Gender Dynamics, Work Stress, and Burnout Among Health-Care Workers

Abstract

The ways in which gender shapes our lives are an important cause of work stress and burnout among health-care workers, but this cause is not yet clearly examined in the research literature. This paper investigates how the experiences of burnout differ between health care professions, including the occupational roles and demands of workplace culture and scheduling.  Burnout is explained as a multidimensional phenomenon in the workplace, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. Women in health care   and particularly nursing, allied health and lower-tier occupations   often have greater workload demands, lower scheduling control, unequal domestic load and exposure to gendered inequities. All of these factors lead to emotional exhaustion. Men can have burnout through depersonalization, role conflict, and professional detachment. The manuscript also highlights the need for an intersectional analysis of gender along the axes of occupation, hierarchy, professional identity, race, age, and organizational culture. Staff the right number of employees, hold a flexible timetable, encourage inclusive leadership, mentor others, offer employee assistance programs, measure tools that are gender sensitive, and institutionalize anti-discriminatory policies and personal empowerment initiatives for career advancement. The understanding of burnout should go beyond individual coping and recognize the sociomedical nature and organizational structuring and gendering of health-care work. Tackling gendered stressors will protect worker wellbeing, boost retention and bolster quality and safety of patient care