A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS

OBSERVED IN THE WORKING WOMEN AND HOUSEWIVES

A.S.Çilli, N. Kaya, S. Bodur, Dr. I. Özkan, R. Kucur

Selçuk University Department of Psychiatry, Public Health Branch

SUMMARY

Aim: Psychological symptoms and factors affecting psychological symptoms were

researched.

Method: 76 married working women and 68 housewives who were at least secondary school
graduates were randomly selected from the center of Konya. They were given a form
questioning socio-demographic characteristics. The psychological symptoms scanning scale
-SCL 90-R was applied in the study. The results were evaluated according to SPSS. T-Testing
and "Correlation Analysis" were used for statistical analysis.

Results: The age of both groups did not make a meaningful difference. (30.02.t5.54; 31.85J,
7.58, p=0.099) it was found out that the workingwomen's husbands were more educated, their
family income was more, the number of people living in the family was less and the average
age of marriage was higher.

Anxiety, phobia, paranoia and psychosomatic sub-scale points and average of symptoms were
significantly higher in the housewives. There was a relationship between the workingwomen's
points of obsession, psychosomatic symptoms and total monthly or weekly family income.
The workingwomen's additional obsession and depression points and the housewives'
psychosomatic, depression and interpersonal sensitivity points were the first 3 items of all.

Conclusion: it was found out that psychological symptoms were more in housewives and
both groups' psychological symptoms were closely related to total family income.
Globalization has led to the rise of export processing zones (EPZs) in poor countries
throughout the world. These industries are heavily dependent on cheap unskilled female labor,
and women often comprise between 70-90 percent of the total labor force in EPZs throughout
Asia, Latin American and Sub Saharan Africa.

While increased access to employment has provided new economic and social opportunities
for poor women, the jobs they occupy remain unregulated and unstable. Women workers are
systematically denied their rights to regular pay and regular working hours; equal pay for
equal work; permanent contracts; safe and non-hazardous work environments; and freedom of
association. Sexual harassment in the workplace, and workplace-related sexual violence, is a
particularly egregious and widespread form of discrimination against women. Forced sexual
relations and pregnancy tests, which become a pre-condition for employment, significantly
reduce a woman's ability to demand a living wage and break out of poverty. Working mothers
face everyday barriers as they try to support their families. Organizing against abuse is also
particularly difficult for women, because of the highly gendered nature of subcontracting and
other forms of flexible work. There are strong international labor standards denouncing
discrimination and other abuses experienced by women. Read more about female temporary
workers in global agro-export industries here.

In Turkey, traditional views of gender roles and relations have persisted in tandem with
changes in the status of women both within and outside the family. These changes began
during the latter years of the Ottoman Empire, when women were given opportunities to work
as teachers, clerks, and industrial workers. Change accelerated during the early republican era.

The 1926 Civil Code granted women unprecedented legal rights, and in 1934 they received
the right to vote and to stand for election. Since the 1950s, their participation in the labor
force, the professions, and in politics has increased steadily but unevenly. By 1991 women
made up 18 percent of the total urban labor force. But not all changes have resulted in
improved conditions. In some instances, especially among rural and newly urbanized women,
changes have disturbed a traditional order that has provided meaningful, guaranteed roles for
women without introducing new ones.

During the 1950s, rural women who migrated to the urban gecekondus generally found work
as maids in private homes. Since the 1960s, employment opportunities for women in industry,
especially light manufacturing, have been expanding. By 1991, the most recent year for which
detailed statistics are available, almost 20 percent of employees in manufacturing were
women. Nevertheless, a majority of women in the gecekondus do not work outside the home.
Most urban working-class women are single and hold jobs for less than five years; they tend
to leave paid employment when they get married. While working and contributing to family
income, women enjoy enhanced status and respect.

Urban middle-class and upper-middle-class women tend to have more education than
working-class women and generally are employed in teaching, health care, and clerical work.
Since 1980 more than one-third of all bank clerks have been women. Upper-class women tend
to work in the prestigious professions, such as law, medicine, and university teaching. On
average about 18 percent of all professionals in Turkey were women in 1991; they were
concentrated in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, and a few other large urban centers.

[edit] See also