| چکیده انگلیسی مقاله |
Background: The shift towards increased workforce participation by women, especially mothers, has given rise to intriguing questions about the potential implications for their children's development. This study aims to contribute to this discourse by comparing positivity, empathy, and personality traits of adolescent girls with working and non-working mothers.
Methods: This was a descriptive correlational study which was carried out in Karaj Province- Iran in 2022. The subjects were 118 students aged 14 – 18 from two separate high schools in an urban area who were recruited by multi stage cluster random sampling. The sample was divided into two groups of students of working mothers (n=56) and non-working mothers (n=62). The data were collected by the Davis Empathy Questionnaire, Positive psychotherapy inventory (PPTI), Big five questionnaire-children (BFQ-C) and the researcher-made questionnaire of the mother's employment status. The Pearson correlation coefficient, MANOVA, chi-square test and t-test were used for data analysis in SPSS 25. The significance level was set at P<0.05.
Results: Girls with working mothers exhibited higher empathy levels (69.43±8.75) compared to those with non-working mothers (61.77±7.68) (P <0.05). Similarly, positivity scores were higher for girls with working mothers (57.29 ±9.00) than those with non-working mothers (44.13± 12.02) (P <0.05). Significant differences were also found in the five major personality traits, so that the girls with working-mothers had higher mean scores (233.1±20.40) than those with non-working-mothers (183.2±20.23) (P <0.05).
Conclusion: The study revealed that maternal employment may exert a significant positive influence on the development of empathy, positivity, and personality traits in adolescent girls. These findings underline the potential social and psychological benefits of maternal employment, with implications for understanding adolescent developmental outcomes in the context of family dynamics. Further research is needed to explore these relationships in greater depth, taking into account additional environmental and familial variables.
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