A Study on the Job Stress in Association with Personal Attributes of University Employees in Nepal

The study attempts to examine the association of the perceived job stress with some demographic, economic and job attributes of the university employees in Nepal. The analysis of data collected from the sample of 44 employees of both teaching and administrative group reveals that teaching faculties were performing their job with comparatively greater level of job stress than the administrative counterparts were. Overall, the study reveals negligible presence of respondents in high and low level of perceived job stress group (i.e one in high and two in low stressed group), indicating heavy concentration of employees (41 persons) in moderate level of stress. It indicates that the university may be converted into the dangerous zone of job stress prone behaviors of employees unless it has been managed properly in right time. Although the perceived level of stress was found individually different, only gender and age specific attributes could establish significant association with the job stress. The other attributes had insignificant linkage with the stress. Among all, the greatest stress score of female (163.75) indicates that working females in Nepal are still facing the problem of job stress due to ambiguity and dual career role than males. In the group wise distribution of stress, the smallest stress score was observed among the lowest family income group (126.0) indicating the greater influence of non-economic factors over the economic factors to cause stress. In contrary, greater score of high level of income group (152.4) points the dissatisfaction on the present earnings as the cause of job stress. Comparatively, high score of stress among the contract and partial teachers (153. 75) specifies job insecurity was another major cause of stress in the university job. The study, thus suggests carrying out personal attributes specific programs and policies for reducing occupational stress of employees and making them committed towards the achievement of the mission of university education in Nepal.