Theory suggests that a stressful working environment negatively affects workers’ health. However, methodological limitations in observational studies often restrict conclusions about observed relationships. In this study, we examined cross-lagged effects of effort-reward imbalance (ERI; i.e., an indicator of work stress) and mental health (i.e., depressive symptoms) at the within-person level, while accounting for between-person variability. We used data from five panel waves gathered in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), comprising N = 5,778 (self-)employed individuals aged 50 years or older. Repeated measures for both ERI and depressive symptoms were modeled using random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling. The results showed no cross-lagged effects of ERI and depressive symptoms at the within-person level, but the intra-individual variations in ERI were positively related to the intra-individual variations in depressive symptoms at the same point in time. At the between-person level, it showed that individuals with generally higher levels of ERI tend to demonstrate generally higher levels of depressive symptoms. The findings question the notion that ERI and depressive symptoms influence each other over the course of time, but rather indicate that third variable effects account for observed relationships between these constructs.

理论表明，压力大的工作环境会对工人的健康产生负面影响。然而，观察性研究的方法学局限性通常限制了关于观察到的关系的结论。在这项研究中，我们在个人层面检查了努力-回报失衡（ERI；即工作压力的指标）和心理健康（即抑郁症状）的交叉滞后效应，同时考虑了人与人之间的差异。我们使用了欧洲健康、老龄化和退休调查 (SHARE) 中收集的五个面板波的数据，包括N= 5,778 名 50 岁或以上的（个体）就业者。使用随机截距交叉滞后面板建模对 ERI 和抑郁症状的重复测量进行建模。结果表明，ERI 和抑郁症状在个体水​​平上没有交叉滞后效应，但 ERI 的个体差异与同一时间点抑郁症状的个体差异呈正相关。在人与人之间的水平上，它表明 ERI 水平普遍较高的个体往往表现出普遍较高水平的抑郁症状。研究结果质疑 ERI 和抑郁症状在一段时间内相互影响的概念，而是表明第三变量效应解释了观察到的这些结构之间的关系。