Department of Community Medicine and Public Health, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenberg, Sweden.
Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being. 2011;6(3). doi: 10.3402/qhw.v6i3.5904. Epub 2011 Sep 5.
Several factors underline the issue of stress-related health among young highly educated women. Major societal changes might provide more new challenges with considerably changed and expanded roles than were expected by earlier generations, especially among women. The quantity of young women with higher education has also increased threefold in Sweden in less than two decades and there are a growing number of young women that hereby break with traditional gender positions and enter new occupational areas traditionally dominated by men. The research questions in the present study were: "What is the main concern, regarding stress and recovery, among young highly educated working women breaking with traditional gender positions and entering male-dominated occupational areas?" and "How do they handle this concern?" We conducted open-ended interviews with 20 informants, aged 23-29 years. The results showed that the synergy between highly ambitious individuals and a context overflowing with opportunities and demands ended up in the informants' constantly striving to find a balance in daily life (main concern). This concern refers to the respondents experiencing a constant overload of ambiguity and that they easily became entangled in a loop of stress and dysfunctional coping behavior, threatening the balance between stress and sufficient recovery. In order to handle this concern, the respondents used different strategies in balancing extensive ambition and a context overflowing with opportunities and demands (core category). This preliminary theoretical model deepens our understanding of how the increasing numbers of highly educated young women face complex living conditions endangering their possibility of maintaining health and work ability.
有几个因素突出了年轻高学历女性与压力相关的健康问题。重大的社会变革可能会带来更多新的挑战，与前几代人相比，角色发生了相当大的变化和扩展，尤其是女性。在不到二十年的时间里，瑞典受过高等教育的年轻女性人数增加了两倍，越来越多的年轻女性打破传统的性别角色，进入传统上由男性主导的职业领域。本研究的研究问题是：“对于打破传统性别角色、进入男性主导职业领域的年轻高学历职业女性来说，压力和恢复的主要关注点是什么？”以及“她们如何处理这个问题？”我们对 20 名年龄在 23-29 岁的受访者进行了开放式访谈。结果表明，高抱负的个人与充满机会和需求的环境之间的协同作用，导致受访者不断努力在日常生活中找到平衡（主要关注点）。这种关注是指受访者经历了持续的模糊性过载，并且他们很容易陷入压力和功能失调的应对行为的循环中，这威胁到了压力和足够恢复之间的平衡。为了处理这个问题，受访者在平衡广泛的抱负和充满机会和需求的环境方面使用了不同的策略（核心类别）。这个初步的理论模型加深了我们对越来越多的受过高等教育的年轻女性如何面对复杂的生活条件，危及她们保持健康和工作能力的可能性的理解。
