Family and Social Adjustment of Working and Non-Working Women

Background of the study

The life of woman in our society is very complicated since beginnings. They have been facing many difficulties to survive since early age. There was a time when women were expected to live in house only. Their house was their world and house hold works were their life. But gradually time changed and woman started to get out of their house for making their identity. Now 21th century can be called golden era for woman because now their world is not limited to house but they are flying in the sky and swimming in the sea. In present scenario many women are going outside for making their career and being self-dependent. But it is not that easy and comfortable for them. Women who are going outside for work they have to face many difficulties. It is very difficult for them to adjust in external society as well as at their house too. Because even in this extra modern era woman are considered woman only means even today when women are doing equally external work and earning their livelihood, house hold work are considered women’s work only and they are expected to sustain all the responsibility. And actually, they are doing that. But in the double cycling wheel they are just being crushed. For getting their identity and proving themselves worthy they are doing both work together but this condition causes many problems in their life. One of the problems is adjustment. It is being seen that woman are facing adjustment problem between their house and work. Along with this they have to face mental and social adjustment problems too. On the other hand, non-working women are also not satisfied with their life. Non-working women who are financially dependent on their husbands are also found dissatisfied with their life. Because for their pity needs, they have to be dependent on their husband and sometimes it becomes emotionally very uncomfortable for them. So, there are many researches which revealed that non-working women are less satisfied with their life. A study by Ferree (1976) reveled that “There is sample evidence to support any of the premises that women who are employed are more satisfied than women who are homemakers.” While some researches are saying nonworking are more satisfied. Like; “homemakers are more satisfied than women who are employed (Hall, & Francine, 1973).” There are some researches which are opposite of both of them which say there is no difference between working and non-working women’s satisfaction level. “Employed women do not differ from homemakers in their level of satisfaction.” (Wright, 1978) So, in present research we will try to find out the adjustment and life satisfaction of working and non-working woman. Who are more satisfied and adjustable?

Adjustment

“Adjustment in psychology the behaviour process by which human maintain an equilibrium among their needs or the obstacle of their environments.” (Article, britanica.com). “Adjustment is the process by a living organism maintains a balance between its need and circumstances that influence the satisfaction of their needs.” (Shaffer; 1961) “Adjustment is that condition of a person whom is able to adapt with his physical, occupational and social environment.” (Wikipedia.com) By these definitions we can understand that a condition when a person have to make balance their desire or need with available environment or situation is called adjustment.  Like someone is very hungry but he doesn’t like bread but he has no food to eat. In that condition he will have to adjust with his choice and will have to eat bread because if he will not eat, he can’t survive. There are two ways of adjustment. In one way we have to make adjustment between two things to modify or adapt one or both of them to correspond each other but sometimes one of the factors is not changeable so another factor needs to be modified to suit other. We all do adjustment in our daily life. Here we are talking about adjustment means to live comfortably in certain situation. If we are living comfortably, we say we have adjusted with that and if we are not able to live comfortably, we say we are not able to adjust.  We all have to adjust somewhere or the other places in our life. Our adjustments affect with different environmental factors. Those can be personal or external. When circumstances are appropriate for us, we adjust in our life easily and comfortably but when circumstances are not good, we face difficulty to adjust. So, adjustment is a very important part of our life.

Types of adjustment

We cannot bound adjustment in types but broadly for women it can be divided in some following types

1. Social adjustment (external area)
2. Mental adjustment (internal area)
3. Emotional adjustment
4. Family adjustment

Here we will specially talk about social and family adjustment. Social adjustment: social adjustments include home work place neighbours. These all things make our social life. In social adjust we talk about how do we behave with other people how do we deal with it. Outside of house we have to deal with many different types of people and situation. But for some people it is very easy and comfortable while some people feel it difficult to handle social life. For women also it is a very different thing. our social behaviour gets affected by many things. So, a woman who live at home and a woman who have to handle house and office together their social life must be different. They both have to face different situation. So, they have to adjustment things there too. Family adjustment; when we talk about family adjustment it talks about our family life. For making a good family people have to adjust many things. Specially when it comes to a woman, she has to sustain different types of responsibility. Specially a working woman have to face many difficulties in their family if their family is not supportive.

Theoretical Principals

There are many researches related to working and non-working women’s adjustment and life satisfaction problems. Here the theoretical principals and findings of different researches have been given under literature review. we will see the adjustment and life satisfaction literature review separately.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Adjustment of working and non-working women “Non-working women have more socially adjustment than working woman.” Yogesh & Jogsan (2014). A study by Kachchi Parvati k (2014) revealed that “working woman are more adjustment in term of health, social and emotional adjustment than non-working women.” “Working married women have to face more problems in their married life as compared to non-working married women.” (KC & Sylaja, 2017). Parmar (2014) also found in his research that “there is a significant difference between working and non-working women in mental health and marital adjustment.” In A comparative study among working and non-working women on level of marital adjustment, stress and life satisfaction by Kumar and Kumar (2018) was found that “Women in modern global world have to play a dual role as homemaker and career builder. The results reveal that housewives have better marital adjustment and low level of stress than working women.” “Hashmi et al. (2007) conducted a study to explore the relationship between marital adjustment, stress, and depression. the finding showed that working married women had to face more problems in their married life adjustment as compared to nonworking married woman.” 

Rani (2013) found in her research that working women have more adjustment problem in comparison to non-working women. “Dave (2015) conducted a study to find out the marital adjustment among working and non-working women. It was found that there is significant difference in marital adjustment among working and non-working women.” “Bradbury & Fincham (1990) founded in his study that non-working married women are better adjusted than working married women. This indicates that working married women cannot pay full attention to their home”. “Jamabo & Ordu (2012) shows that both working and non-working-class women exhibit no clear difference in their marital adjustment.” “Jaiswal and Prabha (2016) did A study on Social adjustment of working women and Homemakers in Allahabad city and the result shows that homemakers better than the working women in their social adjustment.”

A study by

Sundaram, Dhandapani and Narayana Swamy (1984) revealed that the problem of working women is serious and distressing. Lacks of time, taking care of children and guest without any leisure, mental and physical strain are some of the domestic problems identify by the employed women. Opie.T.J., (2011) in a study find that working women are finding it increasingly challenging to establish a balance between work and family life. This often results in work-family conflict which may affect their well-being. Sweet and Moen (2007) stated that a female with a greater work load is more likely to increase her anger at home. Rossman and Campbell (1965) and Stolz (1960) reported that due to heavy burden of looking after the family and job responsibilities all together working mothers develop tension. Because it’s quite difficult to make balance between home and work. According to Holahan and Gilbert (1978), Cleary and Mechanics (1983) Working women always experience greater inter-role conflicts and overload of work than men, generally because of women's greater family responsibilities. Gupta and Nafis (2014) examine for finding the difference in the marital adjustment of employed and unemployed woman. In their study their findings show that working and non-workingwomen have similar marital adjustment and psychological well-being. However, the working woman differ in reflecting positive relation with others and personal growth as compared to non-working woman. As working women reported better positive relation with others and personal growth. Parvati K (2014) says “Working women are more positive social adjustment than Non-working women.”

Problems to be studied

1. To find out the social and family adjustment of working women and non-working women
2. To find out the difference between social and family adjustment of working women and non-working women

Justification for the study

In present era the world is very much active to make women empowered. So now women are making recognition in every field. But this is not as easy & comfortable as for men. Because woman have to handle the responsibility of both house and work. So, she has to face many difficulties in their adjustment and it causes less life satisfaction. So, if we really want to give woman equal right and place in the society it is needed to solve their adjustment and life satisfaction problem. And it will be possible only when we will be more aware of it. So, this research is important because in this research we will come to know the adjustment issues of woman whether they are working or non-working. It will be a small step towards women empowerment. Because this type of research needed to reveal the women’s problems to solve it. It is also important because research work on this type of topics is not much because this is a new subject.

Hypothesis

1. There would be significant difference between adjustment of working women and non-working women.
2. The social and family adjustment of non-working woman would be better than working women.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Sample: Sample have been chosen from Muzaffarpur Bihar, rural and urban area. 70 working and 70 non-working or house wives. Working women are mainly teachers.

Method of sampling: Non-probability convenient method has been used for data collection.

Sources of data: Data have been collected from 2 methods.

a. Secondary method: for literature review many different previous research paper and article have been analysed.

 b. Primary methods: data have been collected from samples by questionnaire.

Tools: Questions have been taken from ‘Bells adjustment inventory’ Hindi adaptation by ‘Mohsin -Shamshad’.

Analysis of data: For data analysis mean, SD, descriptive study and independent sample t-test tests have been applied.

RESULT AND CONCLUSION:

Table No. 1

Descriptive Statistics

Table no. 1 shows the description of variables.

Table no.2

Statistics

Table no. 2 shows the frequency of total respondents. It shows there is no missing data.

Table no. 3

Age

It shows the frequency of the age of all respondents.

Table no.4

Education

Table no. 4 is showing the frequency of the education of the respondents.

Table no. 5

Profession

                               Table no 5 shows the frequency of the profession of the respondents.

Table no.6

Group Statistics

Table no. 6 shows the mean and SD of social adjustment of both categories, working and non-working women.

Table no 7

Independent Samples Test

Table no. 7 shows the independent t- test. where the p value of social adjustment is .180 which is greater than 0.05. it means there is no significant difference between the working and non-working women’s social adjustment. Alternate hypothesis is rejected.

Table no. 8

Group Statistics

                                 It shows the mean and SD of home adjustment of both categories.

Table no. 8

Independent Samples Test