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SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING AND AUTONOMY OF WOMEN
Abstract
Responding to the call of the times, women around the world are becoming more and more self-sufficient when it comes to matters of financial security and making key life-changing decisions. Therefore, it becomes important to study the influence this trend has on the populationВ’s well-being, and also to study what factors of this matter are pertinent to the well-being of women. Studies from across the world give reason to believe that, despite the fact that a number of studies confirm a positive correlation between autonomy, self-efficacy and SWB (social well-being), their correlation is influenced greatly by the local social and cultural norms, to the point of inverting their relation in some cases. Among other significant influencing factors are the individual differences of female participants. For example, openness to new experiences can determine their behavioral strategies pertaining to accepting gender norms that are connected to increased levels of self-efficacy and SWB. As a result, it is prudent to keep in mind that maintaining high SWB levels in the process of social, economic, and political integration of women requires a careful consideration of all the relevant factors. Our understanding of both the number of those factors and their properties are, at this time, insufficient, which calls for further research and analysis.
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