THE JOB STRESS SURVEY - MEASURING GENDER DIFFERENCES IN OCCUPATIONAL STRESS

Stress in the workplace is a major problem, with extensive costs to individuals, organizations and society. In order to modify the adverse effects of occupational stress on employee productivity, absenteeism, health and well-being, more sensitive measures of specific stressor events are needed. Person-environment fit and transactional process theory guided the construction and development of a new measure, the Job Stress Survey (JSS), which assesses the perceived severity of 30 job stressor events and how often they occur in a variety of occupational settings. Research findings with the JSS show that overall stress levels are similar for men and women, but numerous gender differences were found in the perceived severity and frequency of occurrence of individual stressor events.