Impact of Depressive Symptoms on the Work-life Quality of Financial Workers in China

Abstract

Depression cases have been reported among workers in the financial industries. Occupations in this industry are considered among the most stressful ones. This study aimed to examine the impact of depressive symptoms of financial workers in China on their productivity and well-being. A survey was conducted using a convenient sample of 1024 financial workers recruited from three large-scale financial organizations located in the north and south of China. The result of Hierarchical Regression Analyses shows that depressive symptoms of workers significantly impaired their work-life quality. Severity of depressive symptoms had significant positive relationships with three behavioral manifestations at works. These are, in order of decreasing effect size, turnover intention, presenteeism, and absenteeism. Specifically, depressive symptoms had a larger effect on presenteeism compared to absenteeism, which implies the unawareness or insufficient recognition of Chinese workers towards depression as an illness in comparison with other physical illnesses. Moreover, a Univariate Analysis was conducted to study the moderating effect of emotional labor on the relationship between the severity of depressive symptoms and presenteeism. An aggravating effect was found, displaying a greater damage of depressive symptoms to psychosocial functions of workers. Besides, depressive symptoms of workers also impaired their quality of life in aspects such as interpersonal relationships, life situation, and so on. This study provides evidence of impairments of depression in the workplace, urging the management to pay more attention to its employees' mental health no matter whether it is for the sake of the company's benefit or the employees' well-being.