Impact of job characteristics on psychological health of Chinese single working women

This study aims at investigating the impact of individual and contextual jo b characteristics of control, psychological and physical demand, and securi ty on psychological distress of 193 Chinese single working women in Hong Ko ng. The mediating role of job satisfaction in the job characteristics-distr ess relation is also assessed. Multiple regression analysis results show th at job satisfaction mediates the effects of job control and security in pre dicting psychological distress; whereas psychological job demand has an ind ependent effect on mental distress after considering the effect of job sati sfaction. This main effect model indicates that psychological distress is b est predicted by small company size, high psychological job demand, and low job satisfaction. Results from a separate regression analysis fails to sup port the overall combined effect of job demand-control on psychological dis tress. However, a significant physical job demand-control interaction effec t on mental distress is noted, which reduces slightly after controlling the effect of job satisfaction. (C) 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.