Stress and the powerful woman

Have you felt a little beat-up since you got that promotion?

Next question: What's your gender? According to a new research study released in December, job authority appears to increase symptoms of depression among women, but decreases them among men.

The study—Gender, Job Authority, and Depression—looked at more than 1,300 middle-aged men and 1,500 middle-aged women who graduated from high schools in Wisconsin.

According to the lead author of the study, Tetyana Pudrovska, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, women with job authority—that is, the ability to hire, fire and influence pay—"have significantly more symptoms of depression than women without this power.”

On the other hand, she said, men with that power have fewer symptoms of depression than men who don't.

Pudrovska noted that although the women in the study with job authority enjoyed advantages in most of the characteristics that are strong predictors of positive mental health—such as higher education and incomes, more prestigious jobs, and higher levels of job satisfaction and autonomy—they nonetheless had worse mental health than lower-status women.

The reason? Much of it boiled down to how others reacted—however unfairly—to women in authority positions.

The authors say social science research suggests that women in authority positions are more prone than men to encounter tense social interactions, negative stereotypes, prejudice and social isolation. And they may encounter resistance from both above and below. And that when they do display assertiveness and confidence, they may elicit a negative response for acting "unfeminine." All of this contributes to chronic stress.

On the other hand, Pudrovska said, “men in positions of authority are consistent with the expected status beliefs, and male leadership is accepted as normative and legitimate." As a result, they encounter less stress and opposition.

According to the authors, the research indicates the need to continue to address discrimination and prejudice against women leaders in the workplace.

While that may be true, it might not hurt to temper that call to action with two additional observations. First, the study was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging. Second, (and as a result of the foregoing) it studied about 3,000 middle-aged men and women.

Taking a somewhat deeper dive into the study, we see that they used 1957–2004 data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to examine the effect of job authority in 1993, when the white male and female subjects were 54, to see how that authority affected depressive symptoms from that time until 2004, when they turned 65.

Taking a step back, it's safe to say that women have made a bit of headway in the workplace since 2004. And that a few attitudes have changed over that time. After all, the people in the study group were born in 1939 and graduated from high school in 1957. They comprise a slightly different demographic cohort than most people in today's workforce. 

That's not to say that women in authority don't still encounter negative stereotypes and suffer the consequences. Or that men don't benefit from a perceived traditional leadership role. But we're willing to bet that in 2015, both women and men generally perceive one another's roles in today's workplace by standards that are significantly different from those of the study group.

And these days (ask anyone), on-the-job stress is more of an equal-opportunity annoyance.

Welcome to the club, gents.