New work demands in higher education. A study of the relationship between excessive workload, coping strategies and subsequent health among academic staff

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between the work conditions in higher education work settings, the academic staff’s strategies for handling excessive workload and impact on well-being and work-life balance. The results show that there is a risk that staff in academic work places will start using compensatory coping strategies to deal with excessive demands and that this might seriously impair their health. The compensatory strategy cluster emerged as a ‘risk group’ among the three identified strategy clusters, having a lower work-life balance and suffering from stress-related symptoms more often than the other two strategy clusters. The results also show that high educational level, management position and wide discretion as regards regulation of work in time and space (when and where to work) are factors that might contribute to a lower work-life balance. In practice, the results can contribute to create more sustainable work environments by detecting risk behaviours and risk factors.

Keywords:

• higher education
• academic staff
• work demands
• coping strategies
• health
• work environment