Jared Wilkerson and Dr. Niwako Yamawaki, Psychology

Rural Mexican communities near Irapuato, Guanajuato are an ideal place to discover the effects of migration on a population. This area of Mexico contains many villages known as “sending communities” due to a high number of migrants who mostly travel to and from the United States. These sending communities are unique in that those who leave are almost solely men and almost solely temporary migrants—that is, even if they are married or have children, they migrate alone, and not with the intent of long-term residence or attempts at citizenship. When men leave wives and children at home to become migrant earners, relationships and normal family roles are interrupted. Responsibilities, daily activities, discipline, and happiness can be modified when a father and husband is absent from the home. This project targets one group in this migrant milieu: the wives of migrant husbands. It attempts to discover what, if anything, actually changes in a woman’s happiness, and gender role, and attitudes toward traditional gender roles ideology when a she becomes a stay-at-home wife with a migrant husband.

The hypotheses of this project are that: 1) wives of husbands who migrate (migrant sending group) will be more androgynous, or gender-equal, in their gender role attitudes and behaviors than wives of husbands that do not migrate (non-migrant sending group) and 2) general mental health, including anxiety and depression, self-esteem, and life satisfaction will be lower worse in the migrant sending group than the non-migrant sending group. The need for a project such as this is evident in the current literature on gender role change. That gender roles and ideologies in fact change is an established fact in psychology (Wentworth & Chell, 2005) . How gender roles and ideologies change is usually seen to be a matter of thingsresult of factors such as age, religious involvement (in certain religions), education, and workforce participation (Manning, 1997) . It has been postulated that migration creates situations that may lead to psychological distress,, not only in those who migrate, but also in those who remain at home (Aguilera-Guzmán, Salgado de Snyder, Romero, & Medina-Mora, 2004) . Studies of gender ideology change have been carried out on women migrants themselves (see Salgado de Snyder, 1987 for an example) , but the literature is lacking in the description of women who stay in the home country while their husbands migrate. This study is meant to begin filling that literary hole.

The design of this study is a two-group posttest-only design without random assignment, but with random selection. That is, the migrant sending group was tested after the husbands in the migrantthat group had established a pattern of migration. Women were not randomly assigned to groups, because it would have been impossible to assign husbands to women and determine which husbands would migrate and which would not. There were 47 women in each group, from a total of five villages. Originally, 50 women were selected from the migrant group, but three women within this group refused participation in the study. There were exactly 47 women in the non-migrant group. All in that group were selected and all participated. Women in each group received testing on four two scaled questionnaires: The General Health Questionnaire-12, which measures general mental health; the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; the Satisfaction with Life Scale; and the Gender Ideology Scale. QAll questionnaires were administered orally by the researcher (some participants could not read) to individual participants at their homes. Informed consent was received either by listening to an explanation by the investigator, or by listening and also reading the consent form (for those who could read). Consent forms were signed by all women capable of signature, and also by the investigator. Further, 56 women were chosen by the investigator to participate in a time census. This consisted in asking women what activities they participated in on a normal day from the time they awoke in the morning to the time they went to bed at night. Women in the migrant group also were asked to compare their normal daily activities when their husband is present to their normal daily activities when he is absent.

To test the effect of husbands’ migration on their wives’ attitudes toward gender role traditionality and psychological well-being, a multivariate analysis (MANOVA), using husband’s migrant status (sending vs. non-sending) as an independent variable, was performed on gender role traditionality and psychological well-being. In agreement with the hypotheses, there was a main effect of husband’s migrant status (Wilk’s Λ = .62, F [2, 91] = 27.69, p < .0001, r = .38) on the dependent variables. The follow-up univariate tests showed that participants whose husbands migrated tended to endorse greater egalitarian gender-role attitudes (F [1, 92] = 52.67, p < .0001, r = .36) and worse psychological well-being (F [1, 92] = 7.70, p < .01, r = .80) than did participants whose husbands do not migrate. The mediational hypothesis was that the difference in husbands’ immigrant status in regards to wives’ psychological well-being would be accounted for by country differences in GRT. To test this hypothesis, a mediation analysis was performed. This analysis demonstrated that there were significant mediated effects of husbands’ migrant status on wives’ psychological well-being via the effects of GRT (p < .01, one-tailed). Analysis of the data has begun, but is not complete. Preliminary statistical analyses of the 94 questionnaires have indicated that both hypotheses are supported. That is, between-group differences in gender role ideology were found to be significant. Further, general mental health, specifically depression and anxiety are higher among the migrant group. Preliminary analysis of the time censuses indicate that the daily activities of women rarely change when their husband is absent, unless the family owns livestock, farmland, or both. If the family owns livestock and/or farmland, the husband is always responsible for it while he is home, but when he leaves, the responsibility often rolls onto the shoulders of the wife. Aside Further, aside from daily activities, many of the 56 women indicated a decrease in the physical health and discipline of their children.

This project has attempted to explore a the little-studied situation of wives of migrantssituation. The results, though not completely analyzed, are beginning to point to the absence of husbands as a reason for the increase of gender-equal attitudes and a decrease in mental health among women. The data suggest that women’s mental health is affected both directly by husbands’ absence and by the mediating effects of a change in gender role attitudes. It may be postulated that women in the migrant group are driven toward a more stressful and responsibility-laden lifestyle when their husbands are gone, leading them to undertake traditionally male jobs and chores. As predicted by cognitive dissonance theory, acting outside of their traditional gender role can pushlikely leads women to think beyond their gender roleadopt attitudes in line with their actions, leading to ideology change (see Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959) . The accumulation accumulative effects of responsibilitieschanged gender role attitudes while still living in a traditional society, along with worries for an absent husband in a foreign land, and for missinglacking marital support can lead a woman toward lower mental health, including especially depression and anxiety. More research is needed to support or refute these proposed processesis proposal because t.his finding does not concur with American literature, which predicts an increase in mental health when women adopt androgynous attitudes.

References

• Wentworth, D.K., & Chell, R. M. (2005). Gender identity at home: comparing the role of househusband to housewife. In Lee, Janice W. (Ed.), Psychology of gender identity. (pp. 113-126.) Hauppauge, NY: Nova Biomedical Books.
• Manning, C.J. (1997). Women in a divided church: liberal and conservative Catholic women negotiate changing gender roles. Sociology of Religion, 58 (4), 375-390.
• Aguilera-Guzmán, Salgado de Snyder, Romero, & Medina-Mora. (2004). Paternal absence and international migration: stressors and compensators associated with the mental health of Mexican teenagers of rural origin. Adolescence, 39 (156).
• Salgado de Snyder VN. (1987). Factors associated with acculturative stress and depressive symptomatology among married Mexican immigrant women. Psychology of Women Quarterly. 11, 475-488.
• Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J.M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210.