Relationship between Gender Role Reversal and Psychological Effects among Spouses in Nyeri County, Kenya
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Date
2023
Authors
Gichu, Jane Kabui
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
kenyatta university
Abstract
Gender role reversal among spouses has become an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in both the developed and developing world, yet not much is known about its psychological effects on married men and women as spouses in the developing world. The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between gender role reversal and psychological effects on spouses in Nyeri County. The study focused on prevalence and factors contributing to reversal of the provider, decision making, child care and home keeping roles and psychological effects on spouses, mainly, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety and stress and possible intervention strategies. The study utilized a descriptive correlational design and was guided by the social cognitive theory, the Gender Role Strain paradigm, gender role conflict theory and masculine gender role stress paradigm. Target population was married Kikuyu men and women with dependent children. A sample of 460 was selected through multi-stage sampling. Questionnaires and focus group discussions were used to collect data. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.1 aided the quantitative data analysis. Quantitative data was analyzed to generate descriptive statistics that included frequencies and percentages. The qualitative data from the focus group discussions was grouped and analyzed thematically. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to determine the relationship between gender role reversal and psychological effects. Findings revealed a high prevalence of provider and decision making roles at 48.2% and 48.0% and very low prevalence (7.7%) of reversal of childcare and home keeping roles. Majority of the male and female participants attributed the reversal to socio-cultural factors particularly male under socialization and alcohol abuse. However, more male than female participants attributed the reversal to socio-economic factors especially poverty, male unemployment and discriminative economic empowerment of women while excluding men. Findings revealed that both spouses suffered from low self-esteem and had symptoms of depression, stress and anxiety. The study revealed that there was a positive and significant relationship between low self-esteem, depression and stress and the provider, decision making and childcare/home keeping roles and a weak positive relationship between anxiety and the three roles. Correlation coefficients between low self-esteem and the provider, decision making and childcare/home keeping roles were (r=0.420; r=0.321; r=344, p<0.05) respectively. Correlation coefficients between depression and the provider role, decision making, childcare/home keeping roles were (r =0.121; r=0.234; r=0.543, p<0,05) respectively; Correlation coefficients between stress and provider, decision making, childcare/home keeping they were ((r=0.324;r=0.231; r=0.241, p<0.05) respectively. Correlation coefficients between anxiety and provider, decision making, childcare/home keeping were (r=0.38; r=0.112; r=0.111, p<0.05) respectively. Recommended interventions were mainly psychosocial, namely, family life education, premarital and marital counselling, psycho-education, teaching of gender roles to both gender and awareness creation on psychological health by counsellors and psychologists at the community level. Socio- economic interventions included empowering men and eradicating poverty by creating employment in rural areas. Based on these findings, this study recommended that the County government could engage professional counsellors and psychologists to provide counselling services for preventing and curative purposes. The County government could also set a fund to capacity build community lay counsellors and task them with psycho-educating the community as well as giving basic counselling services.
Description
A Thesis Submitted To the School Of Law, Arts and Social Sciences in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Counselling Psychology) Kenyatta University
Keywords
Gender Role Reversal, Psychological, Nyeri County, Kenya