A Review of Minority Stress Related to Employees’ Demographics and the Development of an Intersectional Framework for Their Coping Strategies in the Workplace

Abstract

Every employee embodies manifestations of every demographic that attach to him or her different minority and majority statuses at the same time. As these statuses are often related to organizational hierarchies, employees frequently hold positions of dominance and subordination at the same time. Thus, a given individual's coping strategies (or coping behavior) in terms of minority stress due to organizational processes of hierarchization, marginalization and discrimination, are very often a simultaneous coping in terms of more than one demographic. Research on minority stress mostly focuses on single demographics representing only single facets of workforce diversity. By integrating the demographics of age, disability status, nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and religion into one framework, the intersectional model proposed in this article broadens the perspective on minorities and related minority stress in the workplace. It is shown that coping with minority stress because of one demographic must always be interpreted in relation to the other demographics. The manifestation of one demographic can limit or broaden one's coping resources for coping with minority stress because of another dimension. Thus the manifestation of one demographic can determine the coping opportunities and coping behavior one applies to situations because of the minority status of another demographic. This coping behavior can include disclosure decisions about invisible demographics. Therefore organizational interventions aiming to create a supportive workplace environment and equal opportunities for every employee (e.g. diversity management approaches) should include more demographics instead of focusing only on few.

Examining diversity climate through an intersectional lens.

“…These findings corroborate the intersectionality and ADDRESSING models, which posit that overlapping aspects of identity shape the perceptions and outcomes of our lives (Crenshaw, 1989; Nieto et al, 2010). As Köllen and Perrewé (2014) recommended, “organizational interventions aiming to create a supportive workplace environment and equal opportunities for every employee (e.g., diversity management approaches) should include more demographics instead of focusing only on few” (p. 41).…”

The temporal intersectional minority stress model: Reimagining minority stress theory

“…MST has also been used to better understand higher rates of substance use disorders among queer people (e.g., Goldbach et al, 2014; Hatzenbuehler et al, 2008; Lehavot & Simoni, 2011; Lewis et al, 2012; Watson et al, 2020), as well as specific risk and protective factors for a range of mental health disorders including anxiety and depression (Hatzenbuehler et al, 2008; Meyer, 1995, 2003; Meyer & Frost, 2013; Pachankis, 2014; Wong et al, 2014). In addition, research has applied MST to other domains, including the workplace, to understand how stigma and prejudice at work affect workplace satisfaction (Köllen, 2014; Velez et al, 2013), as well as how stressors in the workplace may spill over to affect same‐sex families at home (Holman, 2018). Like Holman (2018), other scholars have extended the use of MST beyond individual outcomes to understand how minority stress affects families (Browning & Pasley, 2015).…”

Diversity Management: A Critical Review and Agenda for the Future

“…In terms of gender, it is, more or less, a global tendency for being male to be accorded a higher status than being female (Ellemers, 2018). In terms of the well-being of employees, the experience of marginalization can cause different types of discomfort and stress in the workplace, and the coping strategies of individuals for dealing with this stress, in terms of one dimension, can only be understood and interpreted within the interplay of that dimension with the other dimensions (Köllen, 2014;Prasad et al, 2007). Representing several underprivileged statuses can limit coping resources in a way that narrows down the number of coping opportunities, which can have acutely negative consequences for the individual's well-being, their career development, and their job performance (e.g., Dispenza et al, 2019).…”