Stress or strain?: Job insecurity, job strain, and the health of contractual university teachers

Cohen, Linda Ann (2018) Stress or strain?: Job insecurity, job strain, and the health of contractual university teachers. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Job insecurity is well-documented throughout the North American labour market, affecting even highly educated workers (Kalleberg, 2011; Lane, 2011; Sharone, 2014). Its health effects are less often studied and are sometimes confused with those of job strain. My mixed methods study focused on the health challenges posed by job insecurity for a convenience sample of 32 contractual university teachers at “A Regional University” (ARU) in Canada (Cohen, 2013). Twenty-seven participants related job insecurity and job strain to their health and coping strategies in semi-structured interviews. This paper elaborates on when and how the health outcomes of job insecurity and job strain intersected. For 23 of the 27 interviewees, the stress of job insecurity had a greater negative impact on emotional health than did any other aspect of contractual teaching. Curiously, job strain was an issue for only eleven. Many participants embraced higher task demand, an aspect of job strain, in a bid to cope with job insecurity.

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