A Comparative Study of Mental Health among Private and Public Sector Employees

Employee mental health has a great bearing on employee's organizational performance. It is imperative for organizations to ensure good mental health and high morale among its employees. Among all other things one aspect of work that can influence one's mental well-being is the type of ownership-public or private. Research has shown that there are some major differences in the work environment of private and public sector which, in turn, affect their respective employees differently. It would be interesting to find out how this difference contribute to mental well-being or mental distress among its employees. The present study intends to explore the difference in mental health between private and public sector employees in Indian organizations. A sample of 400 employee, 200 each from private and public sector is drawn using quota sampling method. The 2x2x2 factorial design is used where two levels of sector (private & public) interact with two levels of gender(male & female) and two levels of grade(executive & non-executive). Data is collected using employee mental health questionnaire. The results using ANOVA show that there is no significant difference in mental health between private and public sector employees. The difference between male and female is significant and so is the difference between executives and non - executives. The interaction between grade and gender is significant. Similarly the interaction between sector, gender and grade is significant. Gender and grade seem to influence employee mental health to a greater extent than sector.