Research in social psychology demonstrates that the sense of distributive injustice has emotional, health, and behavioral consequences. It is therefore important to assess how individuals come to perceive their earnings as unjust. I provide new insights to this question by integrating perspectives in distributive justice, the stress process, and the work-family interface. Specifically, I describe a model that delineates how excessive work pressures elevate workers’ sense of what they should earn through actions and strains in the work-family interface. Using data from a 2017 sample of Canadian workers, the results indicate that higher job pressure is associated with a greater expectation of rewards. Part of this association is indirect through role blurring behavior and work-to-family conflict, and this mechanism is intensified for parents. Collectively, these discoveries expand the scope of what counts as inputs in shaping employees’ sense of what they should justly earn.
Roughly half of American workers report feeling underpaid. Equity and distributive justice theory and research suggests that perceived underpayment is associated with more job dissatisfaction. However, no population-based research has examined the situational factors that may protect individuals from the harmful effects of perceived underpayment. Using data from a national sample of American workers, this study examines the extent to which forms of security modify the association between perceived underpayment and job dissatisfaction. Results indicate that while perceived underpayment is associated with more job dissatisfaction, each of the following attenuates that association: job security, financial security, and employment in the public sector. This provides a novel theoretical elaboration and extension.
Using data from a 2011 nationally representative sample of Canadian workers (N = 5,576), the present study evaluates the social-structural determinants of the sense of mastery. Three main contributions emerge. First, we document that each of the main components of socioeconomic status--education, income, occupation, and economic hardship--have distinct total, indirect, and net associations with mastery. The well-educated report more mastery because of their higher earnings--but exposure to more role blurring and work-family conflict offset what would otherwise be their even higher levels of mastery. Second, job-related demands and resources have largely independent associations with mastery, but our analyses also reveal some key areas of overlap. Third, role-blurring activities--and their connections with work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict--offer unique expansions to the overall narrative of mastery, with unexpected explanatory and suppression effects. We interpret each of these observations in an effort to advance recent theoretical perspectives about mastery.
Underreward is associated with depression—but is that association contingent upon job authority and other forms of status in the work role? And, do these patterns differ for women and men? Analyses of a national sample of American workers reveal that underreward is more strongly associated with depression among women with higher levels of job authority compared to similarly situated men. The authors then demonstrate that this pattern is amplified when other status elements are considered: income, skill level, autonomy, and decision latitude. These patterns are observed net of a range of sociodemographic measures, work stressors, and workplace sex composition. The findings of this study provide new insights about the gendered ways that job authority and other forms of status shape the association between underreward and depression. In doing so, the authors speak to diverse theoretical traditions related to distributive justice and engage with key ideas of reward expectation states theory. The efforts of the authors dovetail with recent interest in the gendered implications of authority and status as well as their connections to psychological distress.
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