Occupational justice is a cornerstone of professional practice and a fundamental aspect of human dignity. [2] highlight its centrality in occupational therapy, while [17] contends that occupational justice is inseparable from social justice, framing inclusion and fairness as moral imperatives.

[35] describe occupational justice as the right to participate in safe, meaningful, and equitable work. [16] emphasizes that structural inequities and contextual factors can constrain genuine occupational opportunities. [13] conceptualize occupational justice as ensuring equitable access for individuals to engage in purposeful occupations within social and organizational frameworks. Extending these perspectives, [5] argue that occupational justice must also consider plural legal systems, communal responsibilities, and African and Indigenous cosmologies, where relationality, community, and culturally embedded practices define fairness and opportunity. Similarly, [14] emphasizes the relevance of occupational science in addressing structural and community-level injustices in African contexts, highlighting the interplay of social, cultural, and economic factors. Collectively, these perspectives underscore the need for culturally responsive approaches to occupational justice that move beyond Western-centric frameworks to recognize diverse epistemologies, lived realities, and context-specific equity concerns.

Systemic inequities disproportionately affect marginalized populations. [1] link occupational marginalization to underemployment and income inequality among minorities and immigrants. Racial microaggressions, as subtle but harmful forms of discrimination, erode psychological well-being ([34]; [28]), with predictive links to suicide risk ([20]). [37] further demonstrate that systemic discrimination perpetuates poor health outcomes across race, ethnicity, and gender. [31] note that women face persistent disparities in workplace power dynamics across diverse sociocultural contexts.

Workplace alienation has been identified as a critical factor in employee distress. [15] discusses alienation as a structural issue tied to organizational design, while [30] examines the personal costs of meaningful work when relational values conflict. Evidence from occupational science further shows that occupationally focused interventions in forensic mental health settings can reduce deprivation and improve outcomes, highlighting parallels with workplace contexts. Harassment, as a form of occupational violation, directly breaches worker rights and accelerates risks of hopelessness and suicidal ideation.

In South Africa, [29] found that workplace harassment in higher education institutions significantly undermines staff performance and morale, revealing a strong link between toxic work climates and diminished productivity. Similarly, [3] documented high levels of workplace violence against nurses in Malawi’s southern region, illustrating how unsafe environments compound occupational stress and erode professional dignity. Complementing these findings, [8] demonstrated that functional reviews in Malawi’s health sector with intended to improve efficiency have instead exacerbated occupational stress and burnout among clinical officers, exposing the unintended harms of systemic restructuring on worker well-being.

Occupational science can therefore play a pivotal role in addressing structural and community-level occupational injustices, particularly within African contexts where social, cultural, and economic factors shape opportunities and access ([14]). The occupational justice framework provides a critical lens for analyzing disability and labor policies, emphasizing equity, inclusion, and culturally grounded participation ([7]).

Legal scholarship emphasizes organizational responsibility in protecting occupational health and safety. [9] notes that safety violations carry direct legal consequences, while [22] demonstrate that demographic shifts can exacerbate occupational exclusion and injustice. [11] highlights the role of social audits in promoting accountability, and [6] show that health and safety audits improve organizational culture and reduce accidents. In African contexts, [23] illustrates how labour law enforcement in Malawi, particularly regarding minimum wages, shapes occupational justice by either supporting or undermining equitable access to fair employment. [36] argue that disability policy in Malawi must move beyond Anglocentric models, advocating for strategies rooted in the country’s socio-cultural and economic realities. Taken together with reports of workplace violence and harassment ([3]; [29]), these studies underscore the urgent need for robust legal and policy interventions to protect workers, ensure fairness, and promote occupational well-being in African workplaces.

Occupational justice closely links to psychological health. [12] connect breaches of psychological contracts to stress and poor well-being, highlighting the importance of fair management practices. [32] demonstrate that national suicide prevention strategies can significantly reduce suicide rates. [18] show that anti-discrimination laws create safer and more inclusive workplaces, although enforcement remains challenging. Justice-oriented interventions through audits, legal protections, or prevention strategies are effective in mitigating distress, hopelessness, and suicidality. [24] trace the evolution of occupational justice, emphasizing its role in addressing social inequalities and considering the needs of individuals as occupational beings within their contexts.

The literature establishes occupational justice as a moral and professional imperative ([35]; [17]; [2]), shows that systemic discrimination erodes well-being ([34]; [28]; [37]), and demonstrates that alienation, deprivation, and violation create conditions of distress and suicidality ([15]; [30]; [20]). However, empirical evidence remains limited in African contexts, particularly Malawi, where racialized workplace hierarchies, weak regulatory enforcement, and increasing mental health burdens converge ([31]; [23]; [36]). This study fills the gap by applying an occupational justice lens to examine how workplace discrimination, fairness, comfort, and harassment predict distress, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation among employees in predominantly Asian-owned enterprises.

A mixed-methods cross-sectional design was employed to integrate quantitative and qualitative data for a comprehensive understanding of workplace discrimination and mental health among Malawian employees. The quantitative component examined statistical relationships between structural workplace factors and psychological outcomes, while the qualitative strand explored workers lived experiences, emotional responses, and coping strategies. This integration allowed the study to capture both the measurable patterns of occupational injustice and the nuanced human experiences underlying them. Participants were recruited through a combination of stratified random sampling and purposive selection to ensure both representativeness and depth of insight.

A total of 500 employees were approached, of whom 384 consented and completed questionnaires, yielding a response rate of 76.8 percent. After data screening, 380 fully completed questionnaires were included in the final analysis. Eligibility criteria required participants to be Malawian nationals, aged 18 years or older, and currently employed in Asian-owned enterprises within Lilongwe. The demographic profile indicated that the majority of respondents were aged between 26 and 35 years (44.6 percent), followed by 36 to 45 years (26.1 percent), 18 to 25 years (17.7 percent), and 46 years and above (10.7 percent). A minor overlap appeared in the 19 to 25 subgroup (0.8 percent), which likely reflected data entry inconsistencies. Regarding education, 59.9 percent of participants reported having no formal qualification, while 22.3 percent held a Junior Certificate of Education (JCE), 16.0 percent had a Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE), and 1.6 percent possessed a professional qualification. In terms of employment duration, 85.5 percent had worked for between one and five years in their current enterprises, 10.3 percent had worked for six to ten years, and 2.4 percent reported employment of eleven to fifteen years.

A stratified random sampling strategy was applied, with strata based on industry sector. The distribution reflected the composition of Asian-owned enterprises in Lilongwe, with 50 percent in retail and wholesale, 30 percent in construction, and 20 percent in manufacturing. Within each stratum, systematic random sampling was used to ensure representativeness. Population estimates of approximately 5000 employees were drawn from immigration and labor records, which suggested an average of four to ten Malawians employed per foreign-managed firm, though this likely underestimated the total workforce. For the qualitative component, which will be reported separately, purposive sampling was used to select 50 participants from the larger cohort of 384. This selection ensured diversity in gender, employment status, education, and reported experiences of microaggressions. Snowball sampling was further used to reach hard-to-access employees who were hesitant to participate due to the sensitivity of the topic. This multi-layered strategy balanced generalizability with depth and enhanced construct validity, consistent with recommendations by [10].

Workplace racial microaggressions were measured using a culturally adapted version of the Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale (REMS; [27]), modified for the Malawian context and the dynamics of Asian-owned workplaces. The adapted scale was pilot-tested with 30 local employees to ensure cultural and contextual relevance and demonstrated strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.85).

Mental health outcomes were assessed using three established instruments: depressive symptoms with the Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8; α = 0.80), anxiety symptoms with the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7; α = 0.82), and global psychological distress with the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10; α = 0.87). Hopelessness and suicidal ideation were evaluated through relevant items embedded within these validated measures.

Workplace comfort, perceived fairness, and harassment were assessed using structured items drawn from validated workplace well-being and equity frameworks, further adapted to Malawian labor conditions. Workplace comfort was measured using a three-item scale that captured employees’ sense of safety, inclusion, and psychological ease (e.g., “I feel comfortable expressing myself in thisworkplace”), rated on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Perceived fairness was measured using four items on distributive and procedural justice (e.g., “Promotions and rewards are distributed fairly in this workplace”), with higher scores indicating greater equity. Workplace harassment was captured using a five-item subscale adapted from the REMS and pilot-tested locally, encompassing verbal insults, intimidation, and exclusion (e.g., “I have experienced rude or offensive comments about my background at work”).

Internal consistency coefficients for these subscales ranged from α = 0.78 to 0.85, indicating satisfactory reliability. Together, these measures provided robust quantitative indicators of the structural and psychosocial dimensions central to this study’s occupational justice framework.

Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires available in both English and Chichewa, with fieldworkers assisting participants who had limited literacy. Ethical approval was granted by the Mzuzu University Research Ethics Committee (REF NO. MZUNIREC/DOR/24/176), and all participants provided written informed consent. Confidentiality and anonymity were maintained throughout the study, and participants were informed of their right to withdraw at any point. Referrals to St John of God Hospital, a local mental health specialist facility, were made via direct phone contact by trained enumerators, following participant consent obtained through a signed referral form. Data were securely stored without any collection of identifiable information. To minimize power imbalances, interviews were conducted in neutral settings by trained interviewers. The author declares no conflicts of interest and received no external funding. Additionally, the research team completed training on diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and data management protocols to uphold ethical standards.

Data were analyzed in three stages. Descriptive statistics were used to profile workplace conditions and psychological outcomes. Spearman’s rho correlations were then employed to examine associations between workplace factors and mental health indicators. Finally, binary logistic regression was conducted to identify predictors of suicidal ideation. Model fit was evaluated using chi-square statistics, the −2 Log Likelihood, and the Cox and Snell and Nagelkerke R² values.

Hopelessness, conceptually a psychological outcome of adverse workplace conditions, was included as an independent predictor of suicidal ideation in the regression model based on established theoretical and empirical evidence. The inclusion aligns with Beck’s Hopelessness Theory ([4]), which positions hopelessness as a proximal cognitive risk factor for suicide, mediating the effects of stressors such as discrimination and harassment. In this study’s occupational justice framework, hopelessness functions both as an outcome of structural injustice and as a psychological mechanism that amplifies suicidal vulnerability. Similar methodological precedents exist in mental health and occupational research where variables with dual roles, such as stress or burnout, are modeled as predictors of more severe outcomes ([20]; [37]). This dual inclusion strengthens the explanatory power of the model and reflects the complex, layered pathways linking workplace injustice to suicide risk.

Descriptive analyses profiled the structural workplace conditions reported by participants. As shown in Table 1, race-based discrimination was the most frequently reported form (14.2%), followed by religion-based discrimination (8.5%) and disability-based discrimination (4.5%). Regarding workplace comfort, 39.3% of employees described themselves as very uncomfortable in their current work environments. In terms of fairness, 79.9% of participants disagreed or strongly disagreed that their workplace was fair. Additionally, 26.1% of respondents reported experiencing harassment in the workplace.

Table 1. Workplace conditions reported by participants (N = 380).

Table 2 presents correlations between structural workplace factors and psychological outcomes. All associations were significant at p < 0.01.

Table 2. Workplace factors and psychological outcomes (N = 380).

All correlations are significant at p < 0.01 (two-tailed). Negative signs indicate inverse associations. Higher scores reflect greater discrimination, lower comfort, lower fairness, more harassment, and worse psychological outcomes.

Harassment and hopelessness were the strongest predictors of suicidal ideation. Low comfort and discrimination type also significantly increased the risk.

As shown in Table 3, the logistic regression analysis identified harassment and hopelessness as the most influential predictors of suicidal ideation, with low workplace comfort and discrimination type also significantly elevating the risk. The model was statistically significant, χ²(7) = 56.38, p < 0.001, demonstrating that the combined predictors significantly improved the model’s fit compared to the null model. The −2 Log Likelihood was 344.94, and the model accounted for 16.2% (Cox & Snell R²) to 22.6% (Nagelkerke R²) of the variance in suicidal ideation.

Table 3. Predicting suicidal ideation (N = 380).

Note: OR = Odds Ratio; CI = Confidence Interval. Model χ²(6) = 64.32, p < 0.001. Nagelkerke R² = 0.24.

The qualitative strand illuminates the subjective experiences behind the quantitative patterns of injustice, distress, and hopelessness

Themes and Illustrative Narratives

Subtle Racism and Power Asymmetry

Workers described daily encounters with jokes, comments, or assignments reflecting ethnic hierarchy.

“They call us names in their language—sometimes laugh—but we know it’s about us.”

Economic Dependence and Silence

Fear of job loss compelled most to tolerate discrimination.

“Even if I am insulted, I cannot talk. My family depends on this job.”

Coping Through Faith and Peer Solidarity

Many relied on spiritual resilience and informal coworker support.

“Prayer keeps me calm when I am humiliated.”

Erosion of Hope and Identity

Continuous microaggressions led to internalized hopelessness and self-blame.

“I used to think I can work hard and change things, but now I just survive.”

Interpretation: The narratives humanize the statistical findings, revealing how workplace harassment and discrimination transform from structural injustice into lived psychological trauma. They illustrate the pathway from occupational violation → alienation → hopelessness → suicidal ideation.

Occupational marginalization arises where discrimination reflects systemic exclusion based on race, ethnicity, or social identity. This aligns with global evidence that identifies race-based occupational barriers as enduring determinants of inequity and health disparities ([37]).

Occupational alienation appears in employees’ low comfort levels, reflecting detachment from psychologically safe and supportive environments. This alienation deprives individuals of opportunities for fulfillment and belonging at work, leading to increased emotional exhaustion.

Occupational deprivation manifests as perceived unfairness, limiting access to opportunities, recognition, and equitable participation. This deprivation fosters feelings of futility and erodes morale, resulting in chronic distress.

Occupational violation appears most clearly in workplace harassment, representing a direct breach of dignity and occupational rights, and stands as the strongest structural predictor of suicidal ideation in this study.

Collectively, these injustices support [17] argument that occupational justice and social justice are inseparable, with exclusionary practices constituting moral violations of human dignity and inclusion. Likewise, [37] demonstrate that systemic discrimination underpins poor health outcomes, a pattern reflected here where unfairness and marginalization increase vulnerability to hopelessness and distress. Framed within [35] model, the study affirms that marginalization, deprivation, alienation, and violation are not abstract constructs but lived realities that elevate suicide risk in contexts characterized by racialized power hierarchies and economic dependence.

Conceptual Framework (Narrative Form)

The proposed integrated model merges:

Occupational Justice Theory ([35]): framing workplace equity as a human right.Minority Stress Theory ([25]): identifying chronic microaggressions as stressors.Beck’s Hopelessness Theory ([4]): positioning hopelessness as the cognitive mediator leading to suicidal ideation.

Integrated Pathway:

Racial microaggressions → Occupational injustice (violation, alienation, deprivation) → Distress → Hopelessness → Suicidal ideation.

This framework situates workplace microaggressions not only as interpersonal offenses but also as structural determinants of suicide risk, extending the discourse beyond Western contexts.

Figure 1. Conceptual diagram: pathways from occupational injustice to suicidal ideation in Malawian workplaces.

Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual pathway showing how structural workplace factors (discrimination, unfairness, harassment, and low comfort) create occupational injustices—manifesting as violation, alienation, and deprivation—which trigger distress and hopelessness leading to suicidal ideation.

In Malawi, the associations observed between discrimination, discomfort, perceived unfairness, harassment, and suicidal ideation align with findings from South Africa and other Sub-Saharan countries. For example, a study among Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college employees in Gauteng reported that workplace harassment significantly predicted depression, anxiety, and distress ([26]). Similarly, in the South African public service, workplace social support has been shown to alleviate psychological strain even when organizational justice is compromised ([33]). These regional parallels reinforce the universality of the link between microaggressions, organizational injustice, and mental health impairment.

Comparatively, Malawi presents sharper institutional and structural constraints. The labor inspectorate remains severely understaffed; as of 2012, only 45 percent of established labor inspector positions were filled, producing a ratio of approximately one inspector per 88,967 workers far exceeding the International Labor Organization’s benchmark for developing countries ([19]). The enforcement deficit magnifies the psychological effects of workplace injustices, as workers have limited avenues for redress or protection.

Access to mental health services in Malawi remains limited. Less than 0.3 percent of health facilities offer mental health care, and those that exist are concentrated in tertiary hospitals ([21]). These systemic limitations leave many districts without the capacity to respond effectively to workplace-related psychological distress. Consequently, workers exposed to discrimination and harassment often lack accessible institutional support, allowing occupational injustice to translate more readily into psychological distress, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation.

An illustrative quote from one of the qualitative interviews captures how these constraints deepen distress:

“When I complained about how my manager always makes jokes about my background,I felt powerless—there is nowhere I can report, and I fear losing my job.So I just stay quiet, but inside I feel hopeless.”

This statement encapsulates how, unlike Western or Asian contexts where formal reporting or legal remedies may exist, Malawian workers often perceive no feasible recourse. Thus, while the psychological pathways linking microaggressions to distress and suicidal ideation appear universal, the intensity of their impact in Malawi remains magnified by minimal enforcement, weak legal protections, and almost non-existent mental health service coverage. Interventions effective elsewhere such as employee assistance programmes and robust grievance systems require substantial contextual adaptation to achieve feasibility and sustainability within the Malawian labour landscape.

The model operationalizes occupational justice into four scalable levels of reform, connecting individual recovery with systemic change. As shown in Table 4, the Occupational Justice and Equity Intervention Model (OJEIM) outlines multi-level strategies for addressing workplace injustice and its psychological consequences, including individual, organizational, policy, and community-level interventions.

Table 4. The Occupational Justice and Equity Intervention Model (OJEIM).