It's Not the Workload Alone — It's the Workload Without Control
The foundational study behind the 'demand-control' model found that jobs combining high demands with low decision latitude carried the highest risk of mental strain.
Study title: It's Not the Workload Alone — It's the Workload Without Control — Karasek, R. A., Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(2), 1979
- Study type
- Cross-sectional study
- Population
- Two large survey samples of the US and Swedish working population, analysed by occupation
- Published
- 1979
- Evidence confidence
- Moderate confidence
The short version
High demands paired with low control are associated with more strain than high demands alone — a degree of decision latitude appears to matter as much as workload.
Why it matters
Two jobs with identical workloads may carry very different risks to wellbeing depending on how much say the person has over pacing, methods and decisions — a distinction that raw 'hours worked' figures miss.
01
The question
02
How it was studied
03
What they found
04
Limitations
05
What it may mean
In real life
A busy job where someone can choose their own order of tasks and working methods may feel more sustainable than a lighter job with a fixed, externally controlled pace and no input into how tasks are done.
Try this
Notice one part of a demanding task or day where you do have latitude — over sequencing, timing or method — even if the overall job is fixed, and use it deliberately rather than defaulting to however it's usually done.
Evidence confidence
Moderate confidence
A foundational, hugely influential model backed by later longitudinal work (including the Whitehall studies), but this originating paper is cross-sectional and the demand-control interaction specifically has had mixed replication.
Source
Karasek, R. A. (1979). It's Not the Workload Alone — It's the Workload Without Control. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(2).
Peer-reviewed · Free full text available · Last reviewed 2026-08-14
Read the original research →One study isn't the whole storyOne study gives us a piece of the picture. Selfey looks for patterns across the broader evidence rather than treating a single finding as a rule.
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What the Research Actually Says About Control at WorkSelfey research briefs are educational summaries, not medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Research describes patterns across groups; it cannot tell you what is right for your situation.
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