Mixture models and graphical tools to analyse the perception of work-related stress across EU countries

Abstract

Work-related stress has emerged as a critical issue in public health and labour policy, particularly in light of evolving work environments and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examines the perception of work stress across European Union member states by utilising CUB models, a class of mixture models well-suited for analysing ordinal data. The data for this research stems from the Flash Eurobarometer - OSH Pulse survey, conducted by the European Commission Agency for Occupational Safety and Health (EU-OSHA) in Spring 2022. Our findings indicate that the pandemic crisis has affected workers in the EU differently, with a greater impact on self-employed individuals, women, and more educated workers, who reported higher levels of work-stress. To support this analysis, the graphical features of CUB models effectively illustrate diverse response patterns across different countries and respondent profiles. Additionally, the Gretl CUB package has been updated to allow the use of sample weights in the estimation algorithm.