Raise Your Hand if You’re Stressed and Overwhelmed

It’s back-to-school season, industries are coming out of the summer lull, and for some, stress might be at an all-time high. In our latest round of research-on-research, we asked people about their experience of stress and overwhelm in their daily lives.

If you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Overall, 68% of people occasionally or very often feel stressed or overwhelmed in their daily life.

Gender

When looking at response by gender, we see that females are 8% more likely than males to feel stressed or overwhelmed occasionally or very often in their daily life.

When we take a deeper look at response by gender and region. Here we see that females have larger differences across regions than males. Females in the West are more likely than any other region (and males) to feel stressed or overwhelmed in their daily life while Males in the West are less likely to feel stressed or overwhelmed than anyone else.

Age

When looking at response by age, we see that feelings of stress and overwhelm in daily life peak at age 30-39 (6% more likely than any other age group) then gradually decrease as a person gets older. In fact, people aged 63+ are less likely than any other age group to feel stressed or overwhelmed in their daily life (36% less likely than those aged 30-39.)

If we take a closer look at feelings of stress by age and gender, we see that males experience less stress the older they get whereas females see an increase in stress from ages 30-49 then decrease. We see up to a 26% difference among age groups for males and up to a 22% difference among age groups for females.

Political Affiliation

We also looked at response by political affiliation. Here we see that Democrats are the most likely to feel stressed or overwhelmed in their daily life. Republicans are the least likely to feel stressed or overwhelmed (6% and 11% less than Democrats, respectively.)

Ethnicity

If we look at response by ethnicity, we see that Hispanics are the most likely to feel stressed and overwhelmed occasionally or very often in their daily life, 4% more likely than any other group. African Americans are the least likely to feel stressed and overwhelmed occasionally or very often in their daily life.

Panel

Finally, we look at responses by panel. Here we see differences in experiences of stress and overwhelm up to 20% as seen between Panels E and A. These differences can be due to a variety of reasons including panel management, incentive, and more. For instance, Panel E might have more respondents aged 30-39 who we know are more likely to feel stressed and overwhelmed in their daily life.

As we see in this blog, attitudes, and behaviors can vary greatly by both demographic and panel. This can have a significant impact on your data. For instance, if someone only used Panel A for their research, they might think way fewer people experience stress than actually do. This is why strategic sample blending is the best practice to ensure any changes in your data are due to shifts in the market, not inconsistencies in your data.

Learn more about panel differences in The Sample Landscape: 2023 Edition!