Voices of impoverished Brazilian women: health implications of roles and resources.

This qualitative study was based on individual interviews with 75 Brazilian women in an impoverished peri-urban squatter community (favela) in southeastern Brazil. The purposes of the study were to describe women's role involvement in domestic and employment contexts; identify stresses and satisfactions of maternal, spousal, and employment roles; and assess personal and environmental role constraints and resources from the perspective of women's health. The analytic approach to the interview data was qualitative content analysis, through which thematic categories of maternal, spousal, and employment role satisfactions and stresses were identified by the researchers. Women's unrelenting work in the face of harsh social and economic environments was a broad theme woven throughout the women's descriptions of their lives. The confluence of role constraints affecting the participants' lives included poverty, marginalization, abuse, and lack of support and recognition by partners and society. In order to overcome great adversity and meet heavy role demands, these women relied on self, faith in God, family, and health resources. Implications for women's health promotion are discussed.

PIP: This article describes a qualitative study of women's role in an impoverished peri-urban squatter community in Brazil. The convenience sample included 75 women, comprised of Roman Catholics (51%), Protestants (17%), Spiritists (17%), and unreligiously-affiliated (11%). 26 women were illiterate. 49 had some primary school education. 59% had income that was below the poverty line. 92% reported their income as inadequate. 17 households did not have piped water, and 5 households did not have electricity. None had telephones. Only 28 had refrigerators. Interviews were conducted at the local health post among a sample that was largely unexposed to the questionnaire survey process, which sometimes posed difficulties. Attempts were made to seek out divergent cases or experiences and alternative explanations. Findings indicate that all the women identified themselves as the member of the household responsible for domestic housekeeping, and all saw that role as their most time- and energy-consuming. Most had at least 1 child. 72% were married, and 16% lived with a male partner. 12% were single, widowed, or divorced. Most were dependent upon spouses for economic support. 29 women had some employment outside the home. Women reported the lack of child care as a major reason for not being employed. There were other barriers. The women valued their role as mothers, but work and worries were dominant themes. Women complained about their partner's alcohol and drug misuse, domestic violence, and a lack of appreciation or affection. Working women reported socioeconomic satisfaction and work overload. Women's living conditions were harsh. Women showed considerable inner strength and creativity in dealing with demands and stresses.

Prices, infrastructure, household characteristics and child height.

PIP: A Brazilian household survey, ENDEF, in 1974-75 and the 1974 Informacoes Basicas Municipais (IBM) provided data for the analysis of the impact of community services and infrastructure and household characteristics on the logarithm of child height, standardized for age and gender. The sample was comprised of 36,974 children stratified by residential location, the child's age, and the educational level of the mother. Variance and covariance matrices were estimated with the jackknife developed by Efron (1982). Household characteristics included the logarithm of per capita expenditure as a measure of household resource availability, income, and parental education. Community characteristics were local market price indices for 6 food groups (dairy products, beans, cereals, meat, fish, and sugar), level of urbanization, buildings with sewage, water, and electricity connections per capita, per capita number of buildings, and population density. Health services were measured as per capita number of hospitals and clinics and doctors and nurses, and the number of beds are hospital. Educational services include a measure of student teacher ratios, elementary school class size, and per capita number of teachers living in the community. the results show that expenditure had a positive, significant effect on the height of children 2 years and older. Expenditure was a significant determinant for literate and illiterate mothers, and not well educated mothers. The impact of maternal education was largest on the length of babies and declined with the age of the child. Father's education had not impact of length of babies. The effect of parents' education was complementary. The effect of father's education was largest when mothers had some education. Better educated parents had healthier children. Maternal rather than paternal height had an impact of the length of a baby. In the community models, prices had a significant effect on child height, in both urban and rural areas, in all age groups, and for all levels of maternal education. Higher prices were associated with shorter children. Joint price and expenditure interactions were significant. Children at the top of the expenditure distribution were more affected by some prices than by others. Capital building improvements alone and with expenditures were all positively associated with child height. Only nurses per capita impacted on child height.^ieng

Maternal work and child-care strategies in peri-urban Guatemala: nutritional effects.

Associations of 293 mothers' work for earnings and child-care arrangements with the anthropometric status of their children were examined in urban Guatemala. It was hypothesized that during the period of life in which growth often falters (8 through 35 months), maternal employment could be beneficial for children. Informal workers tended to be poorer, less educated, and have more undernourished children than formal workers or nonworkers. When poverty and mother's education were controlled for, no effects of maternal employment on children's anthropometric growth patterns were seen. However, the percent of the family income the mother earned was positively associated with all anthropometric indicators, controlling for confounds. Children taken care of by preteen siblings had significantly lower weight for height than those in other situations, even controlling for SES and maternal employment status. These effects were not found in a 36-48-month-old sample.

PIP: A child development researchers analyzed data on 239 8-35 month old children living in 2 villages 20 km from Guatemala City, Guatemala to determine the effects of maternal work and child care arrangements on children's nutritional status. Women who worked flexible hours and had no defined job skills (informal workers) were more likely to be poor (p.01), less educated (p.0001), and have undernourished children (p.02 for height for age and p.01 for weight for age) than those women who either owned a business, had a trade, or worked in a store or factory (formal workers). Yet informal work was statistically related to those socioeconomic factors than jeopardize adequate growth of children. When the researcher controlled for poverty and maternal education, mother's work did not affect growth, however. This suggested that mother's work may have a positive effect on growth because if mothers did not work, the children may have actually experienced even poorer nutritional status. The data showed the arduous circumstances informal workers encounter, their poverty, and inadequate income for their labor. The children of full-time workers had a somewhat better weight for height status than nonworkers. Percent of family income earned by the mother had a significant effect on all anthropometric indicators (p.01 for height for age and weight for age; p.05 for weight for height). In both the 1-way analysis of variance and the same analysis controlling for socioeconomic status and mother's work, children cared for by a 13-year old sibling had a considerably lower weight for height than those cared for by nonworking mothers (p.008 and p.01 respectively). None of the effects existed in the 36-48 month old children in these villages.

Social science stereotypes of the Mexican American woman: policy implications for research.

PIP: Reviewing the social science literature on the Chicana or Mexican American woman reveals a tenaciously perpetuated stereotype in which she appears almost exclusively as a submissive maternal figure. This may be related to an on-going trend to support studies of interpersonal or cultural characteristics of Chicanas and a resistance to undertake evaluations of systemic discrimination against Mexican American women. Almost all such studies investigated lower class samples, thus confounding ethnicity with socioeconomic status. The size and selection of many of the samples are questionable for purposes of generalizing to the entire population. Because many concepts are not defined in behavioral terms, they are seldom assessed empirically. The main concern is to what extent social scientists and the media are dictating norms to the Chicano family and to what extent are social planners and educators being influenced by these images. Examples from 3 distinct areas of research conclude with interpretations of Mexican American women that differ considerably from those with a heavy emphasis on cultural values: 1) demographic analyses of the 1970 Public Use Samples of the census that acknowledge the disadvantaged economic position of Mexican Americans; 2) studies that are beginning to measure empirically the family dynamics of Mexican Americans; and 3) family planning studies that attempt to examine the interaction between health care delivery systems and Mexican American contraceptive behavior. Trained and experienced Chicana researchers are needed to offset the male orientation and ethnocentrism that have characterized the social sciences.^ieng