I generally found that it's reverse. In lower paid jobs, and especially in menial jobs like when I was selling newspapers on street corners for fixed salary in

I generally found that it's reverse. In lower paid jobs, and especially in menial jobs like when I was selling newspapers on street corners for fixed salary in HS, you work fixed time and 100% check out at the end of the day. Next day is clean slate. At a more involved office job you'd still check out as far as work as concerned, but office politics / boss had a bad day / etc. carry over. As a generic SWE you can't ever fully check out because the state of the project, the long term goals and current problems are always in your head - both the work, and the people. As a highly paid SWE working on online system, you sometimes can literally never check out because of on call, and because if something goes really wrong they'd call you even if you aren't on call. If you love your job it's great, or at any rate acceptable (I can never get used to on call, so it's a necessary evil for me). As soon as you are on a crappy project or team, it sucks. I'd rather sell newspapers than work on a crappy software project if it paid the same. I think the false perception of less stress in higher paid jobs actually comes from money itself (and status). You both have more cushion and so feel less dependent on a job, and are/feel less easily replaceable.