INFLUENCE OF SELF-EFFICACY AND WORKPLACE STRESS ON GENDERBASED DISCRIMINATION AMONG EMPLOYEES IN ADO EKITI, EKITI STATE

Gender-based discrimination remains a pervasive issue in workplaces worldwide, despite advancements in diversity and inclusion policies, further complicated by psychological factors such as self-efficacy an individual’s belief in their ability to succeed and workplace stress, which can exacerbate discriminatory behaviours, self-efficacy plays a significant role in how individuals perceive and respond to workplace discrimination, this indicates that women with higher self-efficacy are more likely to challenge gender biases, whereas those with lower selfefficacy may internalize discrimination, reinforcing stereotypes. The present study seeks to investigate the influence of self-efficacy and workplace stress on gender-based discrimination among employees in ministry of agriculture Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State. A cross sectional survey design was adopted in this study. A multi-stage sampling technique, which involves a combination of purposive and simple random techniques were used to select the participants. Their ages ranged from 24 to 60 years Mean=2.3765; SD=1.05919). Gender-Based Discrimination Scale, Self-Efficacy Scale and Workplace Stress Scale were used to gather relevant information from the participants. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested with Multiple Regression analysis. The results showed that self-efficacy significantly negatively predicted gender-based discrimination among employees (β= -.0.277, t= -5.32, p