Constructing respectability from disfavoured social positions: exploring young femininities and health as shaped by marginalisation and social context. A qualitative study in Northern Sweden

ABSTRACT

Background: Gender, class and living conditions shape health and illness. However, few studies have investigated constructs of femininity in relation to health and living conditions among young women who are unemployed and marginalised at an early age.

Objective: The aim of this research was to elucidate constructs of femininities in relation to structuring living conditions and expressions of health in Northern Swedish women. The time period of interest was the transition from unemployed teenagers to young adults in a social context of high unemployment and societal change across the critical ‘school-to-work-transition’ period of the life course.

Methods: Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse data from repeated interviews with unemployed young women, aged 16–33 years, during the 1980s and 1990s. These longitudinal interviews were part of a cohort study in a ‘remote’ municipality in Northern Sweden that began in 1981. All girls who were not in education, employment, or training were selected for interview. An inductive analysis phase was followed by a theoretically informed phase. The contextual frame is the Nordic welfare-state model and the ‘caring state’ with its particular focus on basic and secondary education, and women’s participation in the labour market. This focus paralleled high rates of youth unemployment in northern Sweden during the study period.

Results: The results are presented as the theme of ‘constructing respectability from disfavoured social positions’. Within this theme, and framed by dominant norms of patriarchal femininity, we explored the constructs of normative and altruistic, norm-breaking, and troubled femininity.

Conclusions: Gender-sensitive interventions are needed to strengthen young women’s further education and positions in the labour market and to preventing exposure to violence. More research on health experiences related to the multitude of constructs of femininities in various social contexts and across the life course is needed to help design and implement such interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• femininity
• gender
• femmephobia
• respectability
• agency within structures
• youth unemployment
• public health
• qualitative interviews
• Sweden

Responsible Editor Maria Emmelin, Umeå University, Sweden.

Special Issue Gender and Health Inequality

Responsible Editor Maria Emmelin, Umeå University, Sweden.

Special Issue Gender and Health Inequality

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the participants in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics and consent

The study has been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants gave their informed consent for study participation and publication. Ethical approval was received from the ethics committees at Uppsala University and Umeå University, as well as from the Regional Ethical Review Board in Umeå (latest Dnr 2012-69-31M).

Paper context

Marginalised and unemployed young women have a vulnerable position in society and poor health. Few studies have investigated constructs of femininity in relation to health and living conditions among young marginalised women. The study explores how marginalised women construct normative and altruistic, norm-breaking, and troubled femininity; and how they strive to construct ‘respectability’ from disfavoured social positions. Gender-sensitive interventions need to strengthen girls’ and young women’s positions in society, and prevent exposure to violence.

Additional information

Funding

The study was financed by the Swedish Research Council Formas dnr 259-2012-37 and the Swedish Research Council dnr 344-2011-5478. The funders did not take part in the research.

Notes on contributors

Maria Wiklund

AH was responsible for the overall project and performed the data collection. All authors (MW, CA and AH) analysed and interpreted the data, and were contributors in writing and revising the manuscript, with MW assuming primary responsibility. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.