Emotional strain is not distributed evenly in work life

Finnish Institute of Occupational Health media release, 16 October 2025

A recent study by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health compares different occupational groups based on the amount of emotionally charged social interaction at work and how stressful these emotions are.

"The amount of emotional interaction and its stressfulness varies greatly from occupation to occupation. In addition, the gendered occupational structure determines the amount of emotional strain and accumulates it in female-dominated sectors," says Ari Väänänen, Research Professor from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Primary school teachers and social work associate professionals experienced the most stressful emotions related to social interaction. Both of these occupational groups are female-dominated. Such emotions felt the least stressful to the male-dominated occupational group of sheet and structural metal workers, moulders and welders.

"Previous research has shown that emotional labour and related expectations in families and organisations are asymmetrical in terms of gender. This research describes in more detail how gender-based expectations of emotional labour are distributed in the Finnish labour market," says Antero Olakivi, Specialist Researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Emotional strain in relation to productivity and the smooth flow of work

"Emotions at work should be viewed as phenomena emerging from the structures of work life, not only as the experiences of an individual employee. This allows us to also understand in more depth the nature of work, the organisational framework and the significance of gender-related power structures behind emotional strain," says Ari Väänänen.

It is also essential to look at emotional strain from the perspective of the productivity and smooth flow of work. In occupations where emotional strain is central, interaction that is successful or at least sufficiently functional is at the core of successful work.

“For example, the quality and effectiveness of the work of a registered nurse, counsellor or teacher is largely based on the encounters with patients, clients or students being successful,” says Ari Väänänen.

Emotional strain linked to mental health-related work disability

Is emotional strain associated with an increased risk of mental health-related work disability? Recent register studies support this interpretation: sickness absences due to depression and anxiety among employees in the social welfare and healthcare sector have become more pronounced compared to employees in other sectors.

"The association between emotional strain and work disability needs to be investigated in more detail in the future. In occupations with a high degree of emotional strain, the strain can increase mental health symptoms and lower work ability more than in other jobs," says Antero Olakivi.

The study is part of the Differentiating emotions: the role of an employee’s generation and gender in their emotional experiences of work life and work ability and their management project, funded by the Finnish Work Environment Fund. The project will continue until June 2026, and provide new data on the differentiation of work ability related to emotions. The research data will allow developing new approaches to challenges related to work ability and mental well-being.

Explore the classification of occupational groups in the study

Occupational groups divided according to the frequency of emotional interaction and the stressfulness of emotions.

Based on the frequency of emotional social interaction and the stressfulness of emotions, most occupational groups can be classified into one of two categories.

1.

Occupations with frequent and emotionally demanding interaction – high strain (29% of occupations)

• A total of 52 per cent of female-dominated occupational groups: several occupations in the social welfare and healthcare sector and education.
• A total of 7 per cent of male-dominated occupations: shop keepers, police inspectors and detectives and armed forces.

2.

Occupations with intermittent and moderate interaction – low strain (41%)

• Total of 71 per cent of male-dominated occupational groups, 15 per cent of female-dominated occupational groups.
• Large male-dominated occupations include heavy truck and bus drivers, machinery mechanics and repairers, market-oriented skilled agricultural workers, software and applications developers and analysts, and physical and engineering science technicians.
• Large female-dominated occupational groups include cooks and general secretaries.

See the data in the Work-Life Knowledge Service

• The dataset on emotional strain related to interaction in gendered work life can be viewed by occupational group in the Work-Life Knowledge Service: www.tyoelamatieto.fi/en/home/data/differentiating-emotions/
• The data includes 104 different occupational groups, which cover a total of 90 per cent of Finnish employees. Statistics and register data from 2023 by Statistics Finland have been used as background information for occupational classification, gender distribution of occupations and the size of occupational groups.
• The data is based on the work life section of the Healthy Finland survey, which was carried out by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in collaboration with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. More than 7,000 working people responded to the survey in 2022–2023.

Further information

• Ari Väänänen, Research Professor, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, ari.vaananen@ttl.fi, +358 50 511 0530
• Antero Olakivi, University Lecturer, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences, antero.olakivi@helsinki.fi, +358 50 448 4267 (Olakivi worked as a Specialist Researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health at the time of the study)