Occupational and economic acculturative stress, job-related outcomes, and personal resources among low-wage earning Latinos

Demographic shifts in the United States are changing the face of the American workforce. While Latinos now account for 35.9% of the California population, their income lags behind that of other ethnic groups. A number of occupational and economic acculturative stressors have been identified for Latinos living in the Southwest that have been shown to be related to various psychopathologies. An interesting paradox has emerged, showing that Latino immigrants present approximately half the prevalence rate of psychopathologies as do native-born Latinos. Reasons for the nativity paradox are unclear. There currently is a paucity of research examining Latinos in the workforce and the role of stress on occupational outcomes. This research addressed this dearth in the literature, and brought an examination of the paradoxical findings of previous research with Latino groups to a work related context. This research examined the relationships of occupational and economic acculturative stress with burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions in 114 immigrant and 14 native-born Latinos working in low-wage positions for a Southern California restaurant chain. Recent research supports a positive psychological approach to understanding stress and coping. A proactive coping style is part of this trend, and has been shown to have a negative effect on occupational burnout. Optimism and social support are also a part of a positive psychology approach and have been shown to buffer against the deleterious effects of stress-related burnout. Path analyses found burnout exerted significant indirect effects in the relationships between occupational and economic acculturative stress, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Proactive coping and social support produced significant main effects on burnout, but failed to moderate the relationship between stress and burnout. Low sample size for the native-born Latino group reduced statistical power for between-group comparisons. Immigrants reported experiencing significantly less effective social support than did the native-born group. Results suggest that increased levels of occupational and economic acculturative stress may influence burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions in Latino workers. Individuals with greater personal resources were more resilient to burnout.