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Psychology

2013. Vol.4, No.6, 520-525

Published Online June 2013 in SciRes (http://wendang.chazidian.com/journal/psych)

The Relationship of Job Satisfaction, Job Stress, Mental Health of Government and Non-Government Employees of Bangladesh

Lailun Nahar , Afroza Hossain , Abdur Rahman , Arunavo Bairagi

1

1* 2 1 1 Department of Psychology, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, Bangladesh

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Department of Psychology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

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Email: lailun_psy@cu.ac.bd

Received March 10 , 2013; revised April 12 , 2013; accepted May 10 , 2013

th th th

Copyright © 2013 Lailun Nahar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons At- tribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship of job satisfaction, job stress and mental health on government and non-government employees. It was believed that there will have a sig- nificant difference between government and non-government employees in case of various job related factors. These factors affect job performance of employees. In this context it was important to know how job satisfaction, job stress and mental health differ in terms of types of jobs. Subjects in the study were 100 employees, 50 government and 50 non-government employees. Job Satisfaction Scale, Occupational Stress Index and General Health Questionnaire were used as data collection tools. Data were analyzed by using means, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and ANOVA test. The study found that there is a sig- nificant positive correlation between job stress and types of job (r = .282, P < .01). Significant job stress was found in case of non-government employees, because, they feel less job security and high work load. Significant negative correlation was found between job satisfaction and sex (r = .204, P < .05).Female employees were less satisfied than male employees with their lower level jobs having with a lower pay- ment and as well as due to less social security.

Keywords: Job Satisfaction; Job Stress; Mental Health; Employees; Sex

Introduction

Work attitudes are attitudes that worker have regarding their jobs. Work is a complete concept which has many characteris- tics or facets. An employee may possess different attitudes towards the different aspects of his/her job. Thus work attitudes are multidimensional. Work in the present study is considered in term of three dimensions; Job satisfaction, Job stress, Mental health. Job satisfaction is an attitudinal variable that reflects how people feel about their jobs overall as well as various as- pects of them. Job satisfaction that refers to extent to which people like or dislike their jobs. According to Locke (1976) job satisfaction is a positive attitude resulting from the perception of one’s job as fulfilling one’s needs. There are three important dimensions of job satisfaction.

1) Job satisfaction is an emotional response to a job situation. As such, it cannot be seen; it can only be informed; 2) How well outcomes need or exceed expectations often determines job satisfaction; 3) Job satisfaction represents several attitudes. Job satisfaction is a person’s attitude towards the job. There are certain patterns of relationship between age and job satisfaction. Herzberg et al. (1957) have found that job satisfaction is high for young employees immediately after their employment; drops sharply after the first few years and then begin to climb as the employees continue on their jobs. Several investigation have shown that job satisfaction plays an important role to an

*

Corresponding author.

employee in terms of health and well-being (e.g., Kornhauser, 1965; Gardell, 1971; Singer & Rutenfranz, 1972; Caplan et al., 1980; Keon & Mcdonald, 1982). A study done by Caplan et at., (1975) examining the relationship between job satisfaction and employee’s health found significant negative correlation be- tween job satisfaction and a number of psychoneurotic syn- dromes: boredom, depression and anxiety. Another almost similar study conducted by Khaleque (1981) indicated that dissatisfied workers suffer from greater degree of stress and strain as compared to the satisfied workers. The finding of the sex investigations on sex differences in job satisfaction are somewhat contradictory and permit no definite conclusion about the relationship between sex and job satisfaction estab- lished by the findings of Smith et al. (1969). There they also showed that women are less satisfied than men because they are usually placed on lower level jobs, which have a lower pay rate, and which usually offer few promotional opportunities. In an addition to the factors of wages and job levels there is the issue of social norms concerning appropriate roles for men and women.

Job stress in work place is not a new phenomenon, but it is a great threat of employee’s health and well being than ever be- fore. While technology has made aspects of many jobs easier, it has also added to the anxieties of office, life thorough informa- tion overload, heightened pressure for productivity and a threatening sense of impermanence in the work place. Stress can be termed as a dynamic and reciprocal relationship between

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L. NAHAR ET AL.

the person and environment. Theree is a clear connection be- tween workplace stress and physical and motional problems. According to the early warning signs of job stress include: headache, sleep disturbance, difficulty concentrating, Irritability, low morale, poor relation with family and friend. Job stress plays an important role in several types of ongoing health problems, especially: cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal conditions, and physiological disorders. Job satisfaction has been shown by Blegen (1993) to be closely affected by job stress. In a meta-analysis of variables related to employees job choose the types of organization as their career.

Objectives of the Study

The prior objectives of this study were:

To see whether there is a relationship among job satisfaction, job stress and mental health on Government and non-govern- ment employee.

To see whether there is any difference of job satisfaction, job stress and mental health on the basis of Government and non- satisfaction, identified the variables of age, autonomy, com- mitment, communication with peers & supervisors, education, fairness, locus of control, professionalism, recognition, stress & years of experience. His analysis found stress & commitment to have the strongest relationship with job satisfaction. Irvine & Evans (1995); also found a strong negative correlation between stress & job satisfaction although not as strong as that found by Blegen (1993).

Mental health at work refers to psychological wellbeing of people working at any organization. In the past, occupational health was concerned with safety and physical health of em- ployees and little attention was paid to mental health aspect. Mental health is a growing field which emphasizes assessment, prevention and intervention to promote psychological well- being of employees. Mental health refers to behaviors, attitudes and feelings that represent an individual’s level of personal effectiveness, success and satisfaction (Banks et al., 1980). Several investigators have shown that job satisfaction plays an important role on employee’s health & well being (Caplan, 1971; Keon & Mcdonald, 1982). Khaleque & Hossain (1994); in their study indicated that there is significant influence of job satisfaction on mental health.

We are living in a competitive society. In this competitive society people engaged in different types of work, some are engaged in government job and some are engaged in private job. In these two sectors job environment, salary pattern, security of job and shifting of job are different. As a result some employ- ees find his job stressful, some can do their job easily and can achieve success.

In case of government job in Bangladesh, working hour starts at 9 am and ends at 5 pm. Friday and Saturday are gov- ernment holidays. Here the employees have much more relaxa- tion as they have to encounter no or less penalty for mistakes and job avoidance. In addition here salary pattern is low though job security is high. But transferred from one place to another place is very harmful for their family life.

On the contrary in non government job working hours starts from 9 am to 5 pm. Sometimes they have to engage in overtime duty. In most cases non government job allow only a single day as a holiday in a week. In non government job employees get high salary but job is not much secured as government job. Some find it stressful to do a lot of work but as salary is high some prefer non government job.

Thus we can see that both kind of job have positive and negative aspects. Government job is preferable as it is not so much stressful and as job security is high on the other hand non government job is preferable due to high salary pattern.

So the relationships of job satisfaction, job stress and mental health on government and non government employee of Bang- ladesh are important enough to study. It will help employees for better understand the effect of government and non government job on job satisfaction, job stress and mental health and to

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government employees.

To see whether there is any difference of job satisfaction, job stress and mental health on the basis of gender.

Hypotheses

There would be a relationship of job satisfaction, job stress and mental health on Government and Non Government em- ployees.

Job satisfaction of Government employees would be higher than Non Government employees.

Job stress of Non Government employees would be higher than Government employees.

Mental health of Government employees would be higher than Non Government employees.

Materials and Methods

Participants

The participants of the present study comprised 100 respon- dents including 50 respondents of government and 50 respon- dents of non government employees. In both cases 50% of re- spondents were male and 50% were female employees. Re- spondents were selected purposively as a sample. Marital status, age, socio-economic status, income level were collected as demographic information of the participants.

Instruments

Bengali Version of Job Satisfaction Scale

An adapted Bengali version of Job satisfaction scale (Rah- man, 2003) originally developed by Warr et al. (1979) known as Warr-Cook-Wall scale used for measuring job satisfaction. The Bengali version was administered to 25 participants (20 males and 5 females) with a gap of 30 days. The test-retest reli- ability Coefficient is 0.54 which is significant at .05 level. The reliability Coefficient of Split-half (r = .87) and Cornbach’s alpha (r = .85) are significant at .01 level (n-270) showing in- ternal consistency. Good concurrent (r = .32) and congruent (r = .54) validity were found. These results established that the Bengali version of the Job satisfaction scale was reliable and valid.

The scale contained fifteen statements about fifteen different aspects of the job with a seven-point scale; in which higher scores represent higher satisfaction. The original instrument was designed for face-to-face interviews where respondents were provided with the I’m extremely dissatisfied, I’m very dissatisfied, I’m moderately dissatisfied, I’m not sure, I’m mod- erately satisfied, I’m very satisfied and I’m extremely satisfied choices. Scores from 1 to 7 were assigned accordingly. The scores obtained by a subject in all the fifteen items are added and the resulting total score is used as the index of job satisfac-

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tion of the employee. The lowest and highest possible total scores in this scale can be 15 and 105 respectively, with score 60 as the midpoint i.e. I’m not sure choice.

Occupational Stress Index

Job stress was measured by using the Occupational Stress cedures with a view to obtain data with maximum accuracy. At

first the concerned authorities of the Government and Non Government office were contacted for their approval and coop- eration in conducting the research. After being permitted to conduct the research the employee of different levels involved in different position were listed purposively. The selected persons were then supplied with a set of questionnaires. The researchers Index developed by Srivastava and Singh (198l). The scale consists of 46 items with 5 alternative response (strongly dis- agree to strongly agree) categories. Out of 46 items, 28 are true-keyed and 18 false-keyed. The items related to almost all relevant components of the job life which causes stress in some way or the other such as role overload, role ambiguity, role conflict, unreasonable group, and political pressure, responsi- bility for persons, under participation, powerlessness, poor peer relations,

intrinsic impoverishment, low status, strenuous

working condition and unprofitability. The reliability index ascertained by Split-half (odd-even) method and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the scale were found to be .93 and .90 respectively. The possible range of scores on this index is from 46 - 230, with higher scores as indicative of high stress. For the present study a Bangla version adapted by Rahman and Sorcar (1990) of the index was used which was found to have high inter-judge agreement. The responses were given weights of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively for strongly disagree, disagree, I am not sure, agree and strongly agree. The scoring for the false-keyed items is reversed. General Health Questionnaire

Mental health of the respondents was measured using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) developed by Gold- berg (1972) and adapted in Bangali by Sorcar and Rahman (1989). The original of the measure (Goldberg 1972) resulted in a 60 items version (GHQ-60) with the best 30, 20 and 12 of these items (GHQ-30, GHQ-20 and GHQ-12 respectively) be- ing identified for use where respondents time is at a premium. Each item consists of a question asking whether the respondent has recently experienced a particular symptom or item of be- havior rated on a four-point scale. The development studies (Goldberg, 1972) showed that the full scale exhibited high in-

ternal consistency (r = .65) and good test-retest reliability (r

= .73) over a period of six months. All variables of the scale

also correlated highly with one another. The original and sub-

sequent empirical studies (summarized by Goldberg, 1978)

have provided evidence of the validity of the GHQ as shown by

its linear association with independent clinical assessments

(typically r = .70 or greater) and its sensitivity and specificity in

discriminating between mental patients (cases) and normal’s.

Banks et al. (1980) reported item—whole correlations and reli-

ability coefficients for three samples. The reliability of the

Bangali version was measured by parallel form method which was found to be quite satisfactory (r = .65). The items could be

scored by following the GHQ method or the Likert method.

The present study followed the latter one. In Likert method responses are given weights of 0, 1, 2 and 3 respectively for “not at all”, “somewhat”, “to a considerable extent” and “to a great extent”, with higher scores as indicative of better mental health. The score ranges from 0 to 36. Procedure

The researchers maintained the standard data collection pro-

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instructed the respondents to read each statement and express their feelings by putting on tick mark (√) on the appropriate point. They assured the respondents that it was purely an aca- demic research and their confidentiality would be maintained. After the questionnaires were filled in by the respondents were collected by one of the investigators and checked for consistency.

Results

The statistical methods used to analyze obtained data are

mean, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and (2 × 2) analy- sis of variance (ANOVA). All statistical analyses were carried out using the statistical program SPSS version 12.0 for windows. Table 1 shows that there is a relationship of job satisfaction, job stress and mental health on Government and Non Govern- ment employees of Bangladesh. The relationship is positive but not significant. Table 2 shows that male job satisfaction mean was (72.58) and female job satisfaction mean was (66.94), which mean male job satisfaction was better than female. The figures in Table 3 reveal that only the main effect for sex

is significant at .05 level (F = 4.331, df = l, 96, P < .05). That

means job satisfaction of the respondents differed by their sex. Table 4 shows that government employees’ job stress mean was (124.30) and non-government mean was (134.24). That indicate Government employees job stress was lower than non- government employees. Table 5 indicates that the main effect of job stress for the types of job was significant at (.0l) level significance (F = 8.651, df = l, 96, P < .01). That means job stress of the respondents differed by their types of job. Table 6 shows that government employees’ mean is (14.78), non-government employees’mean is (13.94). It also shows that

male employees’ mean is (14.78) and female employees’ mean

is (13.94).

Table 7 shows that there is no significant difference in men-

tal health on sex and types of job.

Table 8 indicates that types of job and job stress have a sig-

nificant positive correlation (r = .282). Mental Health and types

of job have a relationship but not significant.

Table 9 shows that sex and job satisfaction have significant

negative correlation (r = .204). Job stress and mental health

and sex have a negative relationship but not significant.

Discussion The present study aims to investigate the relationship of job satisfaction, job stress and mental health on Government and Non Government employee of Bangladesh. The target popula- tion of this study is Government and Non Government em- ployees. The sample was comprised 100 (50 Government and

50 Non Government) employees. They were classified accord-

ing to their sex i.e. male and female.

The first hypothesis describing that there would be a rela-

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