Stress, Gender and Coping: Empirical Evidences from Retired Teachers

Abstract

This study mainly looks into the relationship between stress and coping among retired teachers. This research has identified five types of stress, namely family related, work related, social, financial and general through exploratory interviews and literature review. A questionnaire has been developed subsequently to measure different types of stress and administered to 50 respondents, 25 males and 25 females. It has been found that general stress is the highest among all and social stress is the lowest with family, financial and work-related stress in the middle in the descending order. Family stress and general stress levels observed among males were higher compared with females, whereas other types of stress did not differ across the gender significantly. Pair-wise comparisons indicated that different types of stress varied significantly among themselves in intensity except work and financial stress. There was no significant difference in coping levels across gender types. It has also been found that higher levels of general stress lead to higher levels of coping strategies. Other types of stress were not found to predict levels of coping. The findings are of implications to stress management and counselling.