Assessment of Occupational Stress among Expatriate Employees Working In Kuwait: A Comparative Study of Public and Private Sectors

Abstract

Occupation is one of the major stressors in an individual’s life, which demands adequate coping. It is also understood that the level of job satisfaction and mental health status are affected for various reasons like work load, work shifts, deadlines, longer working periods, job insecurity, commuting to work, hostile working environment and job description and challenges faced in work place. The present study investigated the occupational stress among expatriate employees working in Kuwait both public and private sectors. Sample comprised of 200 expatriate employees working in Kuwait (100 public and 100 private sectors). Expatriate employees were provided with occupational stress index scale (Srivastava & Singh, 1984), to measure occupational stress among expatriate employees. Two-way ANOVA was employed to find out the influence of public and private sector jobs on occupational stress among expatriate employees working in Kuwait. Occupational stress total score shows that expatriate employees working in private sector experienced more stress than expatriate employees who are working in public sector in Kuwait. Expatriate employees working in private sector experienced more stress in role overload, role ambiguity, role conflict, unreasonable group and political pressures, unprofitability and strenuous working conditions, whereas, expatriate employees working in public sectors experienced more stress in poor peer relations and intrinsic impoverishment. Expatriate employees who are working in both technical and non-technical field were found have similar levels of total occupational stress. But in unreasonable group political pressure factor, technical field expatriate employees were found to have more stress, whereas in intrinsic impoverishment factor, non-technical field expatriate employees were found to have more stress. In interaction between groups and educational qualification, in sub scales poor peer relations and low status expatriate employees who are working in public sector non-technical field have more stress, whereas expatriate employees working in private sector technical field have more stress. But in unprofitability factor, expatriate employees who are working in public sector non-technical field have more stress, whereas expatriate employees working in private sector technical field have more stress.