Uncovering the Work-Family Interface: The Impact of Facilitators and Stressors on the Health of Farm Women

Work-family interface (WFI) theory has identified many stressors that influence work-family dynamics from the standpoint of employees. However, work-family facilitators, as well as the effects of gender differences and the impact of sociocultural environments that differ from a formal employment situation, have received much less attention. Our research aimed to fill these theoretical gaps by analyzing the facilitators and stressors involved in work-family dynamics and determining their consequences for farm women's physical, psychological, and social health. We used a qualitative method with a grounded theory design to collect data via semi-structured interviews with 46 farm women from the region of Araucanía in Chile. Our results explain how facilitators, stressors, and outcomes take place in a process of work-family balance that, paradoxically, implies exhausting journeys, a gender-based overload, a risk of diffuse body pain and distress, and a lack of time for personal healthcare and productive autonomy. Addressing these issues requires a comprehensive approach involving improved healthcare infrastructure and services focused on changing the pressures that the farming WFI exerts on rural women.

Design and study of psychometric properties of the Community Attitude to Abortion Scale (CAAS) with the Chilean population: Autonomy and Stigma

Introduction

Attitudes toward abortion are related to structural, cultural, and direct gender-based violence. This violence can affect women's mental, physical and reproductive health. Therefore, it is essential to know the nature of community attitudes toward abortion. Since we currently do not have an instrument that measures attitudes towards abortion in Chile, we set the objective of this study to design the Community Attitude to Abortion Scale (CAAS) and analyze its psychometric properties in a Chilean community population.

Methods

This work is an instrumental design study. Using a sampling of panelists by sociodemographic quotas, we obtained a sample of 1,223 participants with a mean age of 36.7 years (SD = 13.56).

Results

As a result, we obtained a scale of 18 items and two correlated factors, Autonomy and Stigma. This structure fits better as an Exploratory Structural Equations Model (ESEM). Both factors have excellent internal consistency. In addition, we obtained evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity: The scores on the factors of the Universal Religious Involvement Scale (I-E12) correlated negatively with Autonomy and positively with Stigma; participants with low levels of identification with a right-wing political orientation, with high levels of identification with a leftwing, pro-feminist, pro-LGBTQ +, and pro-euthanasia political orientation, obtained higher mean scores on Autonomy and lower on Stigma.

Discussion

The CAAS is an adequate tool for use with the Chilean community population, with evidence of consistency and validity. La CAAS is the first tool to measure attitudes to abortion in this country.