Did you ever try to forget stress at home by immersing yourself in work? For a short time this strategy may work, but over the long run becoming a workaholic will not compensate for unhappiness in private life according a new study from Kingston University’s Business School.

British researchers studied the job and life satisfaction of more than 10, 000 people across thirty European countries. They found that job satisfaction and life satisfaction are correlated, meaning if you are happy in your private life you are also more likely to be happy at your workplace; and those, who are unhappy at home, are also more likely to be unhappy at work. The researchers found no evidence that someone, who is unhappy at home will feel compensated by work in any way.

One explanation for this finding could be that happiness has also a genetic aspect according to psychological studies. Inherited personality traits such as negative affect (tendency to have emotions like anger, fear or hostility), self-esteem, extraversion, emotional stability, self-efficacy (perceived ability to master the environment), and locus of control (perceived amount of control about one’s life) impact overall happiness. Someone, who feels in control over his/her life, has self-esteem, is emotionally stable, and feels competent are genetically predisposed to be happy with their  jobs and life in general.

Author: Christiane Turnheim. Christiane is Life & Career Coach at Coach4U.net. She teaches psychology at a Boston-area Community College and published the workbook “Learn to love your Job”. She can be reached at ten.u4hcaocnull@enaitsirhc ; www.coach4u.net

The majority of the American workforce is currently unhappy at work. Surprisingly, this situation seems to be not even directly related to the recession. There has been a 4% drop in job satisfaction just between 2008 and 2009, but annual surveys by the Conference board research group  have shown a steady downward trend: 20 years ago more than 60 % of workers were satisfied with their jobs, today only about 45% of those surveyed expressed satisfaction.

The youngest workers are particularly unhappy: Only about 36% are satisfied with their job.

There are several reasons for the growing dissatisfaction:

According to the survey, workers find the work itself less interesting. Further, the satisfaction with job security is down – no wonder with an unemployment rate of about 10 %. Rising costs of living and health care are also to blame as many workers had to accept a cut in income when companies downsized production and work hours.

Christiane Turnheim is psychologist, college teacher and Life & Career coach. Contact her at ten.u4hcaocnull@enaitsirhc