Is social support equally beneficial for working climate and health of women and men at different professional grades?

Aim: To examine the association between social support at work (SSW), health factors and working climate as a function of gender and professional grade. Methods: Belstress III database comprising data on 2983 workers of seven (semi-)public companies were used. Socio-demographic, working climate, mental and physical health indicators were collected. Professional grade and gender stratified logistic regressions were performed for evaluating the association between SSW and current health, stress, anxiety, bulling and mobbing. Results: SSW is always associated with health and working climate factors except for low qualified men. For women at the intermediate grade, the ORs for the association between low SSW and current health (1.37), stress (1.75), anxiety (1.56), bulling (6.78) and mobbing (3.49) are the lowest compared to those of all others groups. Conclusion: SSW is beneficial for workers’ health and working climate, but not at the same degree for women and men at different professional grades