Gender minority stress and perceived organizational support.

Abstract

Fight for gender equality is still an ongoing global trend. Furthermore, in a workplace setting, people from different gender and sexual orientation are considered a part of the minority and are prone to discrimination and stigma that leads to stress. Stress is still then a prevailing problem not just for regular employees but more so for the members of the stigmatized minority. This study was conducted to determine the degree of minority stress experienced by lesbians, gays, bisexual women and bisexual men and its relation to perceived organizational support. The buffer theory of social support (1976) was used to contextualize the study as it posits that social support benefits individuals primarily during high times of stress. The inverse relation states that the higher the level of social support, the lower the level of stress. There were 139 respondents reached through a one-shot, nonprobability, and purposive sampling. The sample was composed of 41 gays, 35 lesbians, 33 bisexual women and 30 bisexual men. Kruskal-Wallis H test, Dunn's post hoc analysis, Shapiro-Wilk test, Spearman's Rho, Pearson's Correlation and Chi-square were the data analysis procedure. Findings of the data revealed that there was indeed a correlation between perceived organizational support and minority stress for the overall respondents. The result verifies the buffer theory of social support that states that social support benefits individuals primarily during high times of stress. People who have higher level of social support are less affected by stress. This is held true since data showed that bisexual men experience minority stress the most followed by bisexual women, gays and lesbians while bisexual men also receive the least perceived organizational support followed by bisexual women, gays and lesbians being the most supported. Indeed, there is an inverse relation to perceived organizational support and minority stress. However, when correlated by gender, data revealed that there was no relationship between perceived organizational support and minority stress for bisexual women. Furthermore, it was found that the dimensions of minority stress are distinct, mutually independent factors of minority stress. Moreover, result showed that only a couple of demographic variables are associated with perceived organizational support, and minority stress.