Job stress and coping: Self-employed versus organizationally employed professionals

In order to examine job stress and coping among self-employed and organizationally employed professionals, job-related stressors and coping strategies were assessed among self-employed (n = 149) and organizationally employed (n = 159) professionals working as accountants, lawyers, pharmacists and psychologists. Results indicate that although self-employed workers complained about lack of security and organizationally employed workers complained about lack of autonomy, no differences were found in overall stress levels or overload. Examination of workers' coping strategies provided a partial explanation for these findings. Stress levels negatively correlated with active coping and positively correlated with passive/avoidance coping; self-employed workers were found to cope by confronting problems, whereas organizationally employed workers were found to cope by avoiding them. These findings qualify previous research findings on self-employed and organizationally employed workers.