Psychosocial work environment among immigrant and Danish cleaners

Abstract

Introduction: 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.

Methods: 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.

Results: 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).

Conclusions: 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.