Gender Differences on Mental Health, Work-Family Conflicts and Alcohol Use in Response to Abusive Supervision

Abstract

This study aimed to examine gender effects on the relations between abusive supervision and mental health issues, workfamily conflicts, as well as the risk of alcohol use. A subset of the SALVEO data (N = 2,058) was used in this paper to conduct multilevel regression analysis, controlling for both work and non-work related determinants. Results showed that abusive supervision was positively related to psychological distress and work-family conflicts, but not the risk of alcohol use. There were no gender differences found in our study, except for psychological distress. Comparing to men, abusive supervision had a stronger negative effect on women’s psychological distress. Both work and non-work determinants had significant contributions to mental health issues, work-family conflicts, as well as the risk of alcohol abuse. This study illustrated the importance of using multilevel approach to examine the negative impact of abusive supervision.