Psychological Well-being of Working Women
Madhusudanan.S
Ph.D. Research Scholar (UGC- SRF)
Department of Social Work
Pondicherry University
Puducherry - 605014
[email protected]
Well-being
1. A state of happiness and contentment, with low levels of distress, overall good physical
and mental health and outlook, or good quality of life.
2. A complex, multi-faceted construct that has continued to elude researchers.
3. The balance point between an individual’s resource pool (psychological, social, physical) & the
challenges faced (psychological, social, physical).
Source 1. VandenBos (2015) 2. Pollard & Lee (2003) 3. Dodge et al, (2012)
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Sustainable Development Goals
• Target 3.4 “By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from Non-communicable
diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.”
Mental Healthcare Bill, India (2016)
• Integration of mental health care into general health care at all levels.
• Condemns discrimination of mental health care services
based on gender.
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Literature Review
1. Workplace is one of the environments that affect mental well-being and health.
2. Working women score less in emotional health than non-working women.
3. Work stress, coping and illness varied for different groups of working women. Teachers-
minimum levels of stress and illness than railway/ bank women employees.
4. Women in teaching profession scored high in all 6 dimensions of Ryff & Keyes (1995) than
women working in hospitals and industry.
Source 1. Harnois & Gabriel (2000) 2. Suman & Chatterjee (2015) 3. Pandey & Srivastava (2003) 4. Srimathi & Kiran Kumar (2010)
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Materials & Methods
• Descriptive research design
• Simple random sampling (female school teachers = 41)/ Cohen’s table
• Psychological well-being scale (Ryff & Keyes, 1995) = 18 items (Six dimensions, 3 items/dimensions)
1. Autonomy
2. Environmental mastery
3. Personal growth
4. Positive relations
5. Purpose in life
6. Self-acceptance
• Reliability (present study) = 0.672 (Cronbach’s Alpha)
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Inter-item Correlation
Scale 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Autonomy - 0.281 0.077
.502** .390* .448**
2. Environmental Mastery - 0.016 0.005
.569** .532**
3. Personal Growth - 0.111 -0.106 0.229
4. Positive relations - .340* .332*
5. Purpose in Life - 0.08
6. Self-acceptance -
Average 12.93 14.32 15.61 12.66 12 13.2
SD 3.12 3.13 3.02 3.18 3.18 3.79
**Significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*Significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
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Description Frequency Per cent
39-43 8 19.5
Age (in years) 44-48 19 46.3
49-53 10 24.4
54-58 4 9.8
04-08 8 19.5
Working Experience (in years) 09-13 12 29.3
14-18 8 19.5
19-23 1 2.4
24-28 12 29.3
Attended mental health programme Yes 11 26.8
No 30 73.2
Experienced Stress in workplace Yes 37 90.2
No 4 9.8
Experienced anxiety in workplace Yes 35 85.4
No 6 14.6
Experienced discrimination in workplace Yes 11 26.8
No 30 73.2
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Results
IV DV Test employed Result Effect size
Facing discrimination Experiencing stress Chi- square NS -
Facing discrimination Experiencing anxiety Chi- square NS -
Facing discrimination Experiencing depression Chi- square NS -
Attending mental health Psychological well-being score Independent sample t-test S* Medium
programme
Facing discrimination Psychological well-being score Independent sample t-test NS Small
Age Psychological well-being score Pearson Correlation NS -
(in years)
Work experience Psychological well-being score Pearson Correlation NS -
(in years)
*0.05 level. S = Significant / NS = Not Significant
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Recommendations
• Stress management workshops
• Mental Health programmes
• Mental health advocacy
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