You better be as stressed as I am : Working men's mental health amidst workplace expectations for busyness

BACKGROUND: In western societies, busy lifestyles that include long hours spent in paid employment are highly regarded. Given the ongoing primacy of men's roles as employees and providers, researchers need to understand men's mental health in terms of men's relationships to paid employment and expectations for "busyness".

OBJECTIVE: This study is an examination of if and how working men ascribe to workplace expectations for "busyness" and what mental health impacts these expectations can entail.

METHODS: We present a secondary analysis of narrative data drawn from three focus groups and 23 individual interviews with working men (n = 37) about work-related mental health.

RESULTS: We found two themes of workplace expectations for busyness: 1) immediate manifestations and 2) background manifestations. Immediate manifestations are intensity and volume of work while background manifestations include a) unspoken messages and b) mixed messages. We found a third theme of 3) impacts of expectations for busyness and this includes a) busyness pride/costs of being "unbusy" and b) trade-offs in self-care.

CONCLUSIONS: Obvious and subtle workplace expectations for busyness are abundant and may obstruct attending to one's mental health as well as contribute to a frame of reference where not being busy precipitates feelings of anxiety and depression.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:66

Enthalten in:

Work (Reading, Mass.) - 66(2020), 3 vom: 15., Seite 645-656

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Lashewicz, Bonnie [VerfasserIn]
Mitchell, Jennifer [VerfasserIn]
Boettcher, Nicholas [VerfasserIn]
Jones, Erin [VerfasserIn]
Wang, JianLi [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Busyness
Job intensity
Journal Article
Masculinity
Self-care
Status
Stress

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 25.06.2021

Date Revised 25.06.2021

published: Print

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.3233/WOR-203207

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM312280874