Occupational Class and Exposure to Job Stressors among Employed Men and Women in Japan

Abstract

parts producer. Only full-time employees were invited to participate in the study. At four study sites, all full-time employees were invited. At three other sites, full-time employees who participated in health checkups within a certain period were invited. At one site, full-time employed men who had participated in health checkups were invited. At another site, all supervisors and managers were invited. A questionnaire was distributed by mail with a letter of invitation explaining the objectives and procedure of the study to a total of 29,417 eligible subjects between April 1996 and May 1998. The subjects were asked to complete the questionnaire at the worksite or at home and return it in a thick envelope with their written consent to participate to occupational health division. Information on their IDs was also collected for a future linkage with medical records. A total of 25,104 questionnaires were returned. The average response rate was 85%, ranging from 73% to 100% at most study sites, with an exception (43%) at one site. We excluded 3,026 responses from one study site collected during the health checkups between June 1997 and November 1997 because the questionnaire that was distributed during that period lacked a part of the JCQ scales due to an editorial mistake. In addition, 2,421 respondents were excluded because of at least one missing response for variables relevant to the study. Furthermore, a small number of respondents (n=135) who reported their occupation as farming or in a miscellaneous category were excluded from the following analyses. The data from 19,522 respondents (16,444 men and 3,078 women) were analyzed. Classification of occupationThe ISCO88 classifies and ranks occupations according to the levels of skills required and education needed to perform a particular occupation.11 Legislators and managers were ranked the highest, followed by professionals, technicians, clerks, service and sales workers, craft and related trade workers, and machine operators and assemblers. Laborers were ranked the lowest. Respondents were asked to briefly describe their job titles and their most important roles at work, as well as to select their occupation from a multiple-choice question. Based on the descriptions, a four-digit occupational code was entered from the ISCO88 by trained raters under the supervision of researchers (TH, NK). In this study, the first digit of the ISCO88 occupation code (except for military and agricultural/fishery occupations) was used to determine eight occupation categories: managers, professionals, technicians, clerks, service and sales workers, craft and related trade workers, machine operators and assemblers, and laborers. A thorough review of the respondent's description and coding revealed a problem with this procedure: a number of respondents who rated themselves as having managerial occupations (a section chief or a higher position) in the multiple-choice question regarding occupation did not mention their positions as managers in the description section. Thus, their occu...

Relations of Occupational Stress to Occupational Class in Japanese Civil Servants-Analysis by Two Occupational Stress Models

“…Male managers showed a low prevalence OR of being in the high occupational stress group in JDC stress (high demands, low decision latitude), which coincides with the results by Kawakami et al 24) . However, production workers/ laborers showed a lower prevalence OR of being in the high occupational stress group, compared to managers.…”

“…Research on occupational class and exposure to job stressors is limited in Japan. As a result of a study based on JDC, Kawakami et al have found connections between nine occupational categories and job stressors among Japanese employed men and women, also reporting that low-grade occupations such as laborers and machine operators are highly exposed to low job control and high job strain 24) . Sekine et al have reported that job stress differs according to employment grade, high grades being characterized by high job control and high job demands 19) .…”

Association between Job Stressors and Heavy Drinking: Age Differences in Male Japanese Workers

“…The present study was conducted using the data obtained as a baseline survey of the Japan Work Stress and Health Cohort Study (JSTRESS Study) (reported in detail elsewhere 41,42) ). A questionnaire was distributed to 29,471 workers at nine companies and factories from April 1996 to May 1998; 25,104 workers replied (average response rate, 85.2%).…”

Associations of Health Behaviors on Depressive Symptoms among Employed Men in Japan

“…This could be because job strain was significantly correlated with occupations in this cohort group 23) . On the contrary, there is an argument that the job strain model might be too simple to show the differences among occupations 24) , even though the categories of occupations have not been established among health researchers.…”

“…In model 3, we adjusted for age, education, marital status and job strain. To avoid over-adjustment [21][22][23][24] , in model 3, we adjusted for not occupations but job strain. Odds ratios were converted to adjusted relative risk (ARR) by means of the formulas which Zhang et al indicated 25) .…”