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A comparative study of Mental health of Working Women and house wives.

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Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing © 2014 Indian Association of Health,
2014, 5(11), 1398-1400 Research and Welfare
http://www.iahrw.com/index.php/home/journal_detail/19#list ISSN-p-2229-5356,e-2321-3698

A comparative study of mental health of

working women and housewives
Muntazir Maqbool, Neharshi Shrivastava and Manju Pandey
Department of Psychology, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University), Srinagar Garhwal, Uttarakhand

The main purpose of present study was to find out the mental health of working women and housewives. The sample
consists of 100 women (50 working women and 50 housewives) randomly selected from Baramulla district of J&K
state. The research tool used to assess Mental Health of working women and housewives was Mental Health
Questionnaire (M.H.Q) developed and standardized by Dr. Kamlesh Sharma. Here 't' test was applied for statistical
analysis of data to check the significance of difference in mental health of working women and housewives.
Difference in mental health level of working women and housewives was significant at 0.05 level so null hypothesis
was accepted and result shows that the housewives has better Mental Health in comparison to working women.

Keywords: mental health, working women, housewives

In free India, women have been entering salaried, remunerative, woman who comes out of her home to take up a gainful
occupations and professions in increasing number. The numerical employment”. The women of all the three strata can be included in
growth of women taking up employment in various capacities can be this. In traditional Indian society, it was under gross economic
witnessed in a busy area of any of the large cities in India. Women necessity and under adverse circumstances but today society's
from the lower strata of society have always worked for wages in this attitude towards married women has considerably changed and they
country. Those upper class and middle class were mostly confined to are entering into remunerative vocations.
their homes. In independent India they have started coming out of “A Housewife”, means a woman who is not engaged in any type
their seclusion and are entering the vocation that were largely the of remunerative or honorary job. The married women's best place
preserves of men. But even then in the recruitment process women was thought to be her home. She was supposed to do the household
are given fewer opportunities than men. If both the man and women work and take care of her husband and children.
have an equal qualification preference is given to the men than Mental health is an integral and essential component of health.
women. There is an inbuilt conviction that women are capable of less The WHO constitution states: "Health is a state of complete
work than men experience. These problems tend to make women less physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of
eager to progress in their careers. Indeed many of them choose less disease or infirmity." An important consequence of this definition is
demanding jobs for which they may even be over- qualified. A that mental health is described as more than the absence of mental
woman's work is not merely confined to paid employment. She has to disorders or disabilities.
almost shoulder the burden of household chores as well. A woman
Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual
could still bear up with these problems if she had control over the
realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of
money she earns. But in most families even now her salary is handed
life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his
over to father, husband or in laws. So the basic motive for seeking
or her community. In this positive sense, mental health is the
employment of getting independence is nullified in many women's
foundation for individual well-being and the effective functioning of
case. Problems of gender bias beset women in the industrial sector.
a community.
Technological advancement results in retrenchment of women
Mental health can be defined as the ability to make adequate
employees. No one thinks of upgrading their skills. Maternity leave
social and emotional adjustments to the environment, on the plane of
is seldom given. It is much easier to terminate the woman's
reality. In other words it is the ability to face and accept the realities
employment and hire someone else. Most of the problems that beset
of life (Bhatia, 1982).
working women are in reality rooted in the social perspective of the
house keepers, child bearers and readers. This typecast role model Multiple social, psychological, and biological factors determine
continues to put obstacles before the working women. A fundamental the level of mental health of a person at any point of time. For
change is required in the attitudes of the employers, policy makers, example, persistent socio-economic pressures are recognized risks
family members and other (Khodidas, 2013) . to mental health for individuals and communities. The clearest
evidence is associated with indicators of poverty, including low
Among the group of women, there is diversity of values. Working
levels of education.
women has different values than non-working and other adult
women. In modern society, the social and community environment is Poor mental health is also associated with rapid social change,
full of social and moral pollution. Hence there are many problems of stressful work conditions, gender discrimination, social exclusion,
working women in different fields.“A working women”, means a unhealthy lifestyle, risks of violence and physical ill-health and
human rights violations.
Correspondence should be sent to Muntazir Maqbool In a book entitled mental hygiene in public health Lewkan has
Department of Psychology, HNB Garhwal University (A Central written that mentally healthy individual is one who is himself
University), Srinagar Garhwal, Uttarakhand satisfied, lives peacefully with his neighbors, makes healthy citizens
 Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing 2014, 5(11), 1398-1400 1399

of his children and even after performing these fundamentals duties wives. The age of the subjects ranges from 25 to 40 years with the
has enough energy left to do something of benefit to society. mean age of 34.3 for working and 28.5 for non working women.
Possessing mental health, an individual can adjust properly to his Permission was taken from principals of schools and colleges and
environment, and can make the best effort for his own, his family's also from heads of the families for data collection. The purposive or
and his society's progress and betterment. The chief characteristic of judgmental sampling method was used.
mental health is adjustment. The greater the degree of successful
adjustment the greater will be the mental health of the individual.
Instrument
Lesser mental health will lead to less adjustment and greater conflict. The Mental Health Scale (MHQ) constructed and standardized by
There are also specific psychological and personality factors that Dr. Kamlesh Sharma, Dr. B.R.A. Research institute Indore was used
make people vulnerable to mental disorders. Lastly, there are some to assess the Mental health level of subjects. The test comprises of
biological causes of mental disorders including genetic factors and 60 items and is framed in the form of positive and negative
imbalances in chemicals in the brain. statements.
Singh (2006) conducted descriptive survey method on There are 60 statements in the scale. Every statement has three
'Assessment of Mental health' status of middle aged female school alternative responses-“yes”, “Indefinite”, and “No”. the subject has
teacher of Varanasi city'. A random sample of 50 middle aged female to choose only one alternative response. The scheme of scoring it is
school teachers working in government girl's school. The researcher as on positive statements 2 marks for “yes”, 1 marks for “indefinite”,
concluded that the mental health scores highlight that working and 0 marks for “no”, and for negative statements adopt just reverse
women are trapped in a situation where they are getting difficulty in marking 2 marks for “no”, 1 marks for “indefinite”, and 0 marks for
coping. “yes”.
Dudra and Jogsan (2012) found that the basic area of mental health Statements
reveals significant difference of working and non-working woman
Positive 1 2 6 10 11 14 15 17 19 21
(House wives). The non-working woman received higher mean score
23 26 28 29 30 32 35 38 39 42
73.92 as compared to the working woman 68.80. There has mean
43 44 46 48 50 53 55 58 59 60 =30
difference is 5.12 and the standard deviation score of working woman
Negative 3 4 5 7 8 9 12 13 16 18
received 9.26 and the non-working woman received 10.72. So we can
20 22 24 25 27 31 33 34 36 37
say that non-working woman have a good mental health than the
40 41 45 47 49 51 52 54 56 57=30
working woman. The t value of mental health is 2.36. It is clearly
revealed from the calculated data that there is a significant difference of Procedure
mental health on working and non-working woman. In simple terms it
was concluded that mental health of working woman is lesser than non- All 100 subjects were given the printed copy of the scale that was
working woman. enlarged in size so that subjects can read it comfortably. The
instructions were read aloud by the investigator and the subjects
Khodidas (2013) found the significant difference in the mental
were told to read it again by themselves. Data was collected on
health level among working women and house wives. mean score of
employed and unemployed educated women and the subjects were
mental health for 40 working women was 68.25 & SD was 9.25
encouraged throughout the all the session. In the end subjects were
similarly mental health mean for 40 house wives was 70.50 & SD
thanked for their cooperation after the completion of the test. The
was 10.50 and difference between their t value was 2.35 and was
answer sheets were scrutinized and the data obtained were systema-
significant at 0.05 level. Therefore the results reveal that mental
tically scored using standard and appropriate scoring methods for
health is better for housewives than for working women.
the scale and later subjected to statistical analysis. The interpretation
Problem of raw scores was done on classification of Mental Health which was
“A comparative study of mental health of working women and house categorized as Very good, Good, Moderate, Poor and Very poor.
wives”. Table 1: Showing the Raw score classification of Mental Health of
Working and Non- working women.
Objectives of the study
● To assess the mental health of working women. Classification of Mental Health Working women Non-Working women

● To assess the mental health of house wives. Very Good 6 12

● To compare the Mental health of working and house wives. Good 11 26
Moderate 28 10
Hypothesis of the study Poor 5 2
● There would be a no significant difference in the mental health Very Poor 6 0
level of working women and housewives. Table 2: Showing the Mean, Standard deviation and t test of Working
and non-working women.
Method
Employment status t df
Participants
Working (N = 50) Non-Working (N = 50)
The study was conducted on a sample of 100 educated women of
Baramulla district of J&K out of which 50 were working in the Mental 63.54 71.94 4.14* 98
education department as lecturers and teachers who were termed as health (9.54) (10.69)
working women and 50 were housewives who were termed as house * = p < .05, ** = p < .01. Standard Deviations appear in parentheses below means.
1400 MAQBOOL ET AL./ A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MENTAL HEALTH

Graph representing the Mean and Standard deviation of working 4.14347 which was greater than the tabulated value of 2.62 & 1.99 at
women and housewives. 0.01 & 0.05 level of significance. Hence, here null hypothesis was
rejected. Which indicated that Mental health level is higher among
non-working women in comparison to working women.
A similar study was conducted by Rout and Cooper (1997) and the
results were that there were significant difference in mental health
among working and non-working woman results indicate that the
non-working women have better mental health as compared
working women.
The study was conducted by Khodidas (2013), “Comparative
Study of Mental Health Among Working women on and House
Results Wives”, Department of Psychology Saurashtra University Rajkot
The above table reveals that the mean of the data collected for the .The aim of the study was to find out the mental health among
Mental Health of working women is 63.54 (Moderate) and for non- working women and housewives. so total number of 40 working
working women is 71.94 (Moderate).The difference of means is 8.4. women and 40 housewives were randomly selected from Surendra
The same figures were put to the standard deviation in the working nagar district. for the purpose of data collection mental health
women S.D. is 9.54 and for non-working women S.D. is 10.69. When analysis questionnaire developed by Badami and Badami was used
the sum of figures were put to 't' test we get 4.14. to measure the mental health level among working women and
housewives. “t” test was used for the statistical analysis of the data.
When the tabulated value of 't' at 0.01 and 0.05 level of
Difference between the mental health level among working women
significance is compared with the calculated value, it was found that
and housewives was significant at 0.05 level. So the null hypothesis
calculated value 4.14 is greater than the tabulated value 2.63 & 1.99
was rejected and result shows that the mental health is better of
at 0.01 & 0.05 respectively. Therefore the value is significant. Hence
housewives than the working women.
we can say that the null hypothesis has been rejected.
Thus, it can be concluded that there is significant difference in the References
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