ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES@#While occupational stress has long been a central focus of psychological research, few studies have investigated how immigrant microbusiness owners (MBOs) respond to their unusually demanding occupation, or how their unresolved occupational stress manifests in psychological distress. Based on the job demands-resources model, this study compared MBOs to employees with regard to the relationships among emotional demands, job resources, and depressive symptoms.@*METHODS@#Data were derived from a cross-sectional survey of 1288 Korean immigrant workers (MBOs, professionals, office workers, and manual workers) aged 30 to 70, living in Toronto and surrounding areas. Face-to-face interviews were conducted between March 2013 and November 2013.@*RESULTS@#Among the four occupational groups, MBOs appeared to endure the greatest level of emotional demands, while reporting relatively lower levels of job satisfaction and job security; but MBOs reported the greatest job autonomy. The effect of emotional demands on depressive symptoms was greater for MBOs than for professionals. However, an inspection of stress-resource interactions indicated that though MBOs enjoyed the greatest autonomy, the protective effects of job satisfaction and security on the psychological risk of emotional demands appeared to be more pronounced for MBOs than for any of the employee groups.@*CONCLUSIONS@#One in two Korean immigrants choose self-employment, most typically in family-owned microbusinesses that involve emotionally taxing dealings with clients and suppliers. However, the benefits of job satisfaction and security may protect MBOs from the adverse mental health effects of job stress.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: While occupational stress has long been a central focus of psychological research, few studies have investigated how immigrant microbusiness owners (MBOs) respond to their unusually demanding occupation, or how their unresolved occupational stress manifests in psychological distress. Based on the job demands-resources model, this study compared MBOs to employees with regard to the relationships among emotional demands, job resources, and depressive symptoms. METHODS: Data were derived from a cross-sectional survey of 1288 Korean immigrant workers (MBOs, professionals, office workers, and manual workers) aged 30 to 70, living in Toronto and surrounding areas. Face-to-face interviews were conducted between March 2013 and November 2013. RESULTS: Among the four occupational groups, MBOs appeared to endure the greatest level of emotional demands, while reporting relatively lower levels of job satisfaction and job security; but MBOs reported the greatest job autonomy. The effect of emotional demands on depressive symptoms was greater for MBOs than for professionals. However, an inspection of stress-resource interactions indicated that though MBOs enjoyed the greatest autonomy, the protective effects of job satisfaction and security on the psychological risk of emotional demands appeared to be more pronounced for MBOs than for any of the employee groups. CONCLUSIONS: One in two Korean immigrants choose self-employment, most typically in family-owned microbusinesses that involve emotionally taxing dealings with clients and suppliers. However, the benefits of job satisfaction and security may protect MBOs from the adverse mental health effects of job stress.
Subject(s)
Humans , Canada , Cross-Sectional Studies , Depression , Emigrants and Immigrants , Job Satisfaction , Mental Health , Occupational Groups , Occupations , TaxesABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to evaluate the social economic and geographic influences on Internet addiction in Korean youth using the Korean Youth Risk Behavior Web-Based Survey. Middle and high school students (n=73,238) were randomly selected from the respondents to a web-based survey using two-stage stratified complex sampling. A Geographical Information System was used to generate a Korean map of the level of Internet addiction for each province and complex sampling lower case logistic regression was used to investigate the relationship between social economic status (SES) and Internet addiction. Gyeonggi-do and Gyeongsang-namdo provinces have a higher total scores of Internet addiction. There were associations between Internet addiction and low SES (OR=1.504, 95% CI 1.156-1.956, p<0.01). There may need to be at multilevel approach which recognizes the different levels of need in provinces as well as trying to understand why the differences arise at an individual level.