Study: Promotion is bad for mental health

WARWICK, England, April 13 (UPI) -- A job promotion, on average, produces 10 percent more mental strain and reduces trips to the doctor by 20 percent, British researchers said.

Chris Boyce and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick questioned why people with higher job status seem to have better health. A long-held assumption by researchers is that an improvement to a person's job status, through a promotion, will directly result in better health due to an increased sense of life control and self-worth, the researchers said.

The researchers used the British Household Panel Survey data, collected annually between 1991 and 2005, with information on approximately 1,000 individual promotions.

After a job promotion, there was on average a 10 percent decrease in people's mental health measured in a standardized way across the British population.

Those promoted at work also reported on average a 20 percent fall-off in their visits to a doctor. The drop in doctor visits does not match the lack of change in the reported health of promoted individuals but it might be explained by increased stress levels of promoted workers -- who may have more constraints on their time and less time to visit a doctor, the researchers said.

"Getting a promotion at work is not as great as many people think," Boyce said.

The findings are scheduled to be presented at the will be presented at the Royal Economic Society's conference this month.