Divine Compensation? Gender, Religiosity, and the Link Between Feeling Underpaid and Psychological Distress

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical work within social psychology has highlighted the impact of the sense of distributive injustice—the evaluation of unfairness in the distribution of outcomes or rewards—and adverse mental health outcomes. Drawing on a sample of Canadian workers from the Canadian Work, Stress, and Health Study (CAN-WSH; N = 2,376), we consider whether three facets of religiosity—perceived divine control, religious attendance, and prayer—have stress buffering potency when it comes to perceived underpayment. We also test whether these associations vary by gender. Our results suggest that for men who reported being underpaid, higher levels of divine control were protective for psychological distress. By contrast, weekly religious attendance was a stress buffer for women who were underpaid. We draw from research at the intersection of sociology of religion and gender to interpret our findings. Taken as a whole, our findings underscore the importance of assessing religiously-based resources for individuals who perceive they are underpaid and speak to how understanding the effectiveness of coping resources, including those found within religious life, are contingent upon social status—a hallmark of the sociological tradition.

Masculine Discrepancy Stress, Subjective Well-Being, and the Buffering Role of Religiosity

“…A greater religious salience might also help men dealing with masculine discrepancy stress to disengage from the goals of this earth, including bodily appearance but also power, money, and status. Upenieks and Schieman (2023) , for instance, reported that men who felt underpaid at work yet reported greater intrinsic religiosity were protected from feeling higher psychological distress. We suspect a similar mechanism might be at play here, where not living up to the expectations of “manliness” from the perspective of accomplishments like power and money could be compensated for by the security felt through God, and make men more to view their lives and purpose through a religious lens: to be a son of God, working to establish a relationship with Him and viewing any gifts and talents as tools to serve others.…”