Association between emotional labor and depressive symptom in Korean service workers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between emotional labor and depressive symptom in Korean service workers. A total of 5,000 service employers who were working at least 1 hour a day from a nationwide sample were analyzed. A 11-items of Korean Emotional Labor Scale (K-ELS@11) was used for the evaluation of the exposures to emotional labor. It consists of 4 sub-factors: ‘emotional regulation’ (2 items), ‘emotional dissonance’ (3 items)’, ‘organizational monitoring’ (2 items), and ‘organizational protective system for emotional labor’ (4 items). Depressive symptom for the past 1 year was measured using a dichotomous variable (‘Yes’ vs. ‘No’) through a self-reported questionnaire. The multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted after controlling for socio-demographic and job characteristics. The results show that four sub-factors of emotional labor were positively related to depressive symptom (emotional regulation, OR: 1.389, 95% CI: 1.209-1.596; emotional dissonance, OR: 2.481, 95%CI: 2.107-2.922; organizational monitoring, OR: 1.623, 95% CI: 1.416-1.861; organizational protective system for emotional labor, OR: 1.414, 95% CI: 1.230-1.625) after adjustment for sociodemographics(sex, age, education, monthly income, and marital status) and job characteristics(working duration, weekly working hours, type of employment, job types, and shift work). These results indicate that service workers’ emotional labor during performing their duties might contribute to develop depressive symptom.