Work Stress, Coping Strategies and Resilience: A Study among Working Females

The aim of this review was to evaluate research relating to the effects of coping strategies and resilience on the level of workplace stress. Much of the research focused on working mothers and working females in general. It was found that working females experienced more work stress as compared to men. And currently in Malaysia, social policies that support working females, especially working mothers, has not been adopted fully by most corporations. Furthermore, the evidence for effective problem-focused and emotion-focused coping was inconsistent. It was concluded that correlation between work stressors and the adopted coping strategies may vary depending on the type of problems being dealt with and the interplay between the employee and the demand. Moreover, resilience literature revealed this concept as an enhancement of an individual’s adaptability and survival in the presence of occupational stressors and success in overcoming the stressors results in increased resilience to future hardships. This article identifies a number of research gaps for advancing work stress research, in particular: 1) limited work stress research on Malaysian working women and mothers, and; 2) limited literature on relating resilience to coping strategies and work stress.