Job Stress Takes a Heavy Toll on the Lifespans of CEOs

Work stress was found to take a heavy toll on CEO lifespans. According to machine-learning analysis James Donald, CEO of Starbucks, looked more than five years older than his actual age. “It’s very clear that living through this crisis led to significantly faster aging,” said Ulrike Malmendier, Berkeley Haas’ Edward J. and Mollie Arnold Professor of Finance.

Photographic analysis of Donald and other CEOs living through the financial crash is just one way that Malmendier and colleagues have been able to show the very real effects of stress on lifespan in their new paper, “CEO Stress, Aging, and Death.”

Researchers studied the stress impact on CEOs because of the accessibility of data.

CEOs who weren’t insulated from takeovers during their tenures lived an average of two years less than those who were.

Stress contributed to knocking about two years off of life expectancy.

The researchers used facial recognition software to judge CEOs' relative ages before and after the financial crisis of 2007–2008.

Advertisement

The study found that CEOs’ apparent ages progressed on average by a little over a year to go through the crisis. All sources of stress were so visible in people’s faces.

“An important aspect of any job is whether your life has high quality, but that is not always as emphasized as other factors, such as the financial calculus,” she said. “If people knew that entering a job meant their risk of heart attack would be higher, or they might die earlier, would they make different choices? We hope this is the first step in people thinking about that.”

Advertisement

Workplace Stress

• 83% of US workers suffer from work-related stress.
• Stress causes around one million workers to miss work every day.
• 63% of US workers are ready to quit their jobs due to stress.

Source-Medindia