Work Stress and Subjective Well-Being in the United States, 2002–2022: Changes Over Time in Job Satisfaction and General Happiness
This study examines whether U.S. adults who report more frequent work stress also report lower job satisfaction and lower general happiness, and whether those relationships changed between 2002 and 2022.
Research questions
The analysis asks whether more frequent work stress is associated with lower job satisfaction and lower general happiness after accounting for observed demographic and employment characteristics, and whether the strength of those associations changed over time.
Data and methods
The primary analysis uses repeated cross-sectional General Social Survey waves from 2002, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2022. Survey-weighted regression models incorporate GSS survey weights and design variables and adjust for age, education, sex, marital status, self-employment status, and survey-year fixed effects. Interaction models allow the work-stress gradient to vary across survey years.
Key findings
- More frequent work stress is associated with progressively lower job satisfaction and lower general happiness.
- Relative to respondents reporting that work is never stressful, respondents reporting that work is always stressful have adjusted job-satisfaction scores 0.492 points lower and general-happiness scores 0.265 points lower.
- The negative relationship between work stress and job satisfaction becomes stronger over 2002–2022, with an especially large adjusted gap in 2022.
- Evidence of temporal change is weaker and less consistent for general happiness than for job satisfaction.
Interpretation
Because the GSS data are observational repeated cross-sections, the estimates are interpreted as associations rather than causal effects. The analysis cannot determine the direction of causality or identify the mechanisms responsible for changes over time.