Purpose -To identify the specific sources of occupational stress and the professional burnout experienced by teachers working in Greek primary and secondary schools. A special emphasis is given to gender and age differences. Design/methodology/approach -A cross-sectional design was used. Two self-report measures were administered to a sample of 493 primary and secondary school teachers, a self-report rating scale of specific occupational stressors and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (education version). Findings -The most highly rated sources of stress referred to problems in interaction with students, lack of interest, low attainment and handling students with "difficult" behaviour. Female teachers experienced significantly higher levels of occupational stress, specifically with regard to interaction with students and colleagues, workload, students' progress and emotional exhaustion. Younger teachers experienced higher levels of burnout, specifically in terms of emotional exhaustion and disengagement from the profession, while older teachers experienced higher levels of stress in terms of the support they feel they receive from the government. Practical implications -The findings will help to implement effective primary and secondary level prevention programmes against occupational stress taking into account how males and females and younger and older teachers perceive stress at work. Originality/value -The study is a significant addition to the teacher stress and burnout literature, especially in Greece where few relevant studies exist dealing with these problems.

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This study investigates the occupational stress amongst 355 male and female Greek junior hospital doctors (JHDs) working in the Greater Athens area. The initial phase of the research involved in-depth interviews with a random stratified sample of sixty JHDs, both male and female, in a variety of specialties of junior hospital staff. An extended version of the occupational stress indicator (OSI) questionnaire was developed, incorporating additional items based on the results of the qualitative part of the study, and on previous research findings in the same area. The sample consisted of 193 males and 162 females JHDs, who completed the OSI. Analyses of the data demonstrated that, overall, JHDs presented significantly higher levels of sources of pressure than the normative population and other comparative occupational samples. As regards the various subgroup comparisons, bivariate analyses revealed that there were significant differences between male and female JHDs in certain aspects of pressure ("career and achievement" and "home/work interface"). Multivariate analyses revealed that predictors of physical and mental ill health and job dissatisfaction were type A behaviour and "demands of the profession" respectively. The research implications of the findings are discussed.

Surveying 6509 managers from 24 countries/geopolitical entities, we tested the process through which individualism-collectivism at the country level relates to employees' appraisals of and reactions to three types of work demands (i.e., work hours, workload, and organizational constraints). Our multilevel modeling results suggested that, while working the same number of hours, employees from individualistic countries reported a higher perceived workload than their counterparts in collectivistic countries. Furthermore, relationships of perceived workload and organizational constraints with job dissatisfaction and turnover intentions were stronger in individualistic than in collectivistic countries. Importantly, results of supplementary analyses suggested that the cultural value of individualism-collectivism moderated the mediation effect of perceived workload between work hours and both job dissatisfaction and turnover intentions. Our findings highlight the need to expand contemporary theories of work stress by applying multilevel approaches and incorporating crossnational differences in dimensions such as individualism-collectivism while studying how employees appraise and react to important work stressors.