On Role of Emotional Labor, Gender, And Age Employee Affective Wellbeing

ABSTRACT

The study used a cross-sectional design to investigate the role of emotional labour, gender, and age on employee job-related affective wellbeing. A total of two hundred bankers from nineteen different banks in Nsukka and Enugu cities participated in the study. They comprised unequal sample of 136 males and 64 females aged from 20-39 years (young adult workers), with a mean age of 29.5 years; and 40-65 years (old adult workers), with a means age of 52.5 years. The emotional labour subscales of surface acting and deep acting (Brotheridge & Lee, 1998), and job-related affective wellbeing scale (Van Katwyk, Fox, Spector & Kelloway, 2000) were used in the study. Of four hypotheses tested; two were rejected while other two were supported. The result showed that surface acting (B = - 2.00, p< .001) and age (old adult workers) (B= -8.10,p0.05) and gender (B= -.54, p>0.05) were low and insignificantly related to employee affective wellbeing. Organizational implications were explored and the limitations of the finding highlighted for further studies.