International Journal of Stress Management, Vol. 8, No.

4, October 2001 ( 2001)

Occupational Stress in University Staff

Anthony H. Winefield1,3 and Richard Jarrett2

A survey was conducted of all staff members of an established Australian metropolitan university. The overall response rate for noncasual staff was 72% (77% for general staff and 65% for academic staff ) resulting in a sample of N = 2,040. High levels of psychological stress were observed, despite the fact that trait anxiety and job satisfaction were normal. Psychological distress was highest and job satisfaction lowest among academic staff engaged in both teaching and research. In general, university staff reported high levels of autonomy and social support from colleagues. However those engaged in both teaching and research reported increased pressure arising from funding cuts to universities, resulting in heavier teaching loads and greater difficulty in securing research funds, as well as a decline in facilities and support for both teaching and research. The results are discussed in relation to the DemandControl and PersonEnvironment Fit models of job stress.
KEY WORDS: occupational stress; university staff.

INTRODUCTION Although universities have traditionally been regarded as low stress working environments, during the 1990s there have been significant reductions in government funding of public universities, particularly in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. These have resulted in significant changes and increased pressures on staff (Fisher, 1994; Winefield, 2000).
1 2

School of Psychology, University of South Australia. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Melbourne. 3 Correspondence should be directed to Tony Winefield, School of Psychology, University of South Australia, City East Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia; e-mail: tony. winefield@unisa.edu.au. 285
1072-5245/01/1000-0285$19.50/0 2001 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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In terms of Karaseks (1979) DemandControl theory of job stress, jobs in which there is a high level of control or autonomy should not be stressful, even if the jobs are demanding (jobs characterized by high demands and high control are seen as active, but not stressful). Stressful jobs, according to the theory, are those that combine high demands with low control. In many western countries, academic freedom has been highly valued because the role (and responsibility) of the academic has been seen as the fearless pursuit and dissemination of knowledge and, where appropriate, as acting as social critic. Tenure has been regarded as the only guarantee of academic freedom. Consequently, although academic work has not been highly paid, academics have traditionally enjoyed high levels of autonomy, freedom to publish and to speak openly, even when their views are unpopular with the university administration, the scientific establishment, or the government. Critics of tenure have pointed out that it protects the lazy, incompetent, and unproductive, and denies opportunities to talented young scholars. During the past 4 or 5 years, in response to increasing financial pressures, many Australian universities have abandoned tenure (Coady, 2000; Molony, 2000). So-called tenured staff can be (and have been) made involuntarily redundant, and there has been an increase in contract (as opposed to tenure track) appointments. These changes have been accompanied by government policies encouraging universities to reduce their dependence on government funding and to seek increased support from the private sector. Several reports have appeared in the research literature of studies of stress in university staff in different countries. Examples include: Gmelch, Wilke, and Lovrich (1986), Blix, Cruise, Mitchell, and Blix (1994), and Richard and Krieshok (1989) in the USA; Abouserie (1996), Bradley and Eachus (1995), Daniels and Guppie (1992), and Wilkinson and Joseph (1995) in the UK; Dua (1994) in Australia; and Boyd and Wylie (1994) in New Zealand. All of these studies have found that academic stress has become a cause of concern as a result of increased work pressures. The study reported here was conducted in the mid-1990s (19941995), just before Australian universities began to implement policies whereby tenured staff (both academic and general) began to be made involuntarily redundant, thereby effectively abolishing job security. More recently, a large-scale national longitudinal investigation of occupational stress commenced in 17 of the 38 Australian public universities, including the University of Adelaide reported here (Gillespie, Walsh, Winefield, Stough, & Dua, 2000), and the results of the present study will hopefully provide valuable baseline data for the national study. This research, part of a broader climate survey commissioned by the vice chancellor, sought, inter alia, to compare stress levels between different categories of staff as well as to identify the main perceived sources of stress.

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METHOD Participants Participants were 2,040 employees of the University of Adelaide, an established Australian metropolitan university. The sample represented an overall response rate of 57.1%; however, this figure was depressed by a very low response rate among casual staff, many of whom were either difficult to contact or, because they were students, no doubt saw the questionnaire as irrelevant. Among the noncasual staff, the overall response rate was 72.2%. The response rate was 77.2% among general staff and 65.4% among academic staff (faculty). Ages ranged from 17 to 69; 51% of the respondents were men and 49% were women. Eight categories of staff were distinguished, four categories of academic staff and four categories of general staff, ranging from full time to casual (and including various categories of part-time staff). The highest response rates were for the full-time, noncasual general staff from whom 916 survey forms (out of 1,186 sent out) were received (77.2%) and for the full-time, noncasual academic staff from whom 602 survey forms (out of 920 sent out) were received (65.4%). The lowest response rate was for the casual general staff from whom 216 survey forms (out of 725 sent out) were received (29.8%). Overall, 2,040 (out of 3,570) survey forms were received, yielding a response rate of 57.1%. Because of missing data, the numbers reported in the following tables were usually less than this. The high response rates obtained in this study compare favorably with those from other recent studies. For example, they are higher than in those studies of university staff reported by Dua (1994) in Australia (46%), by Blix et al. (1994) in the USA (40%); and by Daniels and Guppy (1992) in the UK (39%). This can be attributed to the strong support for the study from both the university administration and the union, which resulted in considerable publicity and unrestricted access to university communication channels for distributing reminder notices.

Materials/Measures The first section of the survey form included demographic questions asking participants about the area or department in which they worked, their job classification, number of years employed, type of employment contract (tenured, tenurable, contract, casual), age, and sex. The second section focused on the work environment. It included the Warr,

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Cook, and Wall (1979) 16-item job satisfaction scale (each item being answered on a 7-point rating scale (Table 1) as well as questions relating to the specific work group. The latter questions were developed following extensive discussions and consultations with a steering group (see Procedure). In the third section, all staff were asked to identify which of 11 potential sources of stress they perceived to cause problems in their work area. The 11 potential sources were: (1) Funding of the area, (2) Physical environment, (3) Administrative support of the area, (4) Decision making, (5) Liaison with other areas, (6) Information flow, (7) Barriers to promotion/career progression, (8) Recognition for effort, (9) Communication within area, (10) Staff conflicts, and (11) Computing facilities. Staff were to express their level of agreement on a 5point rating scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) that major difficulties were caused by each of the 11 variables. The fourth and fifth sections included questions about teaching and research; only members of the academic staff involved in these activities were invited to complete them. The sixth section included the 12-item version of the General Health Questionnaire, the GHQ-12 (Goldberg, 1972), and a short (10-item) version of the Spielberger trait anxiety scale (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, and Jacobs, 1983). Payne (1988) has argued that all studies of occupational stress should include a measure of negative affectivity such as trait anxiety (or trait neuroticism). The GHQ-12 has been recommended by Banks et al. (1980) as a valid indicator of mental ill health (or psychological distress) in occupational studies. Examples of GHQ-12 questions are: Have you recently lost much sleep over worry? and Have you recently felt constantly under strain? with possible responses ranging from 0 (not at all) to 3 (much more than usual). Examples of questions from the trait anxiety scale are: I feel nervous and restless and I lack self confidence with a 4-point response scale from almost never to almost always. The final section included questions about the organizational climate/culture, including management style and communications, attitudes to the university as a whole, and attitudes to different areas within it. There were open-ended questions within each section of the survey form.

Procedure The parts of the questionnaire that are reported in this article focused on the levels and perceived causes of stress that were apparent in university staff. The overall questionnaire was developed as an organizational climate survey that was commissioned by the university vice chancellor (chief executive offi-

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cer). The study was also supported by the main industrial union representing the staff, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). In developing the questionnaire, extensive preliminary discussions were held with a steering committee of about 12 people. Members of the steering committee comprised representatives of the university management (personnel, occupational health and safety, officers) and nominees suggested by the NTEU designed to provide a representative cross-section of staff across the university. The final version of the survey form was short enough to be completed within 30 minutes and was anonymous. The covering letter explained that We have given a guarantee of confidentiality to the University that no attempt will be made to identify individual responses, and The report to senior management will not allow the identification of any individual or group smaller than five people. In order to maximize the response rate, the survey was widely publicized through the university weekly newspaper and through the union newsletter, with several reminder notices after distribution. The survey forms were distributed through the university internal mail system.

RESULTS In reporting results of tests of statistical significance, an alpha level of .05 was used. All post hoc tests were conducted using the Fisher LSD (Least Significant Difference) test.

Responses to Psychological Scales The overall responses to the job satisfaction scale (means and standard deviations for each of the 16 items), ranked in order of rated satisfaction, are shown in Table 1. The rating scale ranged from 1 = extremely dissatisfied to 7 = extremely satisfied, so that mean scores greater than 4 indicated varying levels of satisfaction, and mean scores less than 4 indicated varying levels of dissatisfaction. The total satisfaction rating was 70.7 over the 15 scale items with a mean of 4.71, which is only slightly lower than the mean response to the final, global item, 5.00. This corresponds to the response category moderately satisfied. (The scores on the global item were highly correlated with the overall score, with r = 0.76.) Responses to the individual items suggest that the university staff were generally most satisfied with their autonomy (freedom to choose own method of working and amount of responsibility given) and least satisfied with their promotion prospects and the way the university was managed.

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Winefield and Jarrett Table 1. All Staff: Responses to Job Satisfaction Scale* (N = 2030)

Satisfaction item 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. The freedom to choose your own method of working The amount of variety in your job Your fellow workers The amount of responsibility you are given Your immediate supervisor Your hours of work Your opportunity to use your abilities The physical work conditions The recognition you get for good work Your job security Your rate of pay Industrial relations between management and staff The attention to suggestions you make Your chance of promotion/reclassification The way the university is managed

Mean 5.6 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.2 5.1 5.0 4.8 4.5 4.5 4.3 4.3 4.3 3.4 3.4 5.0

SD 1.1 1.2 1.2 1.3 1.6 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.6 1.8 1.6 1.5 1.4 1.6 1.4 1.2

**16. How do you feel about your job as a whole? *Scores ranged from 1 = extremely dissatisfied to 7 = extremely satisfied. **This item does not form part of the scale.

Table 2 shows the mean overall scores on the three psychological scales: job satisfaction, GHQ-12, and trait anxiety by job classification and sex. The classifications differed significantly on job satisfaction, F (9, 1990) = 5.95, p < .05. Post hoc tests showed that Head/Directors and General staffprofessional were both significantly higher than Academicteaching/research and General staffcleaning/trades.
Table 2. All Staff: Mean Scores on Three Psychological Scales by Job Classification Classification Dean/Chief Officer (n = 23) Head/Director (n = 64) Academicteaching/research (n = 445) Academicresearch only (n = 109) Academicteaching only (n = 189) General staffadministrative (n = 479) General stafftechnical (n = 317) General staffprofessional (n = 208) General staffcleaning/trades (n = 83) Other (n = 113) Females (n = 985) Males (n = 1,006) Total (N=2,030) Job satisfaction 71.0 73.0 68.0 71.1 70.1 72.3 70.7 73.4 65.8 73.4 71.0 70.7 70.8 GHQ-12 11.0 13.8 13.9 12.6 11.5 11.6 11.8 12.1 11.4 10.0 12.2 12.1 12.2 Trait anxiety 15.9 16.5 17.5 18.4 17.9 17.0 16.9 17.0 15.8 16.3 17.5 16.8 17.1

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In terms of psychological distress (as measured by the GHQ-12), the groups also differed significantly, F (9, 2010) = 7.71, p < .05. The two groups showing the highest levels of distress were the academics engaged in both teaching and research and the Heads/Directors (of academic or administrative units). On post hoc tests, these two groups were significantly higher than all of the other groups except for the Academicresearch only group. The groups also differed on trait anxiety, F (9, 1992) = 3.33, p < .05. Post hoc tests showed that the highest status group (Dean/Chief Officer) and the lowest status group (General staffcleaning/trades) were significantly lower than all of the other groups except Head/Director and Other. There were no significant gender differences in the mean levels of job satisfaction, stress (as measured by the GHQ), and negative affect (as measured by trait anxiety). Further analyses were conducted in order to compare the academic staff with the general staff. The general staff scored significantly higher on job satisfaction (means of 71.6 and 68.9 respectively), t (1518) = 4.85, p < .05, significantly lower on the GHQ (means of 11.8 and 13.3 respectively), t (1518) = 6.13, p < .05, and lower on trait anxiety (means of 16.9 and 17.5 respectively), t (1518) = 2.26, p < .05. It needs to be noted that the GHQ-12 scores in Table 2 were based on Likert scoring with response categories ranging from 03. However, the GHQ12 is also often used to classify potential cases (possibly requiring clinical intervention). When used for this purpose, binary scoring is used with scores of 0 or 1 being combined and treated as 0, and scores of 2 or 3 combined and treated as 1. Using binary scoring, the overall mean was 2.44 (SD = 3.54) and the mean for the academic staff was even higher, 2.84 (SD = 3.42). Of the present sample of university staff, 43.7% would have been classified as potential cases. Notably, the rates varied across areas ranging from a low of 27.6% (Finance Branch) to a high of 52.5% (Arts). Table 3 shows mean scores on the three scales in each of the 11 academic areas. The areas differed significantly in job satisfaction, F (10, 1441) = 4.42, p < .05. Post hoc tests showed that job satisfaction was higher in Medicine than in any of the other areas and lower in Arts and Performing Arts than in Medicine, Economics, Dentistry, Law, and Agricultural Science. The areas did not differ significantly on the GHQ, but differed significantly on trait anxiety. Post hoc tests showed that trait anxiety was significantly higher in Law and Mathematical Sciences than in Architecture, Dentistry, Economics, Engineering, and Medicine. Table 4 shows mean scores on the three scales as a function of length of service. The groups differed on job satisfaction, F (5, 1972) = 7.64, p < .05, and on the GHQ, F (5, 1991) = 4.06, p < .05, but not on trait anxiety, F (5, 1973) = 1.64, p > .05. As Table 4 shows, those employed for the shortest period (less

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Winefield and Jarrett Table 3. All Staff: Mean Scores on Psychological Scales by Academic Area

Area Agricultural Science (n = 241) Architecture (n = 17) Arts (Humanities/Social Sciences) (n = 199) Dentistry (n = 89) Economics (n = 72) Engineering (n = 117) Law (n = 40) Mathematical Sciences (n = 84) Medicine (n = 221) Performing Arts (n = 71) Science (n = 304) Total (for entire sample N = 1,455)

Job satisfaction 71.7 71.1 66.9 72.0 72.5 70.5 71.8 70.2 74.2 68.6 70.6 70.8

GHQ-12 12.6 10.8 13.5 12.3 11.8 12.2 11.9 12.1 11.7 12.0 12.2 12.2

Trait anxiety 17.3 16.5 17.5 16.9 16.7 16.4 18.8 18.3 16.7 17.4 17.6 17.2

than a year) showed the highest job satisfaction and the least distress. Post hoc tests showed that those employed for less than 1 year were significantly higher on job satisfaction and significantly lower on the GHQ than each of the other groups, with the exception of those employed for 12 years (from whom they did not differ significantly). Table 5 shows mean scores on the three scales as a function of age. There were no statistically significant differences between the six age groups on job satisfaction, F (5, 1966) = 1.87, p > .05, or on the GHQ, F (5, 1987) = 1.82, p > .05, although there was a significant difference on trait anxiety, F (5, 1972) = 6.95, p < .05. Post hoc tests revealed that the two youngest groups were significantly higher than each of the three oldest groups. Table 6 shows mean scores on the three scales as a function of type of employment contract. The groups differed significantly on job satisfaction, F (5, 1964) = 4.31, p < .05, on the GHQ, F (5, 1981) = 6.68, p < .05, and on trait anxiety, F (5, 1964) = 4.83, p < .05.

Table 4. All Staff: Mean Scores on Psychological Scales by Length of Service Length of service Under 1 Year (n = 240) 12 Years (n = 212) 25 Years (n = 493) 510 Years (n = 413) 1020 Years (n = 375) Over 20 Years (n = 266) Total (N = 1,999) Job satisfaction 75.1 72.7 69.7 69.9 69.9 69.7 70.7 GHQ-12 10.9 11.6 12.1 12.5 12.6 12.8 12.2 Trait anxiety 17.6 17.2 17.5 16.9 16.8 16.8 17.1

University Stress Table 5. All Staff: Mean Scores on Psychological Scales by Age Age Under 29 (n = 466) 3039 (n = 504) 4049 (n = 570) 5059 (n = 376) 6065 (n = 65) Over 65 (n = 15) Total (N = 1,996) Job satisfaction 71.9 70.0 71.0 70.1 71.3 69.7 70.8 GHQ-12 11.9 12.4 12.2 12.5 10.6 12.8 12.2

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Trait anxiety 18.0 17.5 16.8 16.4 15.8 14.8 17.1

Post hoc tests showed that the Casual and Continuing staff (combined) expressed significantly greater job satisfaction and were significantly lower on the GHQ than the other four groups combined. Also, the Tenurable group was significantly higher on the GHQ than the Continuing, Contract, and Casual groups. Finally, the Continuing group was significantly lower on trait anxiety than the Tenurable group and each of the Contract groups. There were no significant differences on job satisfaction or psychological distress between the men and women or between the different age categories. Table 7 shows mean scores on the three psychological scales as a function of academic seniority. The four groups differed on job satisfaction, F (3, 636) = 2.70, p < .05, on the GHQ-12, F (3, 634) = 3.92, p < .05, and on trait anxiety, F (3, 634) = 8.74, p < .05. Post hoc tests showed that the two higher status groups (combined) were significantly higher on job satisfaction than the two lower status groups (combined). The highest status group was significantly lower on the GHQ than each of the intermediate status groups (although not significantly different from the lowest status group).

Table 6. All Staff: Mean Scores on Three Psychological Scales for Staff with Different Employment Contracts Current contract with university Tenured/Permanent (n = 923) Tenurable (n = 63) Continuing (n = 100) Contractup to 1 year (n = 382) Contractover 1 year (n = 210) Casual (n = 302) Total (N = 1,980) Job satisfaction 69.7 69.1 72.3 70.6 70.8 74.0 70.8 GHQ-12 12.7 14.1 10.9 12.0 12.7 10.7 12.2 Trait anxiety 16.8 17.6 15.8 17.9 17.9 17.2 17.2

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Winefield and Jarrett Table 7. Academic Staff: Mean Scores on Three Psychological Scales by Seniority

Position Dean/Chief Officer (n = 23) Professors/Associate Professors (n = 127) Lecturers/Senior Lecturers (n = 315) Postdocs/Junior Lecturers (n = 172) Total (N = 637)

Job satisfaction 71.0 70.7 68.6 67.5 68.9

GHQ-12 11.0 13.0 14.1 12.5 13.3

Trait anxiety 15.9 16.0 18.0 18.2 17.5

Finally, the two highest status groups were each lower in trait anxiety than each of the lowest status groups. Table 8 shows mean scores on the three psychological scales as a function of seniority for general staff. The groups differed in terms of job satisfaction, F (4, 1062) = 2.86, p < .05. Post hoc tests showed that the lowest status group (HEO 1) was significantly lower than the three highest status groups. However, unlike the academic groups, the five general staff groups did not differ on the GHQ, F (4, 1066) = 2.06, p > .05, or in trait anxiety, F (4, 1045) = 1.37, p > .05.

Main Sources of Stress With respect to the third section of the survey, in which 11 potential sources of stress were identified, overall, 10 of the means were around 3 (the midpoint of the scale), ranging from 2.7 (computing facilities) to 3.3 (information flow, barriers to promotion). The exception was funding, for which the mean was 4.1. Funding was perceived as a greater problem in the academic areas than in the nonacademic areas. For example, only 2 of the 11 academic areas (Economics and Medicine) gave it a mean rating of less than 4, whereas only two of the nine nonacademic areas (Library and Finance Branch) gave it a mean rating of 4 or more, 2 (1) = 6.27, p < .05.
Table 8. General Staff: Mean Scores on Three Psychological Scales by Seniority HEO* level HEO 8 or 9 (n = 73) HEO 6 or 7 (n = 205) HEO 4 or 5 (n = 357) HEO 2 or 3 (n = 399) HEO 1 (n = 38) Total (N = 1,072) Job satisfaction 72.8 73.1 72.3 70.1 68.6 71.6 GHQ-12 12.3 11.9 12.3 11.2 11.3 11.8 Trait anxiety 16.9 16.5 17.3 16.8 16.1 16.9

*Higher Education Officer (HEO 9 is highest level).

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DISCUSSION The overall level of psychological distress as measured by the GHQ-12 was very high, particularly when binary scoring was applied, with more than 40% of the sample having scores of 2 or more (i.e., displaying two or more symptoms). This is very high by Australian standards. Most other Australian studies have found potential case rates of around 2030% using the same measure (e.g., Henderson, Duncan-Jones, Byrne, Scott, & Adcock, 1979). It is also high by comparison with GHQ-12 scores reported by two British studies of university staff. Using binary scoring, Wilkinson and Joseph (1995) reported a mean of 2.15 (SD = 2.98) in a sample of academic (faculty) members, which was significantly lower than the corresponding mean of 2.84 (SD = 3.42) in the present study, t (846) = 1.97, p < .05. Daniels and Guppy (1992), using Likert scoring, reported a mean of 11.30 (SD = 4.40) in a sample of both academic and support staff, which was significantly lower than the corresponding mean of 12.20 (SD = 5.91) in the present study, t (2180) = 2.20, p < .05. It seems unlikely that the high levels of psychological stress observed in this study can be attributed to internal rather than environmental factors. For example, the mean levels of trait anxiety were 17.5 for females and 16.8 for males (Table 2), which were comparable to the normative data reported by Spielberger et al. (1983) (18.0 for females and 16.3 for males). An interesting aspect of the findings was that despite the high levels of psychological distress, job satisfaction was relatively high. For example, the mean of 70.8 was similar to the mean of 71.9 reported by Clegg and Wall (1981) in a sample of employees in an engineering company. Moreover, the mean rating for the global satisfaction item was 5.00, which is well above the midpoint of the 7-point rating scale (Table 1) and reflects a moderate amount of job satisfaction. Several studies of academic stress have found that women report higher stress levels than men (Blix et al., 1994; Boyd & Wylie, 1994; Gmelch et al., 1986; Sharpley, 1994), although other investigators, including the present ones (see Table 2), found no difference between men and women (Abouserie, 1996; Richard & Krieshok, 1989). There seems no obvious explanation for these conflicting findings. Some studies of academic stress have shown that stress is higher in more junior than in more senior staff (Abouserie, 1996; Gmelch et al., 1986), although others have found no difference (Richard & Krieshok, 1989). The present study found that stress levels were higher in more junior academic staff. As the means from the four levels of academic staff shown in Table 7 indicate, job satisfaction increased and trait anxiety decreased with academic seniority although, somewhat surprisingly, psychological distress was lower in the most senior and most junior levels than in the intermediate levels.

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As other studies have found, many respondents identified increased workloads resulting from funding cuts as the main cause of their job stress, even though there was overall satisfaction with hours of work (Table 1). Winefield (2000) has argued that increased levels of academic stress would be predicted by Karaseks DemandControl theory, according to which high stress jobs are defined as those combining high demands with low control or autonomy. Universities in Australia (and no doubt other countries too) have experienced major organizational changes in recent years with academic decision making becoming less collegial and more managerial and autocratic (Coady, 2000; Molony, 2000). This has meant that control has shifted from academics to university senior managers. At the same time, demands have increased as a result of pressures brought about through decreased funding and increased demands for accountability. These changes might be expected to result in increased levels of stress in faculty and decreased stress in administrative staff (particularly senior administrative staff). Winefield (2000) has drawn attention to some of the increased demands on academic staff and speculated that poor performance in any of the three main areas of academic work (undergraduate teaching, postgraduate thesis supervision, and research) is readily identified:
For example, undergraduate lectures can be attended by colleagues, and lecturers are routinely subjected to student evaluations of their teaching. Student evaluations of teaching are expected to be included in teaching portfolios that are taken into account by tenure and promotions committees. In the case of postgraduate supervision, poor performance is hard to conceal. Academics who fail to attract postgraduate students, or whose postgraduate students drop out, or whose theses are failed by examiners, are clearly poor performers. Finally, poor research performance is easily identified. Academics who never publish, who never attract external funding for their research, and whose publications (if any) are never cited are clearly not performing satisfactorily. There can be few occupations in which performance is so open to public scrutiny. (Winefield, 2000, p. 442)

An additional job demand that has been increasing in recent years has been the expectation that academics should attract external funding through research grants or research consultancies. Traditionally academics were not expected to generate external income and thus may not necessarily possess the kind of entrepreneurial skills that are required to do so. This is particularly true in the Humanities, where outstanding scholars in disciplines such as History or Philosophy for example, could produce first class research without needing large research grants. Interestingly, the academic area in which job satisfaction was lowest and psychological distress was highest, was the Arts area, which includes the Humanities. According to the PersonEnvironment Fit model of job stress (French, Caplan, & van Harrison, 1984), job stress can be a consequence of two kinds of mismatch: a mismatch between the requirements of the job and the ability of

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the worker to meet those requirements, and a mismatch between the workers expectation of what the job involves and what it actually involves. The changing nature of academic work suggests that both kinds of mismatch may be increasing for those academics who entered their profession some time ago. On the other hand, younger academics may find that the new job demands fit their expectations and entrepreneurial skills and may choose to enter a profession that recognizes and rewards them. If this is so, then we might expect to find an increasing difference in stress levels between older academics and those recruited in more recent times. In general, most of the differences in job satisfaction and psychological distress were unrelated to differences in trait anxiety. The only exception was in relation to academic seniority. As can be seen from Table 7, the two most senior groups were the lowest in trait anxiety as well as the highest in job satisfaction. This could mean that individuals who are low in trait anxiety are more likely to be successful in their academic careers and that academic seniority or low trait anxiety (or both) contribute to job satisfaction. Finally, this study was conducted just before Australian universities started to implement policies of making tenured university staff (both academic/faculty and general/administrative staff) involuntarily redundant, thereby effectively abolishing tenure. The effect of this should become apparent when the data reported here are compared with similar data collected in the national longitudinal study of occupational stress in Australian universities commencing in 2000 (Gillespie et al., 2000), referred to earlier.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors wish to thank the University of Adelaide and its staff for their cooperation and assistance in undertaking this study.

REFERENCES
Abouserie, R. (1996). Stress, coping strategies and job satisfaction in university academic staff. Educational Psychology, 16, 4956. Banks, M. H., Clegg, C. W., Jackson, P. R., Kemp, N. J., Stafford, E. M., & Wall, T. D. (1980). The use of the General Health Questionnaire as an indicator of mental health in occupational studies. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 53, 187194. Blix, A. G., Cruise, R. J., Mitchell, B. M., & Blix, G. G. (1994). Occupational stress among university teachers. Educational Research, 36, 157169. Boyd, S., & Wylie, C. (1994). Workload and stress in New Zealand universities. New Zealand Council for Educational Research and the Association of University Staff of New Zealand. Bradley, J., & Eachus, P. (1995). Occupational stress within a U.K. Higher Education Institution. International Journal of Stress Management, 2, 145158.

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