BY KEVIN SAWYER – New research has found that job satisfaction in your 20’s and 30’s will have a huge impact on your mental and physical health in your 40’s and beyond. A recent study done at Ohio State University states that how satisfied you are with your working situation is the major indicator of how your health will be affected as you approach middle age.
The researchers drew their data from a huge study that the state of Ohio has done for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data began being compiled in 1979 and the major reason they used this data is that it includes information regarding people’s satisfaction with their jobs and working environments. The examined data did not include statistics from the Crash of ’09 and two years or so after and the researchers found a definite trend of lowered job satisfaction since the early 1980’s.
The researchers split the participants data into four separate groups and studied only those people between the ages of 25-39. The four groups studied consisted of people whose job satisfaction was low on a consistent basis; people whose job satisfaction was high on a consistent basis; people whose job satisfaction was low but ended up becoming higher; and people whose job satisfaction was high but ended up in a lower decline as the years went on.
The final stats found that only about 15% of people studied were consistently satisfied in their jobs while in their 20’s and 30’s. Around 17% had their job satisfaction rise as the years went on while 23% found that their job satisfaction declined as their careers progressed. A rather significant 45%, nearly half of everyone studied, had reported that they were consistently unhappy and unsatisfied in their job situations.
Jonathan Dirlam, the lead author on the study, concluded that, “We found that those with lower job satisfaction levels throughout their late 20’s and early 30’s have worse mental health compared to those with high job satisfaction levels. Those who initially had high job satisfaction but downwardly decreased over time also had worse health.”
Because of this, the study found, this lack of job satisfaction begins to take its health toll as people enter into their late 30’s and into their 40’s. Many become afflicted with such things as severe depression, which can lead to such things as alcoholism and drug addiction, as well as serious sleep disorders and problems. Sleep deprivation is a relatively common burden of modern day living but the severely sleep deprived end up developing other serious health problems as well.
“I would say,” said Dirlam, “our study’s main findings are you’re likely to have worse health if you don’t love your job rather than if you hate your job. The main reason is due to increased job insecurity. People are not as sure if they will always have their job like they were 30 years ago. It may be more beneficial for overall life satisfaction to take a job with slightly less pay if that job will give you higher job satisfaction. Most people spend almost half of their waking life at work and it’s important that you are able to find some joy during that time.”
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