Lessons on the COVID-19 pandemic: who are the most affected.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant changes in work and lifestyle, impacting occupational mental health. This study examines the time and individual heterogeneity in the pandemic's effects on occupational mental health using panel data from job stress checks spanning 2018 to 2021. On average, there was an initial alleviation of high-stress risk in 2020, followed by a deterioration in 2021. Based on the job demand-resource theory, we identify the group of employees most affected by the pandemic. The findings highlight that employees in unfavorable workplace conditions are more likely to experience substantial adverse impacts. Adequate workplace support, including factors like interpersonal relationships, managerial support, job meaning, control, and work-life balance, is crucial for mitigating high-stress risk. Additionally, during the early phase of the pandemic, engaged employees experienced a slight decline in occupational mental health, while those lacking job resources at their worksite faced higher levels of occupational stress in the subsequent year. These findings offer practical suggestions for person-centered coping strategies to mitigate the pandemic's adverse impact.

The international role of education in sustainable lifestyles and economic development.

Improved economic growth and environmental protection are necessary to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. This study examines the relationship between people's education levels and sustainable lifestyles in protecting the environment and economic growth, as expressed by the increase in household equivalent income. We conducted an original cross-sectional survey, which yielded 100,956 valid observations in 37 countries. The factors included educational level, sustainable lifestyle with natural resource consumption, and household equivalent income for economic development. We used logit and ordered logit model and applied an ordinary linear regression model after confirming the association between education and income. Our analyses found that higher educational levels were associated with an increase in specific environmentally friendly behaviors and sustainable energy consumption. Individuals in the higher educational level group tended to consume recycled goods, purchase energy-saving household products, conserve electricity, and separate their waste. Additionally, higher levels of education were positively associated with equivalent household income in all 37 countries, indicating better economic development. Thus, our study underscores the importance of improving education at the broad population level to promote economic development and establish cooperative human behaviors necessary to sustain the environment.

Household energy-saving behavior, its consumption, and life satisfaction in 37 countries.

Since energy consumption became an important contributor to climate change owing to carbon emissions, energy-saving behavior and expenditure at the household level have been attracting scholars' and policymakers' attention. This study identified whether greenhouse gas emissions at the household level can be reduced through purchase of energy-saving goods and whether the energy-saving behavior enhanced with household income increase. We conducted a large-scale survey across 37 nations using internet-based and face-to-face approaches, collecting 100,956 observations. The wealth effect on energy consumption expenditure at the household level was found to be positive across countries, confirming that energy consumption increases with household wealth improvement. Furthermore, households show a positive association between household energy expenditure and life satisfaction in 27 out of 37 countries, including China, India, the United States, and Germany. Additionally, the favorable effects of household energy-saving behavior are confirmed. However, purchase of household energy-saving products has a limited effect on energy consumption expenditure, compared with that of energy-curtailment behavior. In conclusion, achieving a carbon-neutral household by reducing energy consumption expenditure at the household level is challenging; thus, along with the use of energy-saving goods, alternative energy sources, such as renewable energies, are recommended.

Occupational stress: evidence from industries affected by COVID-19 in Japan.

BACKGROUND: This study provides objective evidence on the impact of COVID-19 based on employee occupational stress reported from 13 different industries, and examines the determinants of employee psychological well-being. As the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue, governments should consider industry-level differences when making support decisions concerning public resource allocation to corporations. However, little evidence exists regarding the differences in occupational stress across industries. METHODS: Employee occupational stress data (N = 673,071) was derived from workers in Japan from 2018 to 2020. The sample comprises workers from 13 industries, including civil services, service industry (other), real estate, medical/welfare, wholesale/retail, academic research, and accommodation/restaurant business. A logit model is employed to investigate the differences in employees' psychological well-being before and during the pandemic. RESULTS: In 2020, 11 out of 12 industries had significantly worse occupational stress compared to employees engaged in civil services. Over 23% of employees from the wholesale/retail and accommodation/restaurant industries were observed as high-stress employees. Improved compensation policies supporting these industries are suggested. In contrast, reduced occupational stress was found among employees in the transportation/postal and information/communication industries. Among the 13 industries, aside from high job demands, tough inter-person relationships in the workplace became the most significant stressors during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm that the pandemic has had a heterogeneous effect on employee occupational stress across industries, thus suggesting that the level of compensation given to different industries during the COVID-19 pandemic should be discussed and approved by the Japanese government. Additionally, support for the wholesale/retail and accommodation/restaurant industries during the pandemic should be improved.

Evaluation of employee occupational stress by estimating the loss of human capital in Japan.

BACKGROUND: Human capital is thought to be a crucial factor that drives economic growth. This study aims to understand the evaluation of the loss of human capital caused by employees' occupational stress. METHODS: In total, 1,021,178 observations for employee occupational stress were collected from 390 companies from 2017 to 2019 in Japan. The original cross-sectional survey contains 11,167 employees with occupational stress and their socioeconomic information in 2015. The relationship between stress and annual income is estimated with polynomial regression, and accumulated human capital loss is estimated. Matching approaches are applied for corporate human capital loss. RESULTS: The negative association between annual income and employee stress is derived, which indicates that the worse the employees' stress is, the greater the human capital losses. Importantly, we confirmed that most employees have human capital loss, and on average, for male employees aged 25, the accumulated human capital loss will reach approximately $0.6 million USD by retirement. CONCLUSION: For corporations, human capital loss is highly correlated with the number of employees, suggesting that reducing the occupational stress of employees can lead to greater corporate performance.

Long-term improvement of psychological well-being in the workplace: What and how.

OBJECTIVE: The World Health Organization states that by 2030, mental illness will become the leading global disease burden. Thus, investigations of job stress might require more heterogeneous and innovative solutions. Existing literature demonstrates that good workplace environments have favorable effects on employees' psychological well-being. However, studies on long-term effects are scarce. This study examined the long-term impact of comprehensive workplace characteristics and employee responses to stress (coping strategies) on job stress in Japan. METHODS: Under a large-scale 3-year longitudinal study, 1,021,178 observations collected from employees in 390 companies from 2017 to 2019 were used. Employee job stress trends were confirmed based on company-fixed-effects linear regression. The relationship between one-year or two-year lagged comprehensive workplace characteristics or coping strategies, and employee job stress was estimated using linear regression. Favorable effects of the work environment and coping strategy improvement were illustrated based on the regression results simulation. RESULTS: First, job stress appeared to be steadily worsening among the employees of Japanese companies from 2017 to 2019. Second, low job and psychological demand, high job control, a high level of support from the people around, balanced effort-reward, strong job security, and strong interpersonal relationship have favorable long-term effects on employee job stress. Third, employees' coping strategies, such as positive thinking, changing mood, requiring help from other people, reduced negative thinking, and avoiding inappropriate emotional divergence have long-term effects on mitigating job stress. Particularly, thinking positively, changing mood, and avoiding directing feelings of anger and frustration toward others reduce high stress in 46% of respondent employees. CONCLUSIONS: A comprehensive well-organized workplace environment and appropriate responses to stress have a long-term favorable effect on employee job stress. These results provide policy measures for improving the workplace environment and for employees to adopt coping strategies to enhance their psychological well-being in the long term.

Environmental, social, and corporate governance activities with employee psychological well-being improvement.

BACKGROUND: Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) engagement is expected to benefit corporations in terms of their efficiency and sustainability. The transformative change in management practices would not only provide support for employees but also bring about additional workload, which may affect employee psychological well-being. However, the examination of the relationship between corporate ESG activities and occupational stress is scarce; hence, this study aims to fill this knowledge gap. METHODS: In total, 110,351 observations were collected from 41,998 employees regarding occupational stress to reflect employee psychological well-being. The data were derived from 11 corporations in Japan from 2017 to 2019. Data on ESG activities were collected from the MSCI ESG database from 2015 to 2017. The effect of 1-year lagged corporate ESG activities on employee psychological well-being was investigated using a lagged variable linear regression model. RESULTS: Positive and negative relationships were found between corporate environmental activities and occupational stress. Activities that reduce water stress during operation and adopt clean technology were found to benefit employees' psychological well-being. On the contrary, the program for reducing toxic emissions and waste lowered employees' occupational stress levels significantly. Regarding corporate social activities, the improvement of job satisfaction or work-life balance was associated with occupational stress. However, corporate governance activities were found to have unfavorable effects on employees' psychological well-being. CONCLUSION: The effects of corporate ESG activities on employees' psychological well-being are found. The managerial implications suggest that caring for employees' occupational stress during the implementation of environmental activities is necessary, and the adoption of social activities could enhance employees' psychological well-being. Notably, corporate governance activities are a stressor for employees; top management teams should pay attention to it.

Impact of social participation on health among middle-aged and elderly adults: evidence from longitudinal survey data in China.

BACKGROUND: Social participation (SP) is known to have a favourable impact on health. However, studies on this issue have been conducted mainly in advanced countries, and results in China have been mixed. This study examined the impact of SP on health outcomes of middle-aged and elderly adults in China, adjusted for simultaneity and heterogeneity biases. METHODS: In total, 57,417 observations of 28,935 individuals obtained from the population-based, three-wave panel survey, Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), conducted in 2011, 2013, and 2015 were used. The associations between one- or two-wave-lagged SP and health outcomes (mental health, self-rated health [SRH], activities of daily living [ADL], and diagnosed diseases) were examined by linear regression models. Individual-level heterogeneity was addressed by the random-effects estimation method. RESULTS: SP was found to have a positive impact on mental health and ADL. Specifically, one-wave-lagged SP improved mental health measure (range: 10-70) by 0.820 (standard error [SE]: 0.199, p <  0.001), the basic ADL measure (range: 6-24) by 0.147 (SE: 0.043, p <  0.001), and the instrumental ADL measure (range: 5-20) by 0.159 (SE: 0.035, p <  0.001). In contrast, SP did not significantly affect SRH or diagnosed diseases. The impact of SP differed by SP type; playing Mah-jong (Chinese traditional game), chess, or cards, or going to the community club had the most favourable effect. The impact of SP on health was also greater for women than men and greater for individuals aged 60-69 years than those aged 45-59 years and aged 70 and older. CONCLUSIONS: SP had a positive, albeit selective, impact on health outcomes among middle-aged and elderly adults in China. The results suggest that policy measures to encourage these individuals to engage in SP are needed to enhance their health.