A STUDY ON RESILIENCE AMONG WORKING AND NON-WORKING MARRIED WOMEN

1. Student of BA(Hons) Applied Psychology (2017-20 Batch), Amity Institute of Psychology & Allied Sciences, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, Noida. 2. Assistant Professor, Amity Institute of Psychology & Allied Sciences, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, Noida. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History Received: 28 May 2020 Final Accepted: 30 June 2020 Published: July 2020

It has been aptly said that resilience is the quality and mental reservoir of strength. Liem et al., (1997) have described resilience as a relatively stable set of personality characteristics which develops from life adversity and experiences of everyday life. Consequently, it involves exemplary personal growth in different domains of life.The purpose of this study was to assess the difference in the level of resilience among working and non-working married women and its probable causes.For this,The Brief Resilience Scale by Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008)was used and the results show significant difference in the level of resilience among working and non-workingmarried females. Working married women were found to be higher in their level of resilience than non-working married women.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….... Introduction:-
According to Ritchie &Roser (2019) the global percentage of women across the world is 49.6%., which means out of 1000 people the number of women is 496 (Gender Ratio survey ,2017) where as in India the percentage of women is 48.02 %. If we narrow down to just the working women globally, they would make up to 47.7% and on a domestic level the percentage is 23.6%. The most prominent reason found as to why women choose to work is, to meet the household expenses and to make both ends meet.In India, women who work to grow professionally and make their career touch the success are less in number as comparison to the former.
India is developing globally and making mark in all spheres but isalso one of the few countries who has the least women's participation in employment. The reason can be attributed to the level of literacy which is below than the desired. Also it has been reported that many women are not qualified enough and are instead expected to stay at home and help the family with the household chores in comparison to families who are well off and the next generation doesn't find the need to work because they're comfortable in their position.
Many other researchers have identified that women have various other responsibilities like raising their children, looking after the house and the household activities. This is also one of the most important reasons why they don't work. There are women who work initially but after these responsibilities emerge in their lives, they tend to leave their jobs.
Resilience is innate for some people, but it can be incorporated by others too, people can adopt healthy ways and become resilient. Being optimistic could make a lot of difference. There is always a silver lining so try to look at the brighter side. Things could get a lot worst so always focus of the positive, reframing the thoughts could bring a big change.
Accepting the current situation is always important, instead of griping and whining understand that what has happened cannot be changed in any way. There are some standard strategies like talking to a friend or family or talking about what one is going through and having someone who is listening is always better than not having anyone to talk to. Also sharing feelings with a trusted person always helps in many ways as it helps to vent out and help us to see things from a different light.
Being emotionally intelligent helps people to be resilient, there are studies that prove emotional intelligence and resilience to be correlated. Schneider et al. (2013) showed EI aids stress-resilience. as a matter of fact, the 4 EI abilities seem to aid resilient stress-responses involving challenge-appraisal, higher positive and lower negative affect and challenge-physiology. similarly, Magnano et al. (2016) stated that EI has a crucial part in the ability to bounce back. Armstrong et al. (2011) disclosed that EI was associated to psychological-resilience. many researchers have put forward the idea that having greater EI is adaptable in demanding events Salovey et al. (1999) established that individuals who have a greater EI get along with the emotional-requests in demanding events, they enable them to correctly recognize evaluate managing and regulating their emotions too. Lastly, Cejudo et al. (2016) supports the idea that individuals with an increased level of EI show a higher level of ability to bounce back due to the relation between emotion-repair and the ability to bounce back the crucial among the various EI dimensions.
Our persona plays a role in defining our resilience level too. Neuroticism and resilience are related but negatively i.e. if neuroticism is high then the level of resilience is low (Sills et al.,2005) and people high on neuroticism are more prone to emotional susceptiveness, distress and other mental illnesses related to it along with low level of resilience (Kling et al., 2003). Also, neuroticism is described as an erratic sensitivity to aversive stimulus (Zobel et al.,2004) and it's also associated with ineffective ways to manage a negative stimulus (Schneider, 2004). Extraversion and resilience are directly related to each other, it means if someone is high on extraversion their level of resilience would be high too (Campbell et al., 2006). Extraverts have high level of resilience due to the socialsupport and positive-emotions that are linked with extraversion (Bonanno et al., 2004). Psychoticism and resilience are negatively correlated, psychoticism involves traits like unable to deal with the stressors, apathy, cold (Annalakshmi, 2007). Foumani, Salehi, Babakhani (2015) stated that the traits of the personality can an impact on distinct elements of happiness and resilience in females. Therefore females who have a balanced persona are more likely to be happy and resilient.

1338
Factor enhancing the level of resilience: A theoretical approach: Kumpfer (1999) explains a model for pointing out and managing the factors effecting resilience, she came up with 6 components: stressors, environmental contexts, person-environmental transactional process, internal resiliency factors, resilience process, and adaptation and re-integration.
Stressors: Stress doesn't originate from a situation that people experience, but from the way people perceive that particular situation. This is the reason why stress is subjective, what stresses me out won't necessarily stress you out too. When individuals are put in a difficult situation, they analyze the nature and level of intensity of that particular situation, the available resources in the form of our skills, and the outcome of the situation. Person-Environment Transactional Process: How people deal with stress or hardships is subjective, it greatly depends on the skills and resources they have.
Internal Resiliency Factors: Kumpfer (1999) stated that people who show qualities life self-confidence, selfdirectedness, optimism, hopefulness, self-efficacy and internal locus of control tend to be self-governed and diligent which in a way impacts the resilience level.
Resilience Process: Individuals who perceive that the situations they get into are a consequence of their own behavior tend to show a high resilience level.
Adaptation and Re-integration: Individuals who have the skill set for handling a tough situation and the ability to be resilient throughout the challenging event tend to be more flexible and adjustable. Many theorists see these qualities as the key to success.

Classification of Resilience:
1. Psychological Resilience: It refers to the ability to mentally overcome and withstand hardships, unfortunate events, life altering events or uncertainty. Individuals who display psychological resilience form coping strategies and abilities which help them to be clam and focused during any setback, they tend to deal with it and move on without showing any long term negative repercussions. 2. Emotional Resilience: It refers to the ability to which individuals recover or cope with stress and hardships. It depends on person to person how they deal with things depending on how sensitive they are. An individual's way of responding to their emotions could initiate a flood of emotions. Individuals who are emotionally resilient are emotionally aware. They are able to regulate their feeling and emotions using healthy coping strategies. 3. Physical Resilience: It refers to our body's ability to overcome and cope with challenges, preserve stamina and strength, and being able to come back to a healthy state quickly after facing any accident, physical illness or any event that has taken a toll on your body. Our physical resilience could be developed by changing to healthy lifestyle like doing breathing exercises, making time to relax and rest. 4. Community Resilience: It refers to the ability of people in groups to overcome and cope with hardships, uncertainty like natural disasters, violence, hardships related to economy, and many more challenges to the community.

Model of 3P: A New Approach to understand Resilience:
Martin Seligman is a renowned psychologist, also known as the father of positive psychology. Seligman came up with the 3P's which every human being uses when they're facing hardships. 1. Personalization: It means perceiving yourself as the problem without even counting in the other factors that are responsible for what has happened. When an individual acknowledges the fact that whatever occurred is due to the outside factors it helps in alleviating the blame and unfavorable judgements, we put ourselves through. For example, if I've lost my job, I would make it personal by saying things like 'I'm good for nothing' or 'I'm up to no good'. 2. Permanence: When people are put in difficult situations, they usually think that things are always going to stay bad. Whereas those who perceive setbacks aren't permanent have it in them to accept and adjust with whatever 1339 life throws in their direction. The above example is applicable here too, thoughts like 'I can never get a job' start crossing the mind. 3. Pervasiveness: When something bad happens in one area of our life, we always tend to apply that on the other areas too. 'I am failing as a parent too' is an example in relation to the above-mentioned instance.

Resilience among Working and Non-Working Married Women:
Banerjee (2016) found out how the levels of stress in housemakers can be managed by adopting proper intervention methods. The psychological and somatic symptoms decreased after the housemakers used intervention-methods. So, it might be possible that the stress in the non-working women decreased due to the intervention-methods, the resilience level may have gone up. There is a significant relation between life-satisfaction and resilience (Nemati, Mehdipor, 2016) and a study on working women had low levels of anxiety along with a high level of lifesatisfaction as compared to non-working women (Kaur, Panwar, Thind&Farooqi, 2012). So, it might be possible that there is a relationship between resilience and life satisfaction. Reports also suggest that emotional stability/intelligence and resilience have direct relationship, so if a person is high in emotional intelligence (s)he would be high on resilience too. Vaghela (2014) studied the impact of emotional-stability on employed and nonworking women. The result then suggested that employed females had shown better emotional-maturity as compared to non-working females. There is a direct relationship between well-being and resilience (Mguni, Bacon, Brown). A study was conducted if employment had any impact on the wellbeing of women with respect to how they handle difficult and stressful events and how they align with it. The results revealed that the ability to handle stress and aligning themselves with it is noticeably distinct in working and non-working females. Non-working females showed to have higher levels of stress tolerance as compared to working females whereas working females had better adjustment/ aligning abilities (Anie, 2015). There is a direct relation among resilience and mental health (Kermott et.al, 2019). Vaghela (2014) studied the mental-health of working and non-working women. Based on the results the working females were better than the non-working females in every dimension, hence working-women have a better mental-health than non-working women.

Literature Reviews:-
Agrawal, Jain, Yadav & Kumar (2019) studied the comparison of stress among working and non-working females residing in Rohtak, Haryana. The sample size was 200, 100 working and 100 non-working females. The scale employed to evaluate the stress level was General role stress scale that is a 5 Likert scale with 12 items in it. The scores were then interpreted through find out mean, standard deviation and t-test. The findings showed that the level of stress was more in working women as compared to non-working women.
Ahmad &Khan (2018) study the quality of life in working and non-working females. The sample size was 80 wedded women in the 25-40 age bracket residing in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. The scale used in this study was the WHOQOL-BREF (1996), it's a 26 item study that encompasses 4 spheres: physical, psychological, social and environmental sphere. It is a 5 Likert scale. The statistical tool employed was t-test. The result showed that there was no distinction in the physical sphere among the women but there was a distinction in other spheres of the scale.
Maral, Kumar (2017) study the impact of family type and the power to make decisions among working and nonworking females. The sample size is 272 married women, 144 females living in a nuclear family and the remaining 128 are of joint family living in Allahabad. The data collection was done through a questionnaire, the items had to be answered as either: self, husband or along with husband. The results came out to be: there is a noticeable distinction in making decisions with respect to domestic and societal problem between working and non-working females. Non-working females living in a nuclear family faced hinderances by their family members during the decision making process. Whereas, they were a part of the decision making process during private and social problems in a joint family, although everybody would make the decision mostly. In nuclear families the working females' participation in the decision making process is higher than the non-working females along with collective decision making. The involvement of working women in every problem was been recorded as self, collective decision making was also high in them if compared with non-working females.
Foumani, Salehi, Babakhani (2015) study the link between the attributes of persona with resilience and happiness in working and non-working women. The sample is 388 working and non-working women randomly selected, who're residing in Tehran. The scales used in this study are Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, NEO Personality Inventory and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. Pearson's correlation method was used to find out the relation between the attributes of persona and happiness, all the aspects of personality traits are associated with happiness. All the 1340 aspects of personality (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Flexibility, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) are related to self-concept except extraversion. Further all the aspects of personality traits are associated with psychologicalalertness except agreeableness. Life satisfaction and hopefulness which are an integral part of positive psychology, are only related to Neuroticism. Resilience on the other hand is related to Neuroticism negatively and all the other traits, Extraversion, Flexibility, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are positively linked to resilience. Multivariable linear regression analysis showed an essential impact of Extraversion and Flexibility on the total happiness score. The conclusion was that the personality traits can an impact on distinct elements of happiness and resilience in females. Therefore, females who have a balanced persona are more likely to be happy and resilient.
Siddiqui (2014) investigated the level of emotional state and life satisfaction in working and non-working females. The sample size was 200 working and 200 non-working and the age bracket of the sample was 25-45 years. The scales used in this study were Life Satisfaction Scale and the Trait-State Questionnaire, that measures emotional states like anxiety, stress, depression, regression, fatigue, guilt, extraversion, arousal. The results showed that working females showed high levels of anxiety, regression, extraversion and arousal as compared to non-working females. Working females had shown low levels of stress, depression, fatigue and guilt as compared to the other category of females. Furthermore, working females had shown high levels of life satisfaction too as compared to non-working females. Marital-satisfaction being a dimension of life-satisfaction was seen high in working women than in non-working women.
McGrath, Julie, Caron (2009) This study examines the relationship of resilience to body image dissatisfaction in college women. Getting a poor body image is correlated with inappropriate dietary behaviours and eating disorders among college students, and has been linked with self-worth dissatisfaction and depressive emotions. The participants were students of a female college undergraduate. Results indicate that increased resilience is associated with improved body image.

Aim:
To study the level of resilience among working and non-working married women.

Objective:-
O assess the level of resilience among working and non-working married women.

Hypothesis:
There will be significant difference between the level of resilience in working and non-working married women.

Sampling:
Stratified sampling method was used. Stratification is the process of dividing members of the population into homogeneous subgroups before sampling. The objective is to improve the precision of the sample by reducing sampling error.
The total sample in this study consisted of (N=100) women living in Delhi NCR. The sample comprised of nonworking married women and working married women within the age range of 30-40 years.

Description of the tool:
The

Procedure:
The BRS questionnaire was filled by the participants who were married females in the 30-40 years' age bracket, working or non-working in Delhi NCR. The participants of the present study were informed about the confidentiality of the information and scores, and it would be only used for the research purposes. The responses were scored and the individual raw scores were obtained. Having obtained the data, mean, standard deviation, and t-1341 test was used to obtain the results, which was then put in table forms. Finally, the results were interpreted and the formulated hypotheses were tested.

Results:-
Mean, standard deviation and t-test were calculated. Results can be seen in the following tabular format The difference in resilience between working and non-working married women was found to be significant at .05 level (2-tailed)

Discussion:-
The aim of the study was to assess the level of resilience among working and non-working married women. The results reveal significant difference exists between working and non-working population.
Resilience is as the ability to bounce back from adverse situations. Individuals who are resilient employ their skills and strengths to overcome the distress. Being resilient doesn't eliminate hardships or problems from one's life. Individuals who are resilient face a lot of distress and hardships in their lives just like the others, the difference is that they know how to deal with it instead of letting their emotions take the front seat. Resilient people comprehend the pattern of their life, they know there would be times of grief, pain or tragedy. It is the way they perceive things

ST UDY AMO N G WO R K IN G AN D N O N -WO R K IN G MAR R IED WO MEN
Mean S.D 1342 helps them to bounce back and cope with situations. There are two view points on this, one view point says it is innate while the other says it can be learnt. It has been reported that being optimistic could make a lot of difference. Accepting the current situation is vital rather than dwelling into what has already happened. Self-regulation is found to be key to resilience. It is basically the ability to manage and regulate one's emotions and feelings which involves expressing true feelings at the right place and time. Self-awareness also very important in becoming resilient.
The hypothesis that there will be significant difference between the resilience level of working and non-working married women is proved to be correct as it can be verified from table no. 1 where the value of 't' is found to be significant at .05 level. Same can be validated by the research findings of Rathoreet al., (2015) where literature review was done on women's level of resilience in Indian context. As it is a known fact that woman of today has immense strength and their number in work force is increasing than ever before. Though Work life balance is a challenge but they effectively manage. Results of this study revealed that working women have better coping abilities as they reduce their work stresses through various means and hence high in level of resilience. There are some problems that they encounter likelong working hours to gain recognition, refusal of men to accept women as seniors, sexual harassment and lack of solidarity among women employees but still they manage to counter all and emerge winners in terms of managing personal and professional domains.
Further from . Thus, emphasizing that the resilience level of working married women is high. Thereasons could be attributed to many like their ability to bounce back during adverse situationsand their ability to cope with daily stressors.
Jo (2020) did a study to establish the role of resilience on the mental health of married women who migrated after marriage in comparison to those women who did not migrate after marriage. It was foundthat the level of resilience was low in migrant married women in comparison to non-migrantmarried women. Factors contributing to the same were their sense of stability and social support.

Conclusion:-
It has been rightly said that life does not provide a road map for us and experience is a great teacher. Similarly, resilience can better be understood as an opportunity and capacity of an individual to remove hurdles so that physical and mental wellbeingis intact. The number of working women are increasing across the world, hence, their level of resilience is key to study the reasons behind theirwork life balance. On comparing the level of resilience among workingand non-working married women, working women were found to be high. The reasons could be attributed to their personality characteristics, socio-economic factors to name few.