Psychosocial work environment among immigrant and Danish cleaners

Abstract

Non-Western cleaners have been shown to have poorer health than their Danish colleagues. One reason could be a poorer psychosocial work environment. However, it is unknown if differences in self-reported psychosocial work environment exist between non-Western and Danish workers within the same social class. The aim of this study was to investigate such differences among cleaners with the hypothesis that the non-Western compared with Danish cleaners would report a generally poorer psychosocial work environment. Two hundred and eighty-five cleaners (148 Danes and 137 non-Western immigrants) from 9 workplaces in Denmark participated in this cross-sectional study. The cleaners' immigrant status was tested for association with psychosocial work environment scales from the short version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) using ordinal logistic regression. Models adjusted for age, sex, BMI, smoking, workplace, and perceived physical work exertion showed that non-Western cleaners compared with Danish cleaners reported significantly higher scores with regard to Predictability (OR=3.97), Recognition (OR=1.92), Quality of Leadership (OR=1.81), Trust Regarding Management (OR=1.72), and Justice (OR=2.14). This study showed that non-Western immigrant cleaners reported a statistically significantly better psychosocial work environment than Danish cleaners on a number of scales. Therefore, the hypothesis of non-Western immigrants reporting worse psychosocial work environment than their Danish colleagues was not supported.