Honors Thesis Archive

AuthorEleanor V. Wenner
TitleIssues Impacting Female Self-Sufficiency in Young Adulthood
DepartmentPsychology
AdvisorMary Jo Zembar
Year2021
HonorsUniversity Honors
Full TextView Thesis (556 KB)
AbstractSelf-sufficiency can be defined as a state in which one has enough resources to care for herself and/or her family. With information from a focus group study (ThinkTank, 2019) and other regional agencies, 17 barriers to self-sufficiency were identified in a group of women. In this study, these 17 will be further narrowed to three or four barriers that, if addressed, would positively impact the women in this county. It is hypothesized that participants will rank childcare, parenting support, and financial literacy as the barriers that would make the greatest positive impact and that participants will rank chronic disease, reproductive health, and women in prison (in terms of both themselves and women in their lives) as the barriers that, if addressed, would make the least positive change. In the present study, participants were shown a wheel with the 17 barriers and then asked to rank the three with the largest and three with the least impact. Participants gave a higher rank value for greatest positive change to mental health, fair living wages, and career planning. Participants gave a higher rank value for least positive change to women in prison, housing, and transportation. Future research is needed to further narrow down the barriers that agencies should focus on within this particular area.

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