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Japanese social workers' healthy behaviours as related to masculinity: Focus on mental health workers and caregivers of children and nursing home residents
Author(s) -
Hirokawa Kumi,
Yagi Akihiro,
Miyata Yo
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/00207590244000160a
Subject(s) - masculinity , mental health , locus of control , psychology , public health , gerontology , medicine , nursing , psychiatry , social psychology , psychoanalysis
D ue to the rapid ageing of the Japanese population, the demand for social services is increasing. However, these professions are not generally recognized yet. According to the report by Kawata (1984, 1986), social workers were distressed by low pay and low recognition for the profession, an inflexible, hierarchical administration system, and staff shortages. However, few studies have focused on social workers' healthy behaviours. The present study focused on the healthy behaviours of Japanese social workers and examined the relationship of these habits to masculinity and femininity, in addition to gender differences. To identify the healthy behaviours of social workers, we compared the behaviours of 32 mental health workers and 63 caregivers to those of 91 members of the general public who attended a summer course. Four questionnaires were administered: health locus of control (Watanabe, 1985), healthy behaviours (Munakata, 1996), health state, and Masculinity‐Humanity‐Femininity scale (Ito, 1978). The results revealed that females scored higher in masculinity than males, and females tended to assess their health state as poorer and were more active in preventive health than males. Social workers practice preventive healthy behaviours more than the general public. Between the two types of social workers, mental health workers tend to rely on medical services and believe that health and sickness are matters of luck, whereas caregivers tend to believe they can control their health by themselves. In the health locus of control, external control was more closely associated with poor health than internal control, and it was negatively correlated with masculinity. As masculinity is related to healthy behaviours, it may be an important factor influencing them. Both masculinity and femininity could be desirable, not for only better caregiving but also for the social workers' own health.