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Critical Incidents of Financial Hardship and Worker Health: a Mixed-Methods Retrospective Study

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Abstract

Rooted in Social Cognitive Career theory, we present a mixed-methods analysis of the perceived impacts of a financial hardship on workers’ job outcomes, the work-family interface, and physical and emotional health. We used the Critical Incidents Technique to gather worker perceptions (n = 571) of the most challenging financial hardship they had recently experienced, as well as the effects of this hardship on work, family, and health. Workers’ qualitative responses overwhelmingly indicate health as an outcome of the financial hardship as well as, to a lesser extent, a cause of a financial hardship, suggesting a damaging reciprocal effect among financial hardships and health. Family was often noted in responses as both impacted by and as a source of the hardship, as were negative effects of financial hardships on employment-related outcomes (i.e., underemployment, difficulty finding a new job, job insecurity). Quantitative results suggest a process whereby financial insecurity affects stress and WFB satisfaction which, in turn, negatively relates to health outcomes (sleep disturbances, musculoskeletal pain, and general health perceptions) as well as organizational outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational justice). Given the potential cost to organizations when worker health and job attitudes are negatively impacted, our results suggest organizations should be mindful of workers’ experiences of financial hardships.

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  1. In an earlier pilot study, we asked participants to either recall and describe their most recent hardship, or their most challenging. Those participants describing their most challenging hardships provided more descriptive, rich detail of the hardship, and also reported stronger relationships among financial insecurity, stress, work-family balance, and health compared to those participants who described their most recent financial hardship. Thus we determined that those hardships that were perceived to be the most challenging were more salient to the participants, and were therefore the focus of the current, primary study.

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Acknowledgements

The first author would like to thank Rachel Parsons for her assistance coding the qualitative data, as well as the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their helpful critiques. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Heather N. Odle-Dusseau, Department of Management, 300 N. Washington St., Box 395, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA 17325. E-mail: hodle@gettysburg.edu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gettysburg College, 300 North Washington St, Gettysburg, PA, 17325, USA

    Heather N. Odle-Dusseau

  2. University of Alabama, 361 Stadium Drive, Box 870225, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA

    Russell A. Matthews

  3. Wake Forest University, 369 Farrell Hall, 1834 Wake Forest Road, Building 60, Farrell Hall, Winston-Salem, NC, 27106, USA

    Julie H. Wayne

  4. Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, 43403-0232, USA

    Susannah Huang

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  1. Heather N. Odle-Dusseau
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Correspondence to Heather N. Odle-Dusseau.

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Odle-Dusseau, H.N., Matthews, R.A., Wayne, J.H. et al. Critical Incidents of Financial Hardship and Worker Health: a Mixed-Methods Retrospective Study. Occup Health Sci 3, 145–165 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-019-00042-4

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