Work–Life Strain and Emotional Distress: A Comparison of Agriculture/Forestry/Fishing and Construction/ Extraction Workers in California

Agriculture, Fishing, and Forestry (AFF) and Construction and Extraction (CE) workers experience higher rates of adverse mental health outcomes than workers in other industries. Although several work-related risk factors affecting mental health have been identified in both groups, there is limited understanding of how and why these risks vary between AFF and CE workers. Guided by the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework, we used data originally from the California Work and Health Survey (CWHS) to investigate the association of known work-life strains and emotional distress among California AFF and CE workers (N = 152). Univariate and bivariate analyses and t-tests were conducted to examine differences in stress, job demands, job control, childcare responsibilities, bullying experiences, and binge drinking between AFF and CE workers in relation to emotional distress. Job demands (p < .001), perceived stress (p < .001), and workplace bullying (p = .020) were positively associated with emotional distress. Bullying from a supervisor was positively associated with binge drinking (p = .006). AFF had significantly higher levels of stress (p = . 018) and job demands (p = .008) than CE. CE had significantly higher levels of job control (p < .001). Our findings suggest that industry-specific differences in job demands and job control may influence how workers experience and cope with workplace strain, resulting in differing levels of perceived stress despite similar emotional distress.