National Taiwan University

1. National Taiwan University Gender difference in occupational stress and its effect on health functioning among legal professionals Feng-Jen Tsai; Chang-Chuan Chan Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University Objective To determine (1) the gender differences in occupational stress and self-report health functioning; and (2) the gender-specific association between occupational stress and health functioning. Methods --- Questionnaire survey General character Occupational stress Chinese version of Job Content Questionnaire (C-JCQ) Demand-control model Chinese version of Effort-reward imbalance Questionnaire (C-ERI) Effect-reward imbalance model Health Functioning Chinese version of International Quality of Life Assessment Short Form (IQOLA SF-36) Results Discussion 1.Female legal professionals received significantly lower job control and job satisfaction, and higher job strain than male legal professionals, but a gender difference was not found in other scales. 2.Female legal professionals reported poorer health functioning than male legal professionals. Even after controlling potential confounders, the self-reported health functioning of female legal professionals remained significantly lower than male legal professionals. 3.Job strain showed stronger predictability of male’s poor health functioning while the effort reward imbalance had better explanatory power for females’ poor health functioning. 4.Men tend to be litigious lawyers while women prefer to be non-litigious lawyers . Table 1. Individual characteristics, occupational stress and health functioning by gender ▲---Job control △---Job satisfaction ●---Job strain ○---Effort-reward imbalance Figure 1: The ORs of poor health functioning status between female and male legal professionals under four occupational stress indicators: job control, job satisfaction, job strain and effort-reward imbalance * PF = physical health; RP = role physical; BP = bodily pain; GH = general health; VT = validity; SF = social functioning; RE = role emotional; and MH = mental health Table 2. Gender-specific odds ratios (ORs) of poor health functioning status by occupational indicators of job strain and effort-reward imbalance