Introduction
Work stress and its impact on mental health has recently emerged as one of the most significant subjects of public and occupational health debate. Having a professional occupation for women has been considered a positive factor for many years as it is viewed as an achievement of human rights. However, the demands of professional life and striking a balance with personal life have contributed to occupational stress, which, when not intervened on time, does contribute to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. Work stressors have a direct impact on work quality because they influence the level of motivation and productivity (Fortel et al., 2020). Factors contributing to work stress among middle-aged women include taking on a more significant workload for similar pay as another employee, discrimination, and lack of autonomy in workplaces. It is essential to understand how the different work-related stressors affect women, understand how these factors affect the mental health of women, and apply practical, evidence-based practice in addressing this healthcare problem to ensure the well-being of women in their professional lives.
Literature review
Pandita and Pednekar (2024) have studied the impact of occupational stress on the mental health of women employees in IT. They argue that the information and technology industry has a high-paced work environment with a high workload. A significant number of women work in this industry, and meeting their occupational needs can result in stress. Factors contributing to work stress among women working in the IT industry are age, marital status, and level of education. For example, the study notes that the level of stress and coping mechanism among married women and single women is different, with unmarried employees likely to deal with stress by seeking support from their social cycles, such as family and friends.
Liao et al. (2019) argue that society has held on to the view that African American women are culturally perceived as strong people. It is for this reason that African American women have portrayed a picture of a woman whose everything is in control despite undergoing a midlife crisis. It is a negative way of coping with stress as they are not allowed to show a moment of weakness or seek assistance. As a superwoman, the African American woman is supposed to perform without complaining, which is working, caring for their family and performing household factors. Factors that have contributed to the instillation of this mentality can be linked to their upbringing through parenting and the community in general. In addition, the media has contributed to strong Black women through advertisements or movies that portray women as perceiving and enduring everything (Liao et al., 2019). Lastly, Liao et al. (20) recommend that there is a need to change this perspective as a coping mechanism among AfriAmericansican and educate them on the importance of seeking professional help as this strategy has been less effective, leading to poor health, relationship problems, and depressive symptoms.
Fortel et al. (2020) argue that there is a negative relationship between occupational stress and the worker’s mental health, arguing that stress is part of an employee’s life. However, it gets to a point where, if ignored, it becomes harmful to health, for it can lead to psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. The factors that result in occupational stress include poor work conditions poo,r control, high work demand, a lack of information, and extreme pressure from management (Fortel et al., 2020). The article further notes that occupational work stress causes burnout among employees, which manifests in different forms. Emotional exhaustion, reduced work productivity and less motivation. However, one crucial key point from the article by Fortel et al. (2023) is that employee optimism does influence how one decides to cope with stress as a more optimistic employee is in a better position to cope with work less compared to Therefore, complete optimism significantly moderated the relationship between occupational stress and mental health.
Ornek and Esin (2020) pointed out that the problem of work-related stress (WRS) is becoming a healthcare concern due to its increased prevalence. The study aimed to determine the responses, related diseases, and unhealthy behaviours caused by WRS and assess the effect of a work-related stress model in a workplace mental health promotion program (Ornek & Esin, 2020). It is based on a “pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group” design. In the study, seventy women were recruited to participate in two different factories. In determining the hypothesis, the participants were divided into two groups where. One group did receive counselling, while the second group did not receive any intervention. From the study, Ornek and Esin (2020) noted that the women who received counselling were in a better position to cope with the stress compared with the women who did not receive the intervention. This would support the concept that the intervention did address sources of stress intrinsic to the working environment, thus contributing to a more favourable profile of work-related stress among program participants (Ornek & Esin, 2020). It positively affects the person’s psychological well-being when dealing effectively with stressors.
Traditionally, women have been involved in more unpaid domestic work than men. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, women do around three times as many hours of unpaid domestic and care work as men. Women are estimated to work for approximately 4.2 hours daily, while men come in at 1.7 hours (Scott, 2023). For women, combining both unpaid and paid work does contribute to burnout. In addition, Women may resort to unhealthy ways as coping mechanisms, such as overeating, which can result in obesity (Scott, 2023). In other scenarios, women turn to drug abuse as a way of numbing their emotions and stress associated with work, such as smoking and drinking alcohol, which interfere with their physical and mental well-being (Scott, 2023). In Addressing the issue of occupational stress among women, there is a need for them to find a balance between work and creating time for themselves to spend with family or engage in activities they love.
Belwal and Belwal (2023) analyze the effects of occupational stress on the home environment in Oman. Women who are professionals and experience work are more likely to bring their work frustration home, which can have adverse effects on family ties and relationships between themselves and their spouses and children (Belwal & Belwal, 2023). The majority of women do find it hard to strike a balance between work stress and finding a release in their homes. To bring more tension back home. The study shows that women might face some similar and different stressors at the workplace than men. Such stressors may include role conflict, juggling many roles, discrimination, or meeting many demands at the workplace and home (Belwal & Belwal, 2023). Women’s occupations combined with household responsibilities can be overwhelming, worsening women’s mental health conditions.
Purpose of the study
The literature on occupational stress is very enriching about women and, most clearly, how this occupational stress impacts women’s mental health, given the diverse challenges faced by women employees across different sectors in this cultural context. Pandita and Pednekar (2024) tried to find out the specific influence of occupational stress on women employees working in the IT sector while considering demographic variables. On the other hand, Fortes et al. (2020) examine the cross-cultural link between occupational stress and employees’ total mental health by examining occupational stress as a cause of burnout and how optimism helps lessen work-related stress among employees. In addition, Liao et al. (2020) assessed the “Strong Black Woman” schema, allowing room for the personal experiences of African American women who had previously not been included in the reflection of the stereotype’s general population mental health consequences. Promotion programs for mental health are evaluated as effective in reducing job stress and enhancing the coping profiles of women workers (Ornek & Esin, 2020). Belwal et al. (2023) focus on assessing the impact of occupational stress on the home environment under the broad domain of the Omani context. However, a gap has been found in the literature for understanding the combined effect of occupational stress and cultural factors on women’s mental health. It is to fill in this very gap that the present study is set to focus on how demographic variables and cultural norms interact with occupational stress in affecting the mental health of women employees. From the literature review, it is clear that work environment and gender roles vastly impact women’s occupational stress, leading to an increase in women who are suffering from mental health. Therefore, the study will take into consideration these dynamics and inform appropriate interventions and support systems made per the unique needs of women in the industrial sector. This would enhance the mental well-being of women and enable them to derive satisfaction from the job.
Method
Study design
The research adopts a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies are used to present an all-inclusive description of the impact of occupational stress on women employees’ mental health and the various industrial sector factors responsible for creating demographic and cultural influence.
Participants
Participants will include women with jobs in different roles in the industry who will be invited to participate in the study by purposeful advertisement on social media through LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. The inclusion criteria for the female participants include women aged 40 to 60 with different racial and ethnic backgrounds from industrial positions.
Procedures
The selected participants who meet the inclusion criteria must complete an online survey before participating in the study. The first step is to fill in a consent form, which indicates that it is through their will to partake in the study, and they can leave at any stage of the study. Once the consent form is filled out, the second step is to fill in a demographic questionnaire. Participants must provide details such as name, age, gender, occupation, and race. This information is critical to ensure the selected participants are middle-aged women and their jobs for easy data classification. The last step is for participants to fill in factors that contribute to occupational stress and how they cope with work stress. The outcomes from the online survey will be evaluated using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) (Stelnicki et al., 2021). Open-ended questions in this section will seek to obtain information concerning the perception of experiences of occupational stress on mental health among the participants. This qualitative data will be analyzed using thematic analysis of the repeated themes and patterns in the participants’ narratives.
Identity development
Besides, the research would apply the 5-DIDS (Five-Dimensional OF Identity Development) developed by Luyckx and colleagues in describing the participants’ identity development. This is in consideration of their occupational roles and cultural backgrounds. The scale would measure the dimension to include exploration in breadth and depth, commitment-making, reconsidering commitment, and identification with the commitment.
Data analysis plan
The outlined plans for data analysis will involve comprehensive approaches towards quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods. The present research has sought relationships between the dimensions of identities with other demographic variables, dimensions of occupational stress, and other dimensions of mental health outcomes through statistical techniques such as correlation and regression in its quantitative analysis. On the other hand, the qualitative data will be used in an inductive thematic analysis where recurrent themes and patterns are to be drawn from the participants’ narratives on experiences of stress, coping, and identity development. It should establish an understanding of these issues’ complexity and interplay and add to the study’s depth and detail.
Reference
Belwal, S., Al Maqbali, A. A. H., & Belwal, R. (2023). Understanding the Impact of Occupational Stress on the Home Environment: Evidence from Oman. FIIB Business Review, 12(3), 263-278. https://doi.org/10.1177/23197145221132064
Kefelew, E., Hailu, A., Kote, M., Teshome, A., Dawite, F., & Abebe, M. (2023). Prevalence and associated factors of stress and anxiety among female employees of Hawassa Industrial Park in Sidama Regional State, Ethiopia. BMC psychiatry, 23(1), 103. https://doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12888-023-04575-5
Liao, K. Y. H., Wei, M., & Yin, M. (2020). The misunderstood schema of the strong black woman: Exploring its mental health consequences and coping responses among African American women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 44(1), 84–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361684319883198
Fortes, A., Tian, L., & Huebner, E. S. (2020). Occupational stress and employees complete mental health: a cross-cultural empirical study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(10), 3629. https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph17103629
Ornek, O. K., & Esin, M. N. (2020). Effects of a work-related stress model-based mental health promotion program on job stress, stress reactions, and coping profiles of women workers: a control group study. BMC Public Health, 20, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12889-020-09769-0
Pandita, P., & Pednekar, B. (2024). The Impact of Occupation Stress on the Mental Health of Women Employees in the IT Sector by Demographic Variables. Journal of Advanced Zoology, 45.
Stelnicki, A. M., Jamshidi, L., & Carleton, R. N. (2021). Evaluating before-operational stress: a program to support mental health and proactive psychological protection in public safety personnel. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 511755.
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