.g. Mulder et al., 1997, de Jonge et al., 1999). The data were collected by means of a large-scale survey as part of an ongoing investigation in Dutch companies. The data collection procedure involved the distribution of self-report questionnaires among at random chosen employees. In order to guarantee anonymity, the completed questionnaire could be returned in

Results

First of all, a confirmatory factor analysis (LISREL 8) was conducted to show that indeed there are four separate outcome variables (cf. Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1993). The corresponding LISREL analysis showed that a four-factor solution yielded a significant chi-square (χ2=4743.03, d.f.=84, p<0.001), which means that the factor model statistically does not fit to the data. However, since the chi-square test is extremely affected by sample size, the test has a tendency to indicate a significant

Discussion

The purpose of the present study was to test the effects of two prominent job stress models in a large representative sample of Dutch working men and women. Overall, the findings support both the Job Demand-Control Model and the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model. Both models had independent cumulative effects on poor well-being, using either psychological or physical demands. Moreover, both models showed similar effects on poor well-being in men and women as well as in young and old people.

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