Low Job Satisfaction Can Affect Your Mental Health

A new study has found that those people who are not satisfied with their job during their late 20s and 30s may have a poor general health and emotional problems by the time they enter their 40s.

In a 2014 report, it was found that about 52 percent were found to be unhappy with their job. This was found by most experts to have a substantial effect on the individual's health. "We found that there is a cumulative effect of job satisfaction on health that appears as early as your 40s," said lead author Jonathan Dirlam, doctoral student at The Ohio State University, in the US.

For the study, Hui Zheng, Associate Professor at Ohio State and Dirlam used data from surveys of 6,432 Americans about their job satisfaction from 1979 onward. The one that conducted the survey was the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY1979) and those that participated were between the ages 14 and 22 when the study started. Medical News Today reported that the participants were asked to rate their current job satisfaction using numbers 1 (dislike very much) to 4 (like very much).

The researchers then divided the participants in four groups: consistently low and consistently high job satisfaction, those whose satisfaction started high but was trending down and those who started low but were trending higher. Results revealed that 42 percent of the total participants had consistently low job satisfaction, while the other 23 percent had levels that were going downward early in their careers. It also showed that about 15 percent were consistently happy with their current job and about 17 percent of them had satisfaction that were on its way up, Times of India reported.

The researchers also said that all the participants reported different health issues after they reached 40 years old. The researchers based their analysis on the group with consistently high job satisfaction and compared their health problems with other groups. Comparison showed that those who belong in the consistently low satisfaction group reported a much higher level of depression, sleeping problems and excessive worry. They also scored lower than others on mental health measures.

Meanwhile, The Financial Express also reported that those in the group who started with high job satisfaction, but started to have a downward trend also complained of having trouble sleeping and excessive worry, and had lower mental health scores. But they did not do worse on depression or emotional problems.

The researchers also found that the group that started with low job satisfaction early on in their careers but trended upward did not exhibit additional health problems compared to the control group. The study showed that when people experience low job satisfaction, their mental health get more affected that their physical health, although the downward trending group reported the worse overall health status with increased back pains and colds. This did not have any effect on doctor-diagnosed health problems like cancer.