Stress, Social Support, And Depression In Arab Muslim Immigrant Women In The Detroit Area Of The Usa

Keywords

Acculturation; Arab immigrant women; Daily hassles; Depression; Immigration demands; Language; Premigration trauma; Social support

Abstract

Introduction: From a feminist political economy perspective concerned with equity for and among women, I explore the issue of the mental health of health care workers. This means understanding states, markets, ideas, discourses, civil society and the determinants of health as interrelated parts of the same whole.Main Body: Mental health, broadly defined to include anxiety, depression, undue stress and addictions, as well as other more traditional symptoms, is a work-related issue. The health and socialcare sector has the highest number of days lost per worker per year due to illness or disability, and mental disorders are a growing cause. Moreover, unpaid providers constitute a largely invisible and equally large health care labour force that also often suffers mental stress from care work.Discussion: Drawing on recent comparative researchon long-term care, I show how restructuring has dramatically increased the demands of paid and unpaid health care work and the ways new managerial models taken from the for-profit sector are applied in health services to the detriment of women's mental health. Furthermore, I argue that the mental health of health care workers is a women's issue, not only because most of them are women and because their conditions of work and of commitment differ from those of men but also because women experience mental health differently from men, have their mental health issues treated differently from those of men and have other jobs at home that exacerbate the stress.Implications: Two broad questions and spaces for further research are presented. First, what aspects of health care work support good mental health, what aspects undermine it and what can be changed. Second, what are the specific issues for those who do the care work and to what extent are these are related to women's bodies. Such analysis requires going beyond collecting data by sex or comparing males and females to understanding women's mental health within the context of their daily lives. It means beginning with the assumption thatgender matters. It also means asking which women are affected in what ways. These two huge questions need to be addressed if we are to develop strategies that promote women's mental health.

Publication Date

1-1-2015

Publication Title

Women's Mental Health: Resistance and Resilience in Community and Society

Number of Pages

69-81

Document Type

Article; Book Chapter

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1007/9783319173269_5

Socpus ID

84955339453 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84955339453

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