Work Intensification, Discretion, and the Decline in Well-Being at Work

Data from three representative British surveys are used to show that there has been a decline in the overall level of job satisfaction and a rise in the extent of work strain. The rise in work strain is associated with work intensification, while the fall in job satisfaction is associated partly with work intensification but also with the declining amount of discretion that workers have in their daily tasks. Work intensification may have come to a halt after 1997, however. The paper also confirms a link between computerized or automated jobs and high work effort.