A STUDY OF STRESS AMONG WORKING FEMALES IN RELATION TO THEIR WORK PLACE AND TYPE OF JOB

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1 A STUDY OF STRESS AMONG WORKING FEMALES IN RELATION TO THEIR WORK PLACE AND TYPE OF JOB Dr. Rajinder Singh (Assistant Professor) Department of Education, Tezpur University Napaam (Sonitpur), Assam ABSTRACT This research is an examination of the study of stress among working females in relation to their work place and type of job. In the present investigation a representative sample of 250 working females was selected. Out of the 250 working females 77 are teachers, 48 are working in banks, 19 are working in post offices, 37 are clerks and 69 are working as nurses they have been taken from district Pathankot of Punjab. In the present study Personal Stress Source Inventory developed and standardized by Arun K. Singh, Ashish K. Singh and Arpana Singh was used. Results revealed that there was significant workplace wise difference in stress among the working females. There is no significant difference in the mean scores of stress of working females serving in government and private sectors. Key Words: Stress, Working Females, Work Place and Type of Job. INTRODUCTION Females are the foundation of any social system. Without females the world cannot move, but this fact is hardly remembered by anyone and the females are being exploited in all areas. This leads to more stress among females. The term working female refers to one who works outside the home for a wage or salary. Working female comprise a large proportion of the Indian workforce. They also face high risk from job-related stress. In many respect the risks are higher than those for male workers. Both single and married female face stress form work. Married females are conditioned with multiple responsibilities. They want to be efficient workers and try hard to perform their duties. At the same time, they want to be good house wives, good mothers and better home managers. This multiple roles and responsibilities of married working female often lead to role overload and conflict. In contrast, unmarried females are slightly better off, as they can spend their salary as they wish and they do not have multiple responsibilities. Single people often encounter the special problem of not having anyone to listen to them while having to do all he household chores themselves. Female have made huge process in the workplace. Now a days they get higher pay and better job than men. Working female develops independence, assertiveness and self-assurance which are generally rare in non-working female. It also affects the power structure in the family. When a wife works, she presumably increases her ability to sanction or control because of the financial contribution she makes to the family is gradually giving way to increased participation of females. Countless surveys have confirmed the importance of family responsibilities in raising the stress level with which individuals have to contend. This is particularly true in families in which both parents work as well as in single-parent families. A number of factors make it difficult to achieve a harmonious balance between work and family life. These include abrupt changes in work schedules, time-pressured work, unsympathetic treatment by management and co-workers, and lack of control over the content and organization of work. Shift work and irregular working hours are particularly difficult to reconcile with family routines and events. Home workers and tele-workers often find it difficult to adapt their work to the requirements of their family life. Various studies have also found that faster the pace of work and more an individual is involved in her work, the greater the conflict between working and family roles. Stress is due to more psychological factors than the physical hazards on the job. Everything that the worker has to overcome and endure during work, constitute stress at work. Job related stress in inevitable in working life today. It occurs whenever a person has inadequate stress management and need frustrating work environment. The cost of stress at work is expressed in terms of its effect on well-being. 19

2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The most significant and foremost step in the research process is the choice of a suitable problem for research. The identification of research problem is a difficult but an important phase of the entire process. Beginners are likely to select a problem which is too much broad in scope. This may be due to their lack of understanding of the nature of research and systematic problem solving activity. It may also be due to their enthusiastic and native desire to solve an important problem and immediately. It appears that working females has been charged with dual responsibility of maintaining the family and are performing their duties in the office. This dual responsibility is bound to cause stress in the mind of working females. Increasing urbanizations, modernization, migration and twin career has created females a lot of problematic and stressed situation. The stressors and demands that contribute to the individual s expertise of stress are expected to impact the individual each on a psychological and physiological level. Working females are more responsible as they are performing their dual duties i.e. in home as well as in an organization. Females are often expected to play a number of roles at the same time: wife, mother, home maker, employee or caregiver to an elderly parent. Meeting the demands of so many roles simultaneously leads to stressful situations in which choices must be prioritized. Females are often forced to choose whether to pursue career or further to devote more time to home and family. Although work is sometimes enjoyable stress is inevitable in most cases, so everyone deal with stress differently. Every organization goals is depending on the employee s performance. Too much stress affects health, less job satisfaction, less productivity and failure to meet targets. Some employee s work poorly under stress and his negatively impacts their organization. Therefore, this study is undertaken to be finding out stress level experience by female employees of different management. The combination of long work hours, insufficient pay, role ambiguity, lack of social organization, poor organizational climate, strained relationship with colleagues also makeup a stressful recipe. Both work overload and under load can generate physical and psychological stress. Having to work under time pressure to meet deadliness is a major source of quantitative overload and has been related to high levels of strain, anxiety and depression, as well as low levels of job performance. Keeping into consideration the importance of the present study, the investigator selected the present problem to locate the various problems which working females face during their day to day life. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM A STUDY OF STRESS AMONG WORKING FEMALES IN RELATION TO THEIR WORK PLACE AND TYPE OF JOB. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The objectives of the study were as follow. 1. To study the natures of distribution of stress scores of working females. 2. To study the level of stress among working females. 3. To study workplace wise difference in stress among the working females. 4. To compare the stress among working females in relation to their type of job. HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY Following hypotheses were formulated for the present study: 1. There will be no significant workplace wise difference in stress among the working females. 2. There will be no significant difference in stress among working females in relation to their job type. DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY For the convenience of the researcher, the study has been delimited to the following areas. 1. This study was delimited to the Pathankot district of Punjab. 2. The sample was delimited to 250 working females. 3. The study was restricted to two variables i.e. stress as dependent variable and workplace and type of job as independent variables. OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED To avoid ambiguity and to give a clear picture of the problem, it is necessary to explain each term motioned in the title of the problem selected. Certain terms with specific meaning have been used in the present investigation. Following terms have been used in the present study:- 1. Stress: Stress is a part of complex and dynamic system of transaction between the person and his environment. Stress is a state of mind which reflects certain biochemical reactions in the human body and is projected by a sense of anxiety, tension, depression and fear and is caused by such demands by the environment forces that cannot be met by the resources available to the person. 2. Working Females: The term working females refers to one who works outside the home for 6 or more than 6 hours per day for wages or salary. A female associated with a particular place, activity or occupation. 4. Work Place: In the present study it includes nurses, teachers, post office workers, bankers and clerks. 6. Type of job:-in the present study type of job refers to government and private type of jobs. Government jobs are those jobs which are run by government and private jobs are those jobs which are run by private authorities. 20

3 REVIEW OF LITERATURE: Sabu and Jangaiah (2005) conducted a study on adjustment and teacher s stress. The main objective of this study was to measure between the adjustment and stress of secondary school teachers. The result revealed that the teachers with high adjustment experienced low stress and the teachers with high stress have low adjustments. The female teachers possess higher level of stress as compared to male teachers. Shashirekhat and Chengti (2008) studied occupational stress in employees. The main objective of this study was to assess the occupational stress of employees (male and female) of Gulbarga. The sample of the study consisted of 200 employees (manager, engineer, supervisor, clerk) drawn randomly from Gulbarga. Occupational Stress Scale was administered. It was developed by Srivastava and Singh (1981). The data were subjected to statistical analysis. The t test was applied. Results indicated a variation in the occupational stress in different occupational status groups of employees of Gulbarga. The female employees exhibited higher occupation stress than the male sample. Manager has higher occupational stress than the engineer, supervisor and clerk. Badola (2009) attemped a study on identification of stress among school teachers. This objective was to find the difference between sex (male and female) and stress of primary and secondary teachers. The sample was consisted of 101 male and female teachers working in remote, rural and urban areas of Chamoli District of Garhwal. The Teachers Stress Inventory developed by Dr. Harendra Singh and Dr. J.P. Srivastava was used. The results revealed that in rural area male teachers scored higher value in comparison to their counterpart female teachers on the Stress Inventory. At the secondary level female teachers have higher mean scores in comparison to their male counter parts. Therefore, in urban areas, both, primary and secondary female teachers show insignificant difference on their stress level. Parmod and Kumar (2009) conducted a study on academic stress of teacher students. This study was attempt to compare academic stress between male-female, aided-unaided; and rural-urban sample. A sample of 500 B.Ed. trainees was selected through proportionate stratified random sampling technique. The sample consisted of B.Ed. trainees of Malapuram and Kozhikode district of Kerla. Average age of sample is 23 years. Student Academic Stress Inventory was developed and standardised by Parmod and Santosh (2006) for measuring academic stress of B.Ed. trainees. The result revealed that the difference in the locality affects significantly on the academic stress of the teacher trainees, but not by the differences in the gender and type of institutions. Anbuchuvan (2010) studied occupational stress of high school teachers. The objective of this study was to find out the levels of occupational stress of high school teachers in terms of gender. The sample comprised 60 teachers of high schools (36 male teachers and 24 female teachers) working in high schools of Salem in Tamil Nadu. Random sampling technique was used for selecting the schools for the study. Occupational stress was assessed with the help of Occupational Stress Inventory developed by Dr. Joseph and Dr. Dhar Mangadan. The data were collected through issue of questionnaire with prior permission of the heads of the institutions. The results were computed by mean, SD and t test. Analysis of data revealed that there is significant difference between the male and female high school teachers in their occupational stress on the basis of educational qualifications, marital status, locality and teaching experience. Sharma (2011) conducted a study on stress in working women. Results revealed significant effect of working status of women and significant interaction effect of working status and different age groups, while on the other hand, result failed to show the significant effect of age. Both working and non-working women are young, then both are having same level of stress, but when they reach to old age, non-working women s level of stress increases and working women s level of stress decreases. It showed that at old age level working and non-working women s stress level is low and high respectively. Gupta (2012) conducted a study on job stressors in primary school teachers in Aligarh district (India). The main objective of the study was to measure the stress of primary school teachers in relation to various factors such as type of school sex differences, age, educational qualification and teaching experience. A sample of 200 working teachers was selected through accidental sampling method. To assess the occupational stress of the teachers,indore Teacher s Job Stressors Scale by Dr. Meena Budhhisagar Rahod and Dr. Madhulika Verma was used. Results revealed that there was a significant difference in the stress of the government and public primary school teachers. The stress of public school teachers is higher than that of the government school teachers. Kaur and Sachdeva (2013) conducted a study on organizational role stress among elementary teachers in relation to gender. The results indicated that female teachers exhibit more organizational role stress as compared to their male counterparts. This may be due to the reason that women play a dual role in our society. METHOD AND PROCEDURE Keeping into consideration the objectives of present study, following methodology was adopted. RESEARCH METHOD ADOPTED For conducting the present investigation, descriptive survey method of research was used. It involves the description, recording, analysis and interpretation of conditions that now exist. It is most useful method as well as interesting method. Survey method is concerned with the present and attempts to determine the status of the phenomena under investigation. 21

4 POPULATION AND SAMPLING In the present study the female working in different areas and in different jobs from the population. The present study comprises of a sample of 250 working females was selected. Out of the 250 working females 77 are teachers, 48 are working in banks, 19 are working in post offices, 37 are clerks and 69 are working as nurses they have been taken from district Pathankot of Punjab in January, For this purpose, the procedure of convenient sampling was adopted. Their age ranged from 22 years to 55 years. Distribution of Sample Sr. No. Nature of work No. of Working Females 1. Nurses Teachers Post offices Banks Clerks 37 Total 250 RESEARCH TOOL USED In order to collect the requisite data. Following research tool was used. PERSONAL STRESS SOURCE INVENTORY (PSSI) In the present study Personal Stress Source Inventory developed and standardized by Arun K. Singh, Ashish K. Singh and Arpana Singh was used. It was selected to measure that level of stress because it is the most popular and used scale in stress studies. This inventory contained 35 items in Hindi language. In this inventory, three responses or options of each events, namely seldom, sometimes and frequently were given. STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES USED In order to study the nature of distribution of stress scores among working females descriptive statistics like mean, median, mode, standard deviation, quartile deviation, kurtosis and skewness was used by the researcher. Further t test was used to compare the stress among working females in relation to their type of job. Analysis of variance (One Way) was used to compare the stress among females working as teachers, nurses, bankers, clerks and post office workers. ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA The data is studied from as many angles as possible to explore the new facts. It involves breaking down existing complex factors into simple parts and putting parts together in new arrangement for the purpose of interpretation i.e. verification of hypotheses and getting answers to the research questions. Analysis and interpretation of the obtained data were made by keeping in mind the objectives of the study. The descriptions of calculation and results obtained have been systematically presented. NATURE OF DISTRIBUTION OF STRESS SCORES AMONG WORKING FEMALES For verifying the normality of distribution of stress scores, values of mean, median, mode, standard deviation, quartile deviation, skewness and kurtosis were calculated and are given in table Frequency Distribution of Stress Scores among Working Females (N=250) Class Interval Frequency Cumulative Frequency Cumulative frequency (Percentage ) % % % % % % % % % % % % % N= 250 Mean Median Mode S.D. Q.D. Skewness Kurtosis

5 Frequency Asia Pacific Journal of Research ISSN (Print): Table shows the values of mean, median and mode of stress score among working females as 36.96, and respectively which are quite proximate to each other. The value of standard deviation and quartile deviation is 12.11and 8.45 respectively. Further, the value of skewness is which shows that the curve is in negatively skewed. In addition to this, the value of kurtosis was calculated to be which indicates that the curve is leptokurtic in nature. The skewness and kurtosis with respect to distribution of stress is diagrammatically presented in figure Frequency Curve showing Stress Scores among Working Females Class-Interval LEVELS OF STRESS AMONG WORKING FEMALES To study the level of stress among working females, the variable stress was classified into three categories viz. high, average and low level of stress by adopting the procedure of mean ± SD. The level of stress of working females is shown in table. Distribution of Stress Scores of Working Females on the basis of their Stress Level and Percentage Sr. No. Stress Levels Range of Scores Number of Percentage Females 1. High Stress 39 and above % 2. Average Stress % 3. Low Stress 34 and below % It is clear from table 4.2 that 46 % working females possess low level of stress and 40.4% working females belongs to high level of stress where as 13.6% working females possess moderate level of stress. It may also be inferred from table that maximum working females have low level of stress. SRESSS AMONG WORKING FEMALES IN RELATION TO THEIR WORKPLACE In order to study the stress among working females in relation to their workplace, the statistical technique of analysis of variance (one way), was applied. The sample was divided into five categories on the basis of their workplace i.e. nurses, teachers, post office workers, bankers and clerks. After this, these groups were made equal in terms of total number of females in each group by using Random Numbers Table. The results of analysis of variance (one way) are given below in table. Results of Analysis of Variance (One Way) for Stress Among Five Different Groups Sr. No. Source of Sum of df Mean Square F-Ratio S.D. variance Squares Variance 1. Among Mean * Within Conditions Total *Significant at 0.05 level of significance 23

6 Table shows that the calculated value of F for finding out the significance of the difference in the means of stress scores for different groups for degree of freedom 4/90, came out to be 3.037, which is greater than the table value (2.47) at 0.05 level of significance. Hence, the Hypothesis No. 3 that, There will be no significant workplace wise difference in stress among the working females was not accepted. In order to find out the significance of the difference in means of stress scores of five groups in different combinations (considering two groups at a time), t - test was applied. For this purpose, Least Significant Differences (LSDs) at 0.05 and 0.01 level of significance were computed. The means of stress scores of the working females belonging to these five groups on the basis of workplace and the difference between means are given below in table. Means of Stress Scores and Difference between Means for Five Groups with respect to their Workplace Sr.N o. Name of the Group No. of Working Females Mean of Stress Scores Difference Means 1. Nurses (A) 1.00 NS (A-B) 2. Teachers (B) 12.00** (A-C) 3. Post office workers (C) 7.1 NS (A-D) 4. Bankers (D) 6.89 NS (A-E) 5. Clerks (E) 11.00**(B-C) 6.10 NS (B-D) 5.89(B-E) 4.90 NS (C-D) 5.11 NS (C-E) 0.21 NS (D-E) between NS Not significant at 0.05 level of significance ** Significant at 0.01 level of significance For df 90, Least Significant Differences (LSDS) at : 0.05 level of significance = level of significance = From above table, it is evident that the computed value of difference in the means of stress scores between nurses and female teachers came out to be 1.00, which is less than Least Significant Difference (7.60) at 0.05 level of significance, for degree of freedom (df) = 90. Therefore, it may be interpreted that nurses and female teachers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Similarly, difference in the mean of stress scores between nurse and female post office workers was found to be 12.00, which is more than Least Significant Difference (10.04) at 0.01 level of significance, for df = 90. Hence, it can be concluded that stress among female post office workers and nurses differ significantly. Further, it may be inferred that female post office workers exhibited significantly higher mean score of stress (45.21) as compared to nurses (33.21). On the other hand, table also depicts that difference in the mean of scores between nurses and female bankers was found to be (7.10), which is less than Least Significant Difference (7.60) at 0.05 level of significance, for degree of freedom (df) = 90. Hence, it may be interpreted that nurses and female bankers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. The computed value of difference in the means of stress scores between nurses and female clerks came out to be 6.89 which is less than Least Significant Difference (7.60) at 0.05 level of significance, for degree of freedom (df) =90. Therefore, it may be interpreted that nurses and female clerks did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. It is apparent from table that the difference in the means of stress scores between female teachers and female post office workers was found to be 11.00, which is greater than Least Significant Difference (10.04) at 0.01 level of significance for degree of freedom (df) = 90. Hence, it is found that female post office workers differ significantly from female teachers in stress. Further, it may be inferred that female post office workers exhibited significantly higher mean score of stress (45.21) as compared to female teachers (34.21). Similarly, difference in the stress scores between female teachers and female bankers was found to be 6.10, which is less than Least Significant Difference (7.60) at 0.05 level of significance, for degree of freedom (df) = 90. Therefore, it may be interpreted that female teachers and female bankers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. From above table, it is evident that the computed value of difference in the means of stress scores between female teachers and female clerks came out to be 5.89, which is less than Least Significant Difference (7.60) at 0.05 level of significance, for degree of freedom (df) = 90. Therefore, it may be interpreted that female teachers and female clerks did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Similarly, difference in the mean stress scores between female post office workers and female bankers was found to be 4.90 which is less than Least Significant Difference (7.60) at 0.05 level of significance,for degree of freedom (df) = 90. Therefore, it may be interpreted that female post office workers and female bankers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. 24

7 It is evident from table that the computed value of difference in the means of stress scores between female post office workers and female clerks was found to be 5.11, which is less than Least Significant Difference (7.60) at 0.05 level of significance for degree of freedom (df) = 90. Therefore, it may be interpreted that female post office workers and female clerks did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Similarly, difference in the stress scores of female bankers and female clerks came out to be 0.21, which is less than Least Significant Difference (7.60) at 0.05 level of significance, for degree of freedom (df) = 90. Therefore, it may be interpreted that female bankers and female clerks did not differ significantly from each other with respect to stress. Hence, it can be concluded that there exist no significant difference in stress among females working as bankers and clerks. JOB-WISE DIFFERENCE IN STRESS AMONG WORKING FEMALES To test the significance of difference between the mean scores of stress among working females serving in government and private sectors, their means, standard deviations and t value were calculated. The means, standard deviations and t value are given in table. Difference in Mean Scores of Stress among Working Females serving in Government and Private Sectors Sr. No. Type of Job N Mean S.D. SE D df t-value 1. Government NS 2. Private NS Not significant at 0.05 level of significance It is evident from the table 4.7that the calculated value of t for comparing the stress among government and private sector working females was found to be 0.08 which is not significant at 0.05 level of significance for two tailed test for degree of freedom, (df) = 248, because the calculated t value (0.08) is less than the table t value (1.97) at 0.05 level of significance. Hence Hypothesis No. 4 that There will be no significant difference in stress among working females in relation to their job type was accepted. Therefore, it may be interpreted that there is no significant difference in the mean scores of stress of working females serving in government and private sectors. It may be said that apparent difference in the mean scores of two groups (Government and Private) may be attributed due to chance factor or sampling fluctuation. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS From the analysis and interpretation of the data, following conclusions may be drawn. 46 % working females possess low level of stress and 40.4% working females belongs to high level of stress where as 13.6% working females possess moderate level of stress. There is significant workplace wise difference in stress among the working females. Nurses and female teachers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Female post office workers exhibited significantly higher mean score of stress (45.21) as compared to nurses (33.21). Nurses and female bankers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Nurses and female clerks did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Female post office workers exhibited significantly higher mean score of stress (45.21) as compared to female teachers (34.21). Female teachers and female bankers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Female teachers and female clerks did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Female post office workers and female bankers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. Female post office workers and female clerks did not differ significantly from each other with respect to their stress. There exist no significant difference in stress among females working as bankers and clerks. There is no significant difference in the mean scores of stress of working females serving in government and private sectors. 5.3 EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS On the basis of the results, the present study has the following educational implications. Result reveals that work load should be divided in working females according to their efficiency and working hours should be reduced. Salary should be given according to the norms to the working females. Salary, increment and promotion should be given timely to working females. Equal and proper facilities should be provided for all the working females for their professional growth. Maximum freedom should be given to the working females so that they can perform maximum and excellent in their work. There should be good relations of working females with their head of institutions and the colleague. There should be good relation between working females and their family members. Good, healthy and tension free environment should be provided for working females. Proper staff should be appointed in the institutions, so that extra work load should be avoided on the females. 25

8 REFERENCES 1. Anbuchelvan, C. (2010). Occupational Stress of High School Teachers. EDUTRACK, A Monthly Scanners of Trends in Education, 9(9), Badola, Sunita (2009). Identification of Stress among School Teachers. Indian Journal of Psychometry and Education,40(2), Gupta, Madhu (2012). Job Stressors in Primary School Teachers in Aligarh District (INDIA). Journal of Community guidance & Research, 29(1), Kaur, Supreet & Sachdeva, Ruchi (2013). Organizational Role Stress among Elementary Teachers in relation to Gender. EDUTRACK, A Monthly Scanner of Trends in Education, 12 (12), Pramod, K.M. and Kumar, K.P. Santhosh (2009). Academic Stress of Teacher Students. Indian Journal of Psychometry and Education, 40(2), Sabu, S. and Jangaiah, C. (2005). Adjustment and Teachers Stress. EDUTRACK, A Monthly Scanner of Trends in Education, 5 (1), Sharma, Poonam (2011). Stress in Working Women. Psycho Lingua, 41(2), Shashirekha, T. & Chengti, S.K. (2008). Occupational Stress in Employees. Indian Journal of Psychometry and Education, 39(1),