Job-related stress in academia: the role of relative
deprivation, hours worked for different tasks, andchildren
Ana Maria Takahashi

September 2014
Discussion Paper No.1424

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
KOBE UNIVERSITYROKKO, KOBE, JAPANJob-related stress in academia: the role of relative deprivation,
hours worked for diﬀerent tasks, and children

Ana Maria Takahashi

Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University, Rokkodai cho 1-1, Nada-ku, Kobe,
6578501, Japan E-mail: takahashi a@econ.kobe-u.ac.jp

We examine the role of income relative deprivation, hours worked for diﬀerent tasks, andchildren in the job-related stress experienced by academics. Males’ job-related stressincreases when their incomes are lower than that of their peers’, but females are notsusceptible to such income comparisons. Job-related stress decreases with hours spent on
research provided the hours are not excessive, but hours spent in teaching and on
administrative tasks always increase job-related stress. The presence of young children
increases job-related stress only for females, and children largely explain the observed
gender diﬀerences in job-related stress.
JEL Classiﬁcation: J28, J81
Keywords: job-related stress, relative deprivation

1

I.

Introduction

Job-related stress is considered as one of the leading work-related health problems, constituting a major area of research in the ﬁelds of medicine, psychology, and higher education.
However, relevant literature in economics is limited. This paper examines the determinants of job-related stress in an economics context for an occupation of direct interest tous, namely academia. Speciﬁcally, we investigate the extent to which income relative deprivation, hours worked for diﬀerent tasks, and the presence of children aﬀect job related
stress, using a unique data set obtained from Japanese academics in science and engineering
related departments.
The relative deprivation hypothesis states that individuals’ well-being is adversely affected when they perceive that their incomes are lower than those of their reference groups(Duesenberry, 1949; Wilkinson, 1996, 1997). The impact of relative income on stress is
scarcely explored by economists, although several studies investigate the relationship between relative income and health outcomes. For example, Eibner and Evans (2005) andMiller and Paxson (2006) ﬁnd that having a level of income lower than that of one’s peers
is associated with an increased risk of mortality.1 These studies assume that a low relative
income negatively aﬀects health because it increases the stress of an individual. However,they do not explore the direct link between low relative income and stress. We aim toinvestigate the extent to which relative income aﬀects job-related stress.
Next, we investigate the eﬀect of hours worked on job-related stress. While long hours
are endemic in Japan, we rather focus on whether hours spent in research, teaching, and on
administrative duties have diﬀerent eﬀects on job-related stress.2 The Carnegie Surveys on
Japanese academics show that about 73% of Japanese faculty prefer research to teaching1
2

See also Jones and Wildman (2008) and Balsa (2013) for further evidence.
For a review of the patterns of working hours in Japan, see Hamermesh et al. (2014).

2and administrative work (Arimoto, 2011). Psychology literature on intrinsic motivation
indicates that workers derive satisfaction from performing tasks that they enjoy (Herzberg,
1966; Ryan and Deci, 2000).
Accordingly, if academics do enjoy their research activities, the time spent on research
may not increase their stress levels as much as the other tasks, or it may even decrease stress.
Moreover, teaching and administrative work would deprive academics of time for research,which in turn will increase frustration, another reason why teaching and administrative
tasks might cause higher levels of stress compared with research. We contribute to thestudies on job-related stress by showing that diﬀerent tasks have diﬀerent eﬀects on stress,
and the hours spent by workers on tasks they enjoy could potentially decrease stress.
Finally, we examine the eﬀect of children on job-related stress. Manson et al. (2013)
show that young children negatively aﬀect the tenure attainment and research productivityof female academics. It is, therefore, likely that children increase job-related stress. Thisissue is especially important in relation to the gender gap that exists in the reported levelof stress, since studies on stress generally indicate that female workers report higher levelsof stress than male workers (Blix et al., 1994; Leontaridi and Ward, 2002; Takahashi and
Takahashi, 2010). Such a gender disparity in reported stress levels may be the result ofchild-rearing activities that are disproportionately allotted to females.3 We aim to examine
if the presence of children aﬀects job-related stress, and if gender disparity in reported
job-related stress is primarily caused by the presence of children.

II.

Data and Variables

We obtained data through a survey administered via a postal questionnaire in 2011. First,
we collected the names (29 114 names in total) of the full-time faculty of the sciences
3

In the survey data utilized in this paper, we enquired the percentage of household work performed(including child rearing). The average percentage of household work performed is 20.6% and 71.6% formarried males and females, respectively.

3and engineering related departments in Japan from the web pages of all the four-year
universities accredited by the Ministry of Education, Sports, and Science. Second, we chose
all feminine names (1122 names) from the total collected names, and randomly selected3678 names from the remaining names assumed masculine. We sent questionnaires tothe department addresses, and received 1636 responses (a response rate of 34%). Aftereliminating observations with missing variables and restricting the sample to lecturers,
assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors, our ﬁnal sample contains 1537
observations.
We evaluated the level of job-related stress based on answers to the question: ‘What isyour degree of job-related stress?’ Respondents replied using a six-point scale ranging from‘no stress’ to ‘very high stress’. Since some categories garnered few observations, we recategorized and created a four-point scale job-related stress variable as follows: 1=‘low/very
low/none’, 2=‘average’, 3=‘high’, and 4=‘very high’. 8.58% of the sample fell into the‘low/very low/none’ category, 37.61% in ‘average’, 37.03% in ‘high’, and 16.77% fell intothe ‘very high’ category.
To investigate whether relative income aﬀects job-related stress, we ﬁrst estimate aconventional salary regression, and treat the predicted income as an individual’s comparison
income. This idea parallels that of Clark and Oswald (1996). Since an academic might
not react to a small deviation from the comparison income, we create the potential relative
deprivation measure, I{Residuali < 10th percentile}, which takes a value of 1 if the residualis below the 10th percentile. The salary regression contains the same variables used in the
stress regressions.4 Table 1 Column 1 presents the summary statistics.
4

It contains the same variables in Table 1 Model 1, except the relative income measure.

4

III.

Results and Conclusions

First, we present the results of the eﬀects of relative income on job-related stress. We regressed Job-related stress on the potential relative income deprivation measure, Residuali<10th percentile, and other characteristics using ordered probit models. Model 1 in Table
1 shows that even after controlling for the actual salary, those who face potential relative
deprivation report higher levels of stress. Note that the actual salary does not have a statistically signiﬁcant coeﬃcient, indicating that relative income, rather than actual income,aﬀects stress–results that accord well with the ﬁndings by Clark and Oswald (1996) in theiranalysis of job satisfaction.
Clark et al. (2013) suggest in their study of job satisfaction that females are not susceptible to relative income comparisons. Does such a result extend to the case of job-related
stress? To answer this question, we added an interaction term between Female and therelative deprivation measure in Model 2. The interaction term is negative and statisticallysigniﬁcant at the 1% level. Joint signiﬁcance tests show that the relative deprivation measure is statistically signiﬁcant only for males. The marginal eﬀect implies that males facing
potential relative deprivation are 12 percentage points more likely to report the highest
level of stress.
Next, we investigate the eﬀect of hours worked on reported stress levels. Model 3 simply
adds weekly hours worked. The coeﬃcient for hours worked is positive and statisticallysigniﬁcant at the 1% level. We then examine if work hours spent in research, teaching,and on administrative tasks have diﬀerent eﬀects on job-related stress. Our questionnaireenquired for the percentage of work time allocated for each of these tasks.5 Multiplying theweekly hours by these percentages, we computed hours per week spent on each task. The
5

The questionnaire has an ‘other task’ category. We included this category in the administrative tasks
category.

5

results are shown in Model 4. To capture the non-linear eﬀects of hours worked, we also
include squared terms (except for teaching hours, since its squared term did not improve theﬁt of the model). Due to incomplete or inconsistent answers received for the time allocation
for diﬀerent tasks, the number of observations reduced to 1482.6
All coeﬃcients for diﬀerent tasks are statistically signiﬁcant. The presence of quadratic
terms makes it diﬃcult to assess the eﬀect of hours worked for diﬀerent tasks. Thus,
we computed the predicted probabilities of reporting the highest level of stress by hours
worked for each task and plotted them in Fig.1. Graphs are restricted to the ranges of hours
worked that are within two standard deviations from the mean. For research hours, jobrelated stress decreases until research hours reach 30 hours per week, a point well beyond
the sample mean. It subsequently increases, but the eﬀects are very mild. These results are
consistent with the possibility that hours spent on the tasks that workers enjoy performing
could reduce stress provided the hours are not excessive. In contrast, hours spend in teachingand on administrative tasks always increase job-related stress. A 10-hour increase from themean in hours worked would increase the probability of reporting the highest level of stressby 3 percentage points in the case of teaching hours, and 5 percentage points in the case ofadministrative hours.
Finally, we examine the eﬀects of children on job-related stress. The previous models
show no eﬀect of the presence of children on job-related stress. This could be because thepresence of children aﬀects the job-related stress only for females, who typically bear greater
child-rearing responsibility than males. Also note that female coeﬃcients are positive andhighly signiﬁcant in all previous models. These patterns indicate that the female dummy
might capture the eﬀects of children on job-related stress. To test this possibility, we include
interaction terms between Female and the number of children variables. Since Manson et al.
6

Among 1537 observations, 20 of them did not report an allocation and 35 of them reported allocations
that did not sum up to 100%.

6

(2013) show the possibility that marriage also negatively aﬀects the labor market outcomesof female academics’, we also include a female-marriage interaction.
Model 5 shows the results. Although the coeﬃcient for #Children aged 5 or below is notstatistically signiﬁcant, the interaction between this variable and Female has a positive andsigniﬁcant coeﬃcient, indicating that the presence of young children increases job-related
stress only for females. The marginal eﬀect shows that one extra child in this age bracket
would increase the probability of reporting the highest level of stress for female academics
by 7 percentage points. We did not ﬁnd statistically signiﬁcant eﬀects for #Children aged
6 to 18 and Marriage for either males or females. Interestingly, after the inclusion ofthese interaction terms, the female coeﬃcient became small and statistically insigniﬁcant,indicating that the gender diﬀerence in job stress levels is primarily driven by the presenceof young children.
In conclusion, the empirical results are consistent with our expectations. Income relative deprivation eﬀects were found in terms of job-related stress, but such eﬀects wereseen only among male academics. Job-related stress decreases with hours spent on research
provided the hours were not excessive, indicating the possibility that tasks which workers
enjoy performing could reduce stress. However, hours spent in teaching and on administrative tasks always increase job-related stress. Young children increased stress only for female
academics, and the observed gender gap in job-related stress is largely explained by thepresence of young children.

References
Arimoto, A. (2011) The changing nature of academic work from an international comparative perspective, Higher Education Forum, 8, 1-22.
Balsa, A. I., French, M.T. and Regan, T.L. (2014) Relative deprivation and risky behaviors,
Journal of Human Resources, 49, 446-471.
Blix, A.G., Cruise, R.J., Mitchell, B.M. and Blix, G.G. (1994) Occupational stress among
university teachers, Educational Research, 36, 157-169.
7

Clark, A.E. and Oswald, A.J. (1996) Satisfaction and comparison income, Journal of Public
Economics, 61, 359-381.
Clark, A.E., Senik, C. and Yamada, K. (2013) The Joneses in Japan: income comparison and ﬁnancial satisfaction, Discussion Paper No.866, The Institute of Social andEconomic Research, Osaka University.
Duesenberry, J.S. (1949) Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behaviour, 1st edn,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Eibner, C. and Evans, N. (2005) Relative deprivation, poor health habits, and mortality,
Journal of Human Resources, 40, 591-620.
Hamermesh, D.S., Kawaguchi, D. and Lee, J. (2014) Does labor legislation beneﬁt workers?
Well-being after an hours reduction, IZA Discussion Paper No. 8077, Bonn.
Herzberg, F. (1966) Work and The Nature of Man, World Publishing Company, Cleveland.
Jones, A.M. and Wildman, J. (2008) Health, income and relative deprivation: evidence
from the BHPS, Journal of Health Economics, 27, 308-324.
Leontaridi, R.M. and Ward, E.M. (2002) Work-related stress, quitting intentions and absenteeism, IZA Discussion Paper No.493, Bonn.
Manson, M.A, Wolﬁnger, N.H and Goulden, M. (2013) Do Babies Matter?: Gender andFamily in the Ivory Tower, Rutgers University Press.
Miller, D.L. and Paxson, C. (2006) Relative income, race, and mortality, Journal of Health
Economics, 25, 979-1003.
Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L. (2000) Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic deﬁnitions
and new directions, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.
Takahashi, A.M. and Takahashi, S. (2010), Determinants of job-related stress of academic
economists in Japan, The Japanese Economy, 37, 120-127.
Wilkinson, R.G. (1996) Unhealthy Societies: The Aﬄiction of Inequality, Routledge, London.
Wilkinson, R.G. (1997) Socioeconomic determinants of health. Health inequalities: relative
or absolute material standards, British Medical Journal, 314, 591-595.

8

Table 1: Estimation Results: Ordered Logistic Regressions
Variables

Mean(SD)

Model 1Model 2Model 3Model 4Model 5Residuali <10th percentile

0.100(0.300)0.437*(0.227)0.763***(0.248)-1.244***(0.394)0.745***(0.252)-1.164***(0.396)0.210***(0.038)0.662**(0.268)-1.019**(0.415)0.744***(0.252)-1.120***(0.399)0.221***(0.038)(Residuali <10th percentile)
×(Female)Weekly total hours worked/10
Weekly research hours/10

6.014(1.537)2.204(1.250)0.192(0.394)0.206(0.510)0.354***(0.135)0.072(0.110)0.496***(0.139)0.063(0.111)

0.533***(0.142)0.054(0.109)-0.277**(0.115)0.048***(0.017)0.246***(0.062)0.576***(0.128)-0.041*(0.023)0.449***(0.149)0.039(0.111)0.429(0.767)0.051(0.074)0.051(0.074)0.039(0.074)0.022(0.076)0.810(0.392)-0.045(0.150)-0.029(0.151)

0.006(0.153)-0.071(0.155)6.684(0.305)0.398(0.490)0.300(0.458)0.0547(0.227)
15.96(11.31)

0.186(0.423)-0.564**(0.287)-0.578**(0.233)-0.206(0.286)0.048(0.031)-0.002**(0.001)
0.056***(0.020)-0.002**(0.001)-0.233(0.149)0.119(0.188)0.193(0.427)-0.566**(0.289)-0.591**(0.232)-0.151(0.286)0.045(0.031)-0.002**(0.001)0.057***(0.020)-0.002**(0.001)-0.237(0.151)0.141(0.189)0.218(0.427)-0.574**(0.289)-0.572**(0.232)-0.149(0.287)0.059*(0.032)-0.002***(0.001)
0.056***(0.021)-0.002**(0.001)-0.180(0.152)0.061(0.194)0.243(0.466)-0.761**(0.301)-0.665***(0.240)-0.312(0.300)0.057*(0.032)-0.002**(0.001)0.047**(0.021)-0.001*(0.001)-0.246(0.165)0.131(0.205)

Weekly research hours2 /100
Weekly teaching hours/10
Weekly administrative hours/10

2.232(1.060)1.565(0.087)

Weekly administrative hours2 /100
Female#Children aged 5 and below(#Children aged 5 and below)
×(Female)#Children aged 6 to 18(#Children aged 6 to 18)
×(Female)
Married(Married)×(Female)
Log(annual salary)(Mean salary=8.4 million yen)
Full professor
Associate professor
Assistant professor
Academic experience (in years)
Academic experience2
Non academic experience (in years)

3.256(6.857)

Non academic experience2
Private university
Department oﬀers PhDs

0.313
(0.464)0.898(0.303)

Continues to next page

9

0.217
(0.265)-0.021(0.117)0.570**(0.247)0.020(0.077)0.184(0.243)-0.101(0.184)0.237(0.316)0.237(0.427)-0.571**(0.286)-0.565**(0.228)-0.140(0.285)0.054*(0.032)-0.002**(0.001)0.057***(0.021)-0.002**(0.001)-0.194(0.154)0.064(0.193)

Table 1 Continued
Have a PhD

0.925(0.264)0.179(0.383)0.107(0.309)0.122(0.328)3.772(2.601)
5.698(3.310)0.720(0.449)0.768(0.422)
5.617(6.529)74.16(263.1)
1.249(1.165)-0.031-0.027
0.005
0.085
0.002
(0.187)(0.186)(0.187)(0.188)(0.189)Fixed term contract
0.140
0.147
0.147
0.144
0.154
(0.146)(0.147)(0.149)(0.153)(0.149)Have a managerial position
0.309*
0.325**
0.341**
0.189
0.347**(0.161)(0.162)(0.162)(0.171)(0.162)No teaching obligation-0.474**-0.470**-0.452**-0.362*-0.465**(0.210)(0.209)(0.210)(0.209)(0.209)#Subjects taught per year
0.030
0.028
0.018
0.009
0.018
(0.028)(0.028)(0.029)(0.029)(0.029)#Sessions taught per week
0.066***
0.066***
0.053***
0.049**
0.051***(0.019)(0.019)(0.020)(0.020)(0.020)Teach graduate courses-0.025-0.0290.005-0.0340.016(0.170)(0.170)(0.170)(0.174)(0.170)Supervise MA or PhD students
0.218*
0.206
0.131
0.102
0.122
(0.131)(0.131)(0.133)(0.137)(0.132)#Career articles/10-0.026-0.027-0.037**-0.030-0.036**(0.018)(0.018)(0.018)(0.019)(0.018)#Career articles2 /100
0.001*
0.001*
0.001**
0.001
0.001**(0.000)(0.000)(0.000)(0.000)(0.000)#Field-top-20 articles among
0.005
0.003
-0.0000.037-0.002reported 3 best publications(0.051)(0.051)(0.051)(0.053)(0.051)
Cohort dummies
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
City size dummies
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Field dummies
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
#Observations
1,537
1,537
1,537
1,482
1,537
Pseudo R squared
0.028
0.031
0.041
0.051
0.043
Notes: Robust standard errors are in parenthesis. ***Signiﬁcant at the 1%, ** at the 5%, * at the 10%
level. Cohort dummies are for those who entered in academia in the 1980s, between 1990 and 2004, andafter 2004. Cities are classiﬁed into 6 categories based on size. There are 13 ﬁelds in the data.

10

Figure 1: Hours worked for the diﬀerent tasks and probabilities of reporting the highest
level of stress

0.2=The sample mean of the hours worked=Two standard deviations from the mean

0.18
0.16

Probability

0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Weekly hours worked
Research hours

Teaching hours

11

Administrative hours

45

50