Discrimination and its Effect on Sleep Quality

Work-to-family conflict (WFC) is described as the incompatible demands of one’s career and home life. This study sought to understand the impact of perceptions of race, gender and age discrimination on correctional employees’ experience of WFC and sleep quality. It is hypothesized that discrimination in the workplace contributes to poor sleep quality through the mediated effect of WFC. Diversification in the corrections workforce has increased discrimination against women, BIPOC and older adults. This has an impact on WFC and can be linked to negative health outcomes such as poor sleep quality. A cross-sectional survey, contextualized to the corrections workforce was administered to understand the stressors encountered by correctional employees in the workplace with questions pertaining to perceptions of discrimination, sleep quality, and WFC. Data analysis was conducted using the statistical software SPSS. Three mediation analyses were conducted to determine whether perceptions of race, age and gender discrimination are associated with decreased sleep quality, through the mediating role of WFC. Results showed that WFC fully mediates the association between perceptions of discrimination and sleep quality. Increased perceptions of discrimination by race, age and gender leads to WFC, and subsequently poorer sleep quality. By understanding perceived discrimination’s impact on sleep quality, steps can be taken to reduce the discrimination experienced by correction employees.