Work Stress, Coping Strategies and Resilience: A Study among Working Females

Abstract

The aim of this review was to evaluate research relating to the effects of coping strategies and resilience on the level of workplace stress. Much of the research focused on working mothers and working females in general. It was found that working females experienced more work stress as compared to men. And currently in Malaysia, social policies that support working females, especially working mothers, has not been adopted fully by most corporations. Furthermore, the evidence for effective problem-focused and emotion-focused coping was inconsistent. It was concluded that correlation between work stressors and the adopted coping strategies may vary depending on the type of problems being dealt with and the interplay between the employee and the demand. Moreover, resilience literature revealed this concept as an enhancement of an individual's adaptability and survival in the presence of occupational stressors and success in overcoming the stressors results in increased resilience to future hardships. This article identifies a number of research gaps for advancing work stress research, in particular: 1) limited work stress research on Malaysian working women and mothers, and; 2) limited literature on relating resilience to coping strategies and work stress.

Mediating Effects of Coping Strategies on the Relationship between Organizational Support and Work-Family Conflict

“…However, these different results supported to Kwok, Cheng, and Wong (2014) study, they had in fact argued that the results attained in Western countries may not be generalized to workers in other Asian countries, and other regions of the world (Spector et al, 2004). Hence, to date, studies on effective problem-focused and emotion-focused yielded inconsistent outcomes (Yi Lian & Lian Tam, 2014).…”

“…In contrast, Torkelson and Muhonen (2008) found that men did not practice problemfocused individualistic coping strategies more often than women. Hence, to date, studies on effective problem-focused and emotion-focused coping yielded inconsistent results (Yi Lian & Lian Tam, 2014). Therefore, this study proposed the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 2: There is a significant relationship between problem-focused coping and WFC Hypothesis 3: There is a significant relationship between emotion-focused coping and WFC…”

“…Coping strategies can be subdivided into two aspects: problem-focused coping is defined as behavioral coping which includes helping to seek and to take direct action in a challenging situation; while emotion-focused coping is defined as a cognitive process which consist of positive thinking and emotional expression, aiming to attenuate stressful situations (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Comparing to two types of coping strategies, men appeared to practice more than women in terms of problem-focused coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) strategies as working females experience more work stress than men in Malaysia (Yi Lian & Lian Tam, 2014). Research on coping strategies are widely recognized to assist in buffering individuals' stressors, control role stressors, reducing pressure, and manage work-family interference by decreasing WFC in order to redress work-life balance in organizational subcultures (Lapierre & Allen, 2006;Lazarus & Folkman, 1984;Rantanen, Kinnunen, Mauno, & Tement, 2013;Rantanen, Mauno, Kinnunen, & Rantanen, 2011).…”

“…. Casper, Allen, and Poelmans (2014) confirmed that WFC study was lacking outside the United States, although WFC studies had also been increasingly conducted in Asia Pacific countries (Hassan, Dollard, & Winefield, 2010;Sabil & Marican, 2011;Sim & Bujang, 2012), for instance, in Malaysia (Yi Lian & Lian Tam, 2014), in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Spector et al, 2004;Lu et al, 2010), in Bangladesh (Talukder & Vickers, 2014), and other countries. However, this type of study is very limited in Laos.…”

Diversity in Unity: Perspectives from Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

“…Working mothers who perform two roles at the same time experience a higher level of stress. They are more exposed to various sources of stress, such as problems in their workplace or house or problems related to mother-child interaction (Lian & Tam, 2014).…”