Women face significantly higher emotional labour demands than men even when working in the same occupations, and those demands take a measurable toll on mental health primarily through workplace stress, according to a study of nearly 44,000 workers across 35 European countries published in Social Science & Medicine.
The research, conducted by Prof. Dr Nikolaos Antonakakis of the University of Nicosia, UNIC Athens, used data from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey to construct an Emotional Labour Demands Index measuring how frequently workers must hide their feelings, handle angry clients, navigate emotionally disturbing situations and manage interactions with the public. Women scored 0.39 on the standardised scale compared to 0.32 for men, and this gap held even after controlling for occupational category. Within the same jobs, women faced emotional demands equivalent to 12.5% of a standard deviation above those of their male counterparts.
The largest within-occupation gaps appeared among professionals and technicians. Men reported higher emotional labour demands than women in manual occupations such as plant operation and craft work, consistent with forms of emotional labour involving the suppression of vulnerability.
The study also identified how emotional labour demands translate into mental health consequences. Work stress emerged as the primary mechanism, with the indirect effect of emotional demands on wellbeing through stress fully accounting for the overall negative relationship. End-of-day exhaustion was identified as a second significant pathway. Social support from colleagues and managers significantly buffered the negative association between emotional demands and mental health, while job autonomy alone did not.
Contrary to expectations, workers in precarious employment — those on temporary contracts or in very small firms — did not experience a stronger link between emotional labour demands and mental health harm, suggesting the consequences are pervasive across employment types.
“Emotional labour is not a soft skill, it is a measurable occupational demand with real consequences for mental health, and it falls disproportionately on women,” Antonakakis said. “Organisations that invest in genuine social support — team-based peer networks, responsive management, and recognition of invisible emotional work — can meaningfully protect the wellbeing of their workforce. Gender-neutral policies alone will not close this gap.”
The study calls for emotional labour demands to be formally recognised as a psychosocial hazard within EU occupational health frameworks, for organisations to address the informal norms that assign disproportionate emotional responsibility to women, and for greater investment in supportive workplace relationships as the most effective route to protecting mental health in emotionally demanding roles.
The full study is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2026.119202.