Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN (Paper)2224-5766 ISSN (Online)2225-0484 (Online) Vol.6, No.5, 2016 8 A Paper on Difference of Mental Health Among Employed Women and House-Wives in Pakistan: Stress Fareda Zeab 1* Uzma Ali 2 Ahmed Hussain 3 1.Faculty of Business and Management, Nazeer Hussain University, ST-2, Block-4, F.B. Area, Karachi-75950, Pakistan 2.Institute of Clinical Psychology, University of Karachi, 118, Block 20 Abul Asar Hfeez Jalahndri Rd, Karachi, Pakistan 3.Mechanical Engineering Department, Nazeer Hussain University, ST-2, Block-4, F.B. Area, Karachi-75950, Pakistan Abstract The paper was set to determine the level variation of stress within two type of females’ groups that is paid work and house wives of Pakistan. It was supposed that ’’A significant difference will be found between working- women and non-working women on the variable stress. The sample of 250 working and non-working-females had been taken from various commercial and residential areas of city of Karachi, Pakistan via technique of purposive sampling. This group of 250 women was divided in to two equal numbers of 125 working and 125 non working- women. Their age range was 28 years to 45 years. The Mean (M) age of the sample was 34.126 and the Standard deviation (SD) was 4.129. The permission from the respective authorities was taken adapting the proper procedure. An informed consent from these female subjects and the demographic forms had got furnished. To gauge the stress, Lovibond and Lovibond, DASS (1995) had been administered, one by one. In order to interpret and analyze the data, Descriptive statistics and t-test had been applied, through SPSS V 16. This had been the result that employed women were found prone to have stress than the counterpart i.e. house wives, in Pakistan. Keywords: Stress; working women; Non-Working-Women; mental health; Pakistan. 1. Introduction According to World Health Organization (2006) healthy people are not necessarily those who are not suffering from any illness or disability, but they should feel well physically, mentally and socially. Livinbond (1995) explained that stress is characterized by over-aroused, tense, unable to relax, touchy, easily get upset, irritability, easily startled, nervy, jumpy, fidgety and intolerant of interruption or delay’’. According to Selye (1956) who contributed in stress research by his model of stress called ‘general adaptation syndrome suggests: physical response which is known as stress is caused by different environmental stressor. The model explains how one’s body defends itself from stress. It consists of three stages: Alarm reaction is the condition of a person to fight or flight in which body’s sympathetic nervous system activates. Second stage of resistance; People find alternatives to cope the stress and the duration of this stage depends on the severity of the stress, in this stage there is a high chance of prolonged resistance and neurological and hormonal changes that may lead to changes in immune system and take shape of infection. The Third Stage is General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS); this is also known as exhaustion, in which a person fails to cope with the stress and breaks down. In this case there may be an occurrence of severe psychological problems such as depression and even also cause death. According to Silva’s (2010) Study, mental disorders e.g. stress, currently, become fourth among other diseases, which cause burden and a foremost reason of disability worldwide such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases lead to physical disabilities. Mental disorders are not a major cause of death; they do affect the living of standards for the individuals, a hazard for suicide and often deteriorates the outcome of various other physical setbacks. Ali, Khan, and Munaf (2013) pointed out in a study that Women’s mental health is considered as a primary concern by merely all women’s health care givers because of the higher prevalence of mental disorders in women. The results of some studies highlight that how gender differences go together and intensified by the economic variations and increased income disproportion; considered to be associated with mental disorders prevailing in working-women. On the one hand, a study on working mother’s health and house wives (2006) stated that in general there were drawbacks of lack of security for the wellbeing of women; their mental health is likely to get more affected as they are more sensitive towards criticism and negativity. Since, non working women, have little exposure and they tend to avoid socially distressing situations. Social pressure and anxiety combined with fear of negative evaluation deteriorates the mental health of women in general. On the other hand, WHO’s report (2006) argued that economic autonomy as well as temporary absence from home is the factors which may help the working women to cope up effectively. Despite that, working women’s mental health is hampered because of facing the brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE): E-Journals