A Sociological Study of the Joint Effect of Work Alienation and Job Satisfaction on Workers Depression in Industrial and Service Sectors of the City of Tehran

Abstract

The general goal of this article is twofold, First, based on theoretical and empirical foundation of psychiatric disorders this study investigates the association between depression disorder and several variables which are assumed to be more prevalent determinant and predictor of depression disorder in a sample of workers in the city of Tehran. In doing so, we developed six hypotheses related to the association between depression disorder and job satisfaction, work alienation, type of work place, gender and age. Second, we employed the path analysis to depict the networks of causal relationships among several variables (job satisfaction, work alienation, work commitment, education, religiosity, age, and social capital) as independent variables through which they cause dependent variable (depression disorder). A survey research was performed on data obtained from a total of 234 workers through a disproportionately stratified sampling. The sample was recruited from 52303 employees of industrial and service sectors in the city of Tehran. Questionnaire and structured interview schedule were used as the principal techniques of data collection. The analyses are computed using SPSS version 16.0 software. The Multiple regression and path analysis are utilized to establish causal relations between and among the proposed variables. The empirical results regarding hypotheses testing show that: job satisfaction inversely related to depression disorder; work alienation is directly associated with depression disorder; the correlation between job satisfaction and work alienation is significant; and depression disorder of respondents vary by age. Based on the statistical results of path analysis, it could be concluded that depression disorder are more prevalent among workers who are not satisfied with his/her job, are alienated from his/ her work, have lower education, have lower social capital, are less committed to his work, do not participate in religious rituals and are either young or old.