Stress And Depression Experienced By Women Software Professionals In Bangalore, Karnataka Abstract : Our study explores the influences of age and experience on stress and depression and the relationship between stress and depression among the women information technology (IT) professionals in Bangalore, Karnataka. The present study aimed at i) To find out the level of stress and depression experienced by women IT professionals ii) To understand the impact of age and experience on stress and Depression iii) to study the relationship between Stress and depression. iv) to know the factors causing of stress in software companies. The study was conducted in Bangalore , Karnataka with a sample of 250 women software professionals. The sample selection was done by convenience sampling method. The data was analyzed using descriptive one way analysis of variance and Pearson's correlation test . Results showed that the women software professionals experienced moderate level of stress and stress dimension. This study reveals that 85 percent of the respondents experience medium level of depression and also suggested the age and experience significantly influence the over all stress and depression experienced by the employees. Our study shows that there might be a strong relationship between over all stress and depression. Keywords : Age , Experience stress , depression , women software professionals I. # INTRODUCTIONS oday in modern economy stress is the latest killer. Stress is defined as an adaptive response to an external situation that results in physical, psychological and or behavioral deviations for organizational participants stress can manifest itself in both positive and negative ways stress is said to be positive when the situation offers an opportunity for one to gain something. Depression is a type of mental disorder that affects a anxiety , anger and depression. Parsons investigated the impact of group counseling and stress management on reported depression , anxiety , attitude towards Divorce , school functioning and behavioral in children's , aged 8 to 11 years. Female are divorce support group (DSG) and male in Stress management group (SMG) reported significantly past changes in school functioning compared to others. The majority of findings suggested that , compared to depressive and control individual , suicidal About : Asst.Professor/MBA Paavai Engineering College, Namakkal -637018.Ph:09865066433 E-mail Id: lionmohan26@yahoo.co.in individualsreported more stressful life events , which includes marital discord conflict with in laws or family problem , problems in love, illness , Death in family , and unemployment. In Karnataka software companies either stress or depression causes rathet than the effect of several physical, mental and emotional problems. When such situations prevails in the software companies , a woman and software professionals has to face all these situations problems in additional to that she often to take care of kith and kin, elders and other responsibilities in the family. Maintaining the work and life becomes a tough task. Based on these factors the current studies was designed. It is negative when stress is associated with heart disease, alcoholism, drug abuse, and marital breakdown, physical organizational and emotional problems. Stress is associated with constraints and demands can lead to potential stress. Stress is high when there is an uncertainty of outcome and hence outcome is generated significant streets are from individual, group and organizational sources. In a Software companies a causes of stress are task demands, role demands, interpersonal demands, organizational structure, organizational leadership and the organizations life cycle. Task demands are factors related to a person's job. This includes the design of the individual's job working conditions and the physical work layout. The more independence between a person's tasks and the tasks of other the more potential streets there is jobs where temperature, noise or other working conditions are dangerous or undesirable can increase anxiety. Role demands includes role conflict, role ambiguity, role conflict occurs when an women professionals receives competing and conflicting expectations from others. Role ambiguity results from having unclear expectations. All these role demands are stressors. Interpersonal demands are pressures created by other employees lack of social support from colleagues and poor interrelationalship can cause considerable stress, especially among women software professionals with high social needs. Life and career changes can also be stress and depression producing life changes may be slow or sudden. These changes have dramatic effect on people sudden changes are highly depression and stressful; career changes may also be stressful. # REVIEW OF LITERATURE Beehr and Newman (1978) define occupational stress as " A condition arising from the interaction of people and their jobs and characterized by changes with in people that force them to deviate from their normal functioning. According to French and caplan (1975) " pressure of both qualitative and quantitative overload can result in the need to work excessive hours , which is an additional source of stress ". Having to work under time pressure in order to meet deadlines is an independent sources of stress. Studies shown that stress levels increase as difficult deadlines draw near. Stress is often developed when an individual is assigned a major responsibility without proper authority and delegation of power . inter personal factors such as group cohesiveness , functional dependence , communication frequency , relative authority and organizational difference between role sender and focal persons are important topics in organizational behavior. Stress and depression found that , it is related to exhaustion and work load factors in various organization. Stress on the job is costly for employers , reflected in lower productivity , reduced motivation and job skills , and increased and accidents. The present studies is an attempt to investigate and to compare the level of stress experienced by the women software professions in Bangalore of Karnataka. The study aims to ascertain the level of stress and coping strategies adopted by the software companies . # III. # METHODOLOGY a) Research design The study explores the organizational role of stress and depression among the women employees in the software company based on various factors. The study uses the research design. A survey was conducted among the women software companies with the help of questionnaire. # b) Sampling Techniques The sampling population of this research includes 250 women employees of software companies in Bangalore . In this , the authors adopted a convenience sampling techniques for selecting the sample. Researcher generally uses convenience samples to obtain the large number of completed questionnaire quickly. There will be no bias in the responses in using the convenience sampling since the respondents mutually participated in this survey. # c) Sample Area The study was conducted in Bangalore, Karnataka. Bangalore has the large number of software companies in south India. The software industry has extended their business in all areas namely software testing, development programming import and export and maintance of project. # d) Data collection The primary data (respondents' opinion about stress and depression) were collected through questionnaire. Secondary data was collected through magazines, journals and other publishes sources. . e) Objectives 1. To analyze the level of occupational stress and depression experienced by women software professionals. 2. To identify the causes of stress and depressions among the women software professionals. f) Hypothesis 1. Stress and Depression will be higher among the women software professionals compared to other women professionals. IV. # TOOLS FOR COLLECTION A multi dimensional analysis of job stress and coping patterns of women employees is the primary focus of this research. A methodology adopted for this research is given. The variable selected for this study is Role conflict, Role overloaded, role ambiguity, lack of group cohesiveness, lack of superior support, job difficulty, constraints of changes rules and regulations and job requirement capability mismatch The collected data have been analyzed by using the following tools. Expected (E) (O-E) 2 (O-E) 2 / E(Oi -Ei) Chi-Square = ---------------- Ei Oi = Observed Frequency Ei = Expected Frequency X2 Calculation = 10.68 X2 5% is 5.34 Inference: X2 Calculation > X2 Since there is no significant relationship between the uncomfortable work and women pressure .So rejects the H0 Null Hypothesis. ------------------------- ------------------- --------------- ----------------- -------------394.28 r = 0.89 - ??(x)2 * ??(y)2 224 = - Inference : The value of r = 0.89 shows that the two series x and y positive correlation. It may be noted that this stage that the correlation between -1 and +1.It can never exceed +1 or -1 if small r is "0' it is clear that there is no relation between two series. V. # FINDINGS 1. The over all stress level and depression experienced by women employees based on their experience. Analysis of over all stress level finds that over all stress is high among the women employees with more than Five years and low among the employees less than three years. 2. There is a significant difference in the level of stress and depression compared to other women professionals. 3. Among the difference occupational stress variables role overload , role authority, role conflict and lack of senior level support contribute to the occupational stress among software professionals to other professionals. 4. 87% of the employees Disagree about the policies and strategies, 27% of the employees are strongly agree and 13% of the employees Strongly Disagree. 5. The researcher refers that 72% of the employees do not consider the stress will happen due to organizational changes and 28 % of the employees consider the stress. # VII. # RECOMMENDATIONS In software companies the negative consequences of stress more effort on the part of the policy makers, practitioners , and organizational management envisaged. The researcher there by making few efforts to suggest some effective measures , that can alleviate stress of women software professionals and lead to the better adjustment with in the organization. They can be explained as fallows. # CONCLUSION We conclude that women IT professionals experience considerable level of stress and depression in Bangalore, Karnataka. Managers must take essentials measure to help them to over come these health related problems. This would help not only the women employees but also the managers to improve the productivity ratio. The management should provide various types of training and development facilities to the women employees in order to reduce the stress in organization The management must give more refreshment and motivational program which will reduce the women employees stress. # IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY ![May ? N.Mohan , Dr.J.Ashok ? About ? : Associate Professor/MBA Bannari amman institute of Technology, Sathyamangalam, Tamilnadu. E-mail Id : ashokmgmt@gmail.com the ? II.](image-2.png "") VIII. Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XI Issue VI Version I ©2011 Global Journals Inc. (US) MayStress And Depression Experienced By Women Software Professionals In Bangalore, Karnataka ©2011 Global Journals Inc. (US) ©2011 Global Journals Inc. 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