13 low-stress jobs that pay over $100,000

Is your job stressful? It might just kill you.
Last year, CTV News reported that people who are under pressure at work have a 22% greater risk of having a stroke than those who work in less stressful jobs. This was based on the work of researchers at the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, who examined data from six studies (involving 138,782 patients followed between three and 17 years).
The researchers classified jobs into categories and found that those with high-stress jobs (which included nurses and waiters) were more likely to have a stroke. Researchers also noted that the risk was 33% higher for women than men.
One possible explanation, researchers said, is poor lifestyle.
“It’s possible that high-stress jobs lead to more unhealthy behaviours, such as poor eating habits, smoking and a lack of exercise,” said Dingli Xu. So, if your job is stressful, you have even more incentive to take good care of yourself. Or you could look for something that pays well but relieves some of the pressure. Business Insider recently put together a list of such jobs. The list was created by career information expert Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., who compared average salaries and stress levels of the 767 occupations identified by the US Department of Labor to identify jobs high pay and low stress.
Business Insider explains:
“The ‘stress tolerance’ for each job is a rating on a scale from zero to 100, where a lower rating signals less stress. It measures how frequently workers must accept criticism and deal effectively with high stress on the job. The data was gathered from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and US Occupational Information Network.”
Of that list of 24 jobs, here are 13 that pay more than $100,000 a year, on average, with a stress tolerance rating of 70 or lower.
OK, yes, you do need to get a lot of specialized education for most of these. But you can’t expect something for nothing.
Here are high-paying, low-stress jobs (ranked by salary):
Economics teachers (post secondary)
Stress tolerance: 61.8
Average annual salary (2014): $102,120
Political scientist
Stress tolerance: 60.8
Average annual salary (2014): $104,000
Mathematician
Stress tolerance: 57.2
Average annual salary (2014): $104,350
Economist
Stress tolerance: 58.7
Average annual salary (2014): $105,290
Astronomer
Stress tolerance: 62.0
Average annual salary (2014): $107,140
Geoscientist (except hydrologists and geographers)
Stress tolerance: 62.5
Average annual salary (2014): $105,390
Actuary
Stress tolerance: 63.7
Average annual salary (2014): $110,090
Computer hardware engineers
Stress tolerance: 67.0
Average annual salary (2014): $110,650
Optometrist
Stress tolerance: 70.3
Average annual salary (2014): $113,010
Physicists
Stress tolerance: 61.3
Average annual salary (2014): $117,300
Law teachers (post secondary)
Stress tolerance: 62.7
Average annual salary (2014): $126,270
Computer and information systems managers
Stress tolerance: 64.2
Average annual salary (2014): $136,280
Orthodontist
Stress tolerance: 67.0
Average annual salary (2014): $201,030
See also:
The average Canadian salaries by industry and region
6 things you should never say when negotiating a salary
10 jobs that can pay over $60,000 (and $100,000) without a degree
10 IT jobs that pay more than $50,000
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