Work Experiences – Stress and Health among Managerial
This post reviews research on work experiences, stress, and health among managerial women. This area is relatively new; most of the literature cited is less than 10 years old. One purpose of the post is to encourage more research on work and health of managerial women, since most of the available research findings are based on men (Chusmir et al., 1990; Greenglass, 1991). The focus on managerial women, a highly educated, motivated, and well-paid group, is taken because this group is growing in size and importance, serves both as an important model for younger women and as an indicator of women’s progress towards equality, and may be frustrated with their relative lack of progress and increased stress (Nelson & Quick, 1985; Zappert & Weinstein, 1985). It goes without saying that other groups of women not included in this review may experience as much or even more work stress.
There are other reasons why this post makes an important contribution. First, the costs to organizations, women, and men resulting from stress-related illnesses is both large and growing (Matteson & Ivancevich, 1987). Second, there is evidence that the managerial job itself is a demanding one (Burke, 1988). Third, there is a growing consensus that work stressors are associated with a range of short-term quality of life and health outcomes (Repetti, 1993).
The post builds on established occupational stress research frameworks (Jex & Beehr, 1991); it extends them to incorporate work stressors and experiences unique to women. Figure 13.1 presents an organizing framework that provides a context for the review. It includes five panels of variables typically considered in stress and health research. This review focuses primarily on three panels: stressors, individual differences, and coping; the two remaining panels (strains and long-term consequences) illustrate a variety of emotional and physical health outcomes considered in one or more specific research studies. This post emphasizes the breadth and variety of research in this area rather than depth. A second purpose of this post is to spur organizational initiatives to reduce work and family stress and improve health. The field offers opportunities for both research and practice, which, if well conceived and undertaken, should improve the quality of life and health of managerial women (Ilgen, 1990; Keita & Jones, 1990; Nelson & Burke, 2001).
The following content areas are addressed:
The glass ceiling Barriers to women’s advancement Occupational stress Work and family Dual-career couples Sexual harassment Organizational downsizing Workaholism Unemployment Women-friendly organizations Intervention and policy implications Future research and action directions.
THE GLASS CEILING
There is considerable evidence that managerial women face a “glass ceiling” that limits their advancement to top management in large organizations (Morrison & von Glinow, 1990; Morrison et al., 1987). The glass ceiling refers to a subtle and almost invisible but strong barrier that prevents women from moving up to senior management levels. There is an emerging belief that the glass ceiling exists worldwide (Adler&Israeli, 1988, 1994), and may be at lower organizational levels than was first thought (Department of Labor, 1991). Three hypotheses have been suggested to explain why this ceiling has remained impenetrable. The first builds on ways in which women are different from men. This hypothesis suggests that women’s education, training, attitudes, behaviors, traits, and socialization handicap them in particular ways. Almost all research evidence shows little or no difference in the traits, abilities, education, and motivations of managerial and professional women and men (Powell, 1990).
A second hypothesis builds on notions of bias and discrimination by the majority towards the minority. It suggests that managerial and professional women are held back as a result of bias and stereotypes of women (Kanter, 1977; Marshall, 1984). Such bias or discrimination is either sanctioned by the labor market or rewarded by organizations, despite the level of job performance of women (Larwood et al., 1988). In addition, there is widespread agreement that the good manager is seen as male or masculine (Heilman et al., 1989; Schein et al., 1989). Thus, there is some research support for this hypothesis.
The third hypothesis emphasizes structural and systemic discrimination as revealed in organizational policies and practices, which affects the treatment of women and limits their advancement. These policies and practices include women’s lack of opportunity and power in organizations, the existing sex ratio of groups in organizations, tokenism, lack of mentors and sponsors, and denial of access to challenging assignments. This hypothesis has also received empirical support (Burke & McKeen, 1992; Cox & Harquail, 1991; Jagacinski et al., 1987). The glass ceiling is the result of barriers to women’s career advancement.
BARRIERS TO WOMEN’S ADVANCEMENT
There is considerable agreement on the barriers faced by managerial women. Morrison (1992) lists six as most important: (i) prejudice, treating differences as weaknesses, (ii) poor career planning and development (lack of opportunities for women), (iii) a lonely, hostile, unsupportive working environment, (iv) lack of organizational savvy on the part of women, (v) the old boys network (greater comfort men have in dealing with other men), and (vi) difficulty in balancing career and family (overload, conflict, stress). Mattis (1994) identifies the following: stereotyping and preconceptions about women’s abilities and suitability for leadership positions; lack of careful planning and planned job assignments; exclusion from informal networks of communication; managers’ aversion to placing women in line positions; absence of effective management training and the failure to hold managers accountable for developing and advancing female employees; absence of succession planning or succession planning processes that fail to identify and monitor the progress of high-potential women; inadequate appraisal compensation systems leading to inequities in salaries, bonuses, and perquisites; inflexibility in defining work schedules and work sites; and the absence of programs to enable employees to balance work–family responsibilities.
Morrison (1992) proposed a model of leadership development in which she suggest three critical components: challenge, recognition, and support. She observed that in many organizations, the barriers to advancement faced by women provided them with inordinate levels of challenge, without similar increases in recognition and support. Ohlott et al. (1994) provide empirical evidence that suggests this may in fact be the case. They surveyed male and female managers about developmental components in their current jobs. Their results suggested that men experienced some greater task-related developmental challenges, but women experienced greater developmental challenges resulting from obstacles that they faced in their jobs.
These studies have identified the barriers to women’s advancement that commonly exist in organizations. In addition, women report greater obstacles to advancement than do men. One consequence of these additional barriers is heightened work and family stress.
OCCUPATIONAL STRESS
There is considerable evidence that the experience of work stress among managers is associated with undesirable consequences (Cooper & Payne, 1988). Most of this research has involved male managers since men have traditionally filled managerial roles (Burke, 1988). As more women have entered managerial jobs, they have increasingly become subjects of stress research (Barnett et al., 1987). With the appearance of this body of work, some researchers have begun asking whether women or men experience more work stress, exhibit more negative consequences, or have different coping or social support responses (Jick & Mitz, 1985; Nelson & Quick, 1985). Unfortunately there is not yet enough solid research on which to base firm conclusions to these questions (Martocchio & O’Leary, 1989). Offermann & Armitage (1993), Davidson & Fielden (1999), and Langan-Fox (1998) reviewed the literature on stress and health outcomes among women managers. They noted that some stressors were shared by women and men (e.g. role conflict, overload, ambiguity), but that women experienced additional work stressors unique to them, as well as exhibiting different ways of interpreting and coping with the uniquely female and the common stressors. They categorized stressors experienced by women managers into three groups: (i) from society at large (work–family interface, off-the-job support, attitudes towards women in management, discrimination), (ii) from organizations (e.g. on-the-job support, sexual harassment, tokenism, sex discrimination, old boys network) and (iii) from women themselves (Type A behavior, personal control, self-esteem). The stress experienced by managerial women results from a combination of sources from all three groups, with health outcomes affected as a result. In addition, in keeping with previous work stress frameworks, individual differences operated at several places to influence the stress–health process. Davidson & Cooper (1992) have contributed most to our understanding of the effects of work and extra-work stressors on managerial women. In addition, some of their research has compared the experiences of women and men. They propose a research framework in which demands (stressors) in three arenas (work, home and social, and the individual) serve as precursors of a wide range of stress outcomes. They review differences and similarities between female and male managers in relation to work stressors in the three arenas as well as stress outcomes. They report that female managers scored higher on both stressors and stress outcomes compared to their male counterparts. Women managers also reported significantly greater Type A behavior.
Cooper & Melhuish (1984) conducted a longitudinal study of stress and health involving 311 senior male and 171 senior female managers. They concluded that for male managers stress-related illness was more likely to be expressed in physical ill health, whereas for female managers, stress-related illness was more likely to be expressed in psychological illness (Jick & Mitz, 1985). They also found that Type A behavior was predictive of both cardiovascular risk and poor physical and psychological health for bothwomen and men, but more strongly for women. Men scored more highly than women on more work stressors, but these were weak or modest predictors of cardiovascular risk or poor physical or emotional health.
Davidson & Cooper (1986) found that managerial women experienced more pressure at work than did men, and that more of this pressure came from external sources, unlike pressure on men, which came from internal sources.Women also experienced more pressure at home and received little support from their partners (Hochschild, 1989). These women felt isolated at work, were Type As, and exhibited greater manifestations of stress. Women in junior and middle management positions experienced the highest overall occupational stress levels. Furthermore, the stress vulnerability profiles of female and male managers most at risk of showing symptoms of stress were dissimilar.
Davidson et al. (1995) studied occupational stress in 126 female and 220 male undergraduate business majors. Similar to the earlier Davidson & Cooper (1986) study, female middle and junior-level managers reported being under greater pressure than their male counterparts. Women, not surprisingly, reported greater stress on gender issues, such as discrimination, prejudice and home–work conflict. Females also indicated more mental and physical ill health symptoms.
Burke & McKeen (1994), in a study of 792 managerial and professional women, built on the stress literature and extended it to include work and career experiences associated with career advancement of women (and men). The dependent variables were aspects of emotional well-being, which have long been a staple in stress research. Four groups of predictor variables were included: (i) individual demographics, (ii) organizational demographics, (iii) work experiences associated with job and career satisfaction and progress (Morrison, 1992), and (iv) work outcomes. Specific work experiences (e.g. support and encouragement, challenging jobs, the absence of strain from conflict, overload and ambiguity) and work outcomes (considered as short-term responses to work conditions and work experiences that, over time, could affect emotional health) were fairly consistently and significantly related to self-reported emotional well-being in this large sample of managerial women.
This limited review of the occupational stress literature suggests that although women and men share some common work stressors, women also experience unique sources of stress. These emanate from discrimination and bias, role conflict, andwork–family demands, resulting in overload.
Role Conflict
One of the most common occupational stressors is role conflict—that is, the simultaneous occurrence of two (or more) sets of pressures, such that compliance with one would make compliance with the other more difficult. Another type of role conflict is inter-role conflict with pressures from other group memberships. For example, pressures to spend long hours at the office may conflict with demands or expectations from family members to spend time at home. Role conflict can occur at work, within the family and between work and family roles.
Greenhaus & Beutell (1985) suggest that pressures from work or family can heighten conflict between work and family roles. They identified three ways in which role pressures can be incompatible: (i) time spent in one role may leave little time to devote to other roles, (ii) strain within one role may spill over into another role, and (iii) behavior appropriate to one role may be dysfunctional in another (e.g. shifting gears from work to family). Thus, variables that have an impact on time, strain, or behavior can heighten work–family conflict. The model proposes that any role characteristic that affects a person’s time involvement, strain, or behavior within a role can produce conflict between that role and another role.
Greenglass et al. (1988) examined relationships between role conflict, work stress, and social support in women and men, and the psychological consequences of role conflict. Their results indicated that role conflict was higher in women than in men. Significant correlations between role conflict and work stress and social support, primarily in women, suggested a greater interdependence between work and family spheres in women.
WORK AND FAMILY
Work and family are the major life roles for most employed adults. Work–family conflict is experienced when pressures from work and family roles are incompatible, such that participation in one role makes it more difficult to participate in the other (Friedman & Greenhaus, 2000). Research evidence has shown that work–family conflict has negative effects on well-being in bothwork and family (Burke&Greenglass, 1987). Building on their earlierwork, Greenhaus&Parasuraman (1994) propose two dominant forms ofwork–family conflict: time-based conflict and strain-based conflict. Time-based conflict is experienced when the time devoted to one role makes it difficult to fill the requirements of the other role. Strain-based conflict is experienced when the strain produced in one role spills over or intrudes into the other role. In addition, work interference with family may also have different antecedents and consequences than family interference with work.
The occupational stress literature indicates that the interaction of work and family may be an area of stress, particularly for managerial women (Etzion, 1988; Gutek et al., 1988). The assumptions that work and family are separate domains with little cross-impact has been increasingly questioned. Bedeian et al. (1988) found that parental demands interact to influence job, marital, and life satisfaction. The relationship between parental demands and life satisfaction was mediated by satisfaction with childcare arrangements for women, but not men, with young children at home. For men, time in professional work, work involvement, concerns about work competence, and time in family work during weekends were associated with higher levels of conflict. The latter was explained in terms of an encroachment hypothesis (Hochschild, 1997).
Work–family conflict is more likely to occur than family–work conflict (Greenhaus and Parasuraman, 1999) because the organization’s demands on an individual’s time are more important since the employer provides the salary needed to provide for one’s family. Extensive work–family conflict can lead to dissatisfaction and distress within the work and family domains (Frone et al., 1997; Netermeyer et al., 1996; Parasuraman et al., 1996). Such conflicts can also have negative impacts on parenting (Stewart & Barling, 1996).
DUAL-CAREER COUPLES
Most managerial women develop relationships with partners who are likely to be careeroriented, hence creating the dual-career couple (Gilbert, 1993; Sekaran, 1986). Experts predict that the number of dual-career couples will continue to increase (Hertz, 1986). This trend has obvious implications for managerial and professional women, who historically have been predominantly single (never married, separated, divorced) and childless (Brett et al., 1992). The effects on women of being in a dual-career situation are more pervasive since relatively more married managerial women than men are in such relationships. In addition, the impact of dual-career couple status is greater for women than for men (Lewis, 1994; White et al., 1992).
Hall & Hall (1980) indicate that stress among dual-career couples is caused by overload, conflict, and change. Overload arises from demand and pressures as a result of the number of roles played by the couple. Conflict results from interfering demands, such as a scheduled business trip conflicting with a spouse’s birthday, or from the problems of meshing careers of two people such as scheduling vacations together. Another example of conflict results from unmet expectations or the feeling that one person is not living up to the standards the couple has set for itself. Change itself is a source of stress in that the couple must constantly adapt and respond to transitions in their work, personal, and family lives.
Rapoport & Rapoport (1976) identified various problems or dilemmas for dual-career couples: overload, normative, identity, social network, and role cycling. Overload dilemmas resulted from lack of time and energy when heavy scheduling demands prevented day-to-day domestic chores from being done. Normative dilemmas resulted from disparities between the personal norms of the dual-career couple and general societal norms. Identity dilemmas resulted from discontinuities between internalized early experiences and current wishes. Social network dilemmas resulted from problems experienced by dual-career couples in maintaining relationships outside their immediate family. They had limitations on the time available for interacting with friends because of overload dilemmas. Role cycling dilemmas refer to attempts by the dual-career couple to integrate their different individual career cycles with the cycle of their family. Each of the above created stress for dual-career couples (Gupta & Jenkins, 1985).
Organizations also have an important role to play, in cooperating with government agencies, in achieving a balance of childcare and careers through flexible work policies and childcare support, as well as through changes in organizational culture that come to place greater value on families. The formal policy changes required to ease work–family conflict include initiatives to assist with childcare and elder care, alternative patterns of work, part-time work with career opportunities and benefits, career breaks, enhanced maternity, parental and family leave, and changes in both relocation and anti-nepotism policies. These policy changes do not necessarily imply a fundamental change in organizational culture, however.
Kirchmeyer (1993) assessed a range of organizational practices addressing work/nonwork issues using the concepts of boundary flexibility and boundary permeability as a framework. Flexibility refers to the extent to which time and location markers between domains are movable; permeability refers to the extent to which the psychological concerns of one domain enter the physical locations of others. She considered the effectiveness of three types of organizational responses to non-work:
Separation: employers act as if workers’ non-work worlds do not exist. Integration: employers treat work and non-work as related worlds that affect one another and try to reduce the gap between them. Respect: employers acknowledge and value the non-work participation of workers and commit to support it. Most managers rated separation practices as most typical of their organizations. Organizations’ use of separation practices were associated with lowered organizational commitment, while integration and respect practices were positively associated with organizational commitment. In addition, respect responses were associated with positive non-work-to-work spillover in women, but not in men.
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Sexual harassment is a widespread problem in the workplace with estimates ranging from 28% to 90% for females and 14% to 18% for males (Fitzgerald et al., 1995; Schneider et al., 1997). What is sexual harassment? “Sexual harassment is any behavior of a sexual nature that an individual perceives to be offensive and unwelcome (whether or not it is legally or conceptually defined as such)” (Bowes-Sperry & Tata, 1999, p. 265). It has been proposed (Gelfand et al., 1995) that sexual harassment has three components: gender harassment (hostile or insulting attitudes or behaviors), unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion (sexual cooperation linked to job outcomes). One can also envision people being exposed to sexual harassment indirectly (the general level of sexual harassment in a work group). Consequences of sexual harassment can be viewed as job-related, psychological/somatic and organizational. Fitzgerald et al. (1997) report a relationship between self-reported sexual harassment and headaches, sleep disturbances and psychosomatic symptoms (reduced selfesteem, increased stress, anger, fear, depression and anxiety).
The research program headed by Gutek (1985) has contributed much to our understanding of the impact of sexual behavior and harassment on women, men and organizations. She and her colleagues provide research support for the following conclusions. Social-sexual behavior at work is a widespread and common occurrence and has considerable impact (see also Fitzgerald, 1993). It creates significant problems for individuals and organizations as well as subtle yet strong effects on individuals and on work settings, in which tangible problems can develop. Social-sexual attitudes and behaviors at work are manifest in many ways, including sexual relationships between workers, flirtations, sexual teasing, pictures and posters, jobs, and styles of dress. Gutek and her colleagues found that social-sexual behavior at work resulted in part from sex-role spillover and in part from the amount of contact with the opposite sex. Sex-role spillover refers to sex roles undertaken by men and women in the broader society which interfered with (i.e. spilled over into) work roles. In the area of sexual harassment, they found thatwomen reported more sexual harassment than men, that male harassers were not demographically different from other men at work, that women who were harassed were usually afraid that they would be blamed for the incident, and did not lodge formal complaints because they did notwant to ruin the harasser’s career and believed that their organization would not do anything anyway. In contrast to women, who felt insulted, men were generally flattered by sexual overtures from women. Men used sex at work more frequently than women and talked about sex more. They used it to express a variety of feelings (friendship, caring, power, dominance, hostility) toward women and brag about their heterosexuality to other men. In contrast to men, women were hurt by sex in the workplace.
ORGANIZATIONAL DOWNSIZING
Significant reorganization or downsizing of firms has been commonplace throughout the past decade and will continue during the next. The accumulating evidence indicates that these changes typically have profound effects on both survivors and victims of job loss, almost always negative. It is also clear that women and men are likely to be affected in similar ways.
Women, however, may experience some unique issues associated with corporate restructuring. Interviews with senior women managers who voluntarily left a public sector organization in the midst of restructuring found that the most cited reasons were the lack of opportunities for career advancement and stress (Karambayya, 1998, 2001). In addition, these women commonly reported that the restructuring process had exacerbated existing gender issues. They also believed that the restructuring had created a backlash against women that would hinder their career prospects. Senior management appeared to close ranks, increasingly appearing to be an old boys club.Women were also over-represented in support functions, common targets of cost cutting. Women were also likely to be the most recent entrants to senior management ranks and did not have the personal and professional networks to protect them. The lean and mean values of the organization became increasingly antithetical to their personal values. The organizational culture placed increasing demands for commitment to career and organization. These preliminary findings suggest that managerial and professional women may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of organizational restructuring.
WORKAHOLISM
Workaholism has three main components: work involvement, feeling driven to work, and work enjoyment.Work addicts score high on work involvement and feeling driven to work and low on work enjoyment. Work enthusiasts score high on work involvement and work enjoyment and low on feeling driven to work. Enthusiastic workaholics score high on all three components.
Our first study examined the links betweenworkaholism and non-work activities and psychological health. It also offered an opportunity to examine gender differences in workaholism and workaholism-related variables (Burke, 1996a, b). Data were obtained from 251 women and 279 men, all MBA graduates of the same university. There were some predictable gender differences on personal and situational characteristics. Males were older, more likely to be married, to be in longer marriages, more likely to have children, to have more children, had completed their MBA degrees earlier, were less likely to have gaps in their careers, earned higher incomes, and had been in their present jobs and with their present employers a longer period of time.
Women and men were different on one of the three workaholism components: Women were lower onwork involvement but similar to men onwork enjoyment and feelings of being driven to work. Women also devoted less time to their jobs, worked fewer hours and fewer extra hours, but reported greater job stress and greater perfectionism than did men. The fact that females worked fewer hours may reflect their typically greater time commitment to home and family responsibilities. Alternatively, the women may simply have been placed in low-power, low-opportunity jobs. Females reporting greater perfectionism and greater levels of job stress may reflect bothwork overload, greaterwork–family conflict, and aspects of personality (e.g. perfectionism) heightened by needs to prove themselves.
It is significant that females reported higher levels of job behaviors, such as perfectionism and job stress, likely to be associated with adverse work and well-being consequences. Women in particular professions may be as prone to exhibit workaholism as men. It may also be the case thatworkaholism amongwomen may pose additional burdens, sincewomen still shoulder the bulk of household responsibilities. Do ambitious women adopt the male model of the overwork ethic? Do managers function in ways that coerce some women to display workaholism?
UNEMPLOYMENT
Fielden&Davidson (2000) examined stresses experienced during unemployment in samples of women (N = 115) and men (N = 169) managers at different levels. Women managers reported greater stressors and more negative consequences of unemployment. Many of the stresses of unemployment among women were similar to the stresses women experience while working. Fielden & Davidson attribute this to the fact that women had a less welldeveloped occupational identity, a weaker sense of being a manager.