IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v75y2012i2p401-409.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Class, gender and culture in the experience of menopause. A comparative survey in Tunisia and France

Author

Listed:
  • Delanoë, Daniel
  • Hajri, Selma
  • Bachelot, Annie
  • Mahfoudh Draoui, Dorra
  • Hassoun, Danielle
  • Marsicano, Elise
  • Ringa, Virginie

Abstract

The experience of menopause can vary strongly from one society to another: frequency of hot flushes, other somatic and psychological symptoms, and changes in family and social relations. Several studies have shown that country of residence, country of birth, ethnicity, and social class all play roles in these variations. But few comparative anthropological studies have analysed the social processes that construct the experience of menopause or considered menopausal women's social and financial autonomy. To study the impact of the social status accorded to menopausal women and their social resources, during 2007 and 2008 we conducted a series of 75 in-depth interviews with women in different sociocultural settings: Tunisian women in Tunisia, Tunisian women in France, and French women in France, all aged from 45 to 70 years. Our methodological approach to the data included content analysis, typology development and socio-demographic analysis. Quite substantial differences appeared, as a function of social class and cultural environment. We identified three principal experiences of menopause. Tunisian working class women, in Tunisia and France, experience menopause with intense symptoms and strong feelings of social degradation. Among Tunisian middle-class women in both countries, menopause was most often accompanied by a severe decline in aesthetic and social value but few symptoms. For most of the French women, menopause involved few symptoms and little change in their social value. The distribution of types of experiences according to social but not geographic or national factors indicates that, in the populations studied here, the differences in symptoms are not biologically determined. Different experiences of menopause are linked to social class and to the degree of male domination. A given level of independence and emancipation allows women an identity beyond their reproductive function and a status unimpaired by menopause.

Suggested Citation

  • Delanoë, Daniel & Hajri, Selma & Bachelot, Annie & Mahfoudh Draoui, Dorra & Hassoun, Danielle & Marsicano, Elise & Ringa, Virginie, 2012. "Class, gender and culture in the experience of menopause. A comparative survey in Tunisia and France," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 401-409.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:2:p:401-409
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.02.051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612002730
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.02.051?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avis, Nancy E. & Stellato, Rebecca & Crawford, Sybil & Bromberger, Joyce & Ganz, Patricia & Cain, Virginia & Kagawa-Singer, Marjorie, 2001. "Is there a menopausal syndrome? Menopausal status and symptoms across racial/ethnic groups," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 345-356, February.
    2. Veerle Miranda, 2011. "Cooking, Caring and Volunteering: Unpaid Work Around the World," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 116, OECD Publishing.
    3. Michel, Joanna L. & Mahady, Gail B. & Veliz, Mario & Soejarto, Doel D. & Caceres, Armando, 2006. "Symptoms, attitudes and treatment choices surrounding menopause among the Q'eqchi Maya of Livingston, Guatemala," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 732-742, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carol Atkinson & Fiona Carmichael & Jo Duberley, 2021. "The Menopause Taboo at Work: Examining Women’s Embodied Experiences of Menopause in the UK Police Service," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(4), pages 657-676, August.
    2. Clare Butler, 2020. "Managing the Menopause through ‘Abjection Work’: When Boobs Can Become Embarrassingly Useful, Again," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(4), pages 696-712, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hozer-Koćmiel Marta & Kuźmiński Wojciech, 2020. "Modelling Unpaid Housework Time in Poland on the Basis of a Time Use Survey," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 20(1), pages 177-189, June.
    2. Del Carpio, Ximena & Nguyen, Ha & Wang, Liang Choon, 2012. "Does the minimum wage affect employment ? evidence from the manufacturing sector in Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6147, The World Bank.
    3. Bridgman, Benjamin & Duernecker, Georg & Herrendorf, Berthold, 2018. "Structural transformation, marketization, and household production around the world," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 102-126.
    4. Bernhard Hammer & Alexia Prskawetz & Inga Freund, 2013. "Reallocation of Resources Across Age in a Comparative European Setting. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 13," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46865, April.
    5. Sonali Chakraborty, 2019. "Contribution of the Unpaid Family Labour in the Handloom Sector of Textile Industry in West Bengal," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 62(4), pages 693-713, December.
    6. Lili Vargha & Róbert Iván Gál & Michelle O. Crosby-Nagy, 2017. "Household production and consumption over the life cycle: National Time Transfer Accounts in 14 European countries," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(32), pages 905-944.
    7. Michel, Joanna L. & Mahady, Gail B. & Veliz, Mario & Soejarto, Doel D. & Caceres, Armando, 2006. "Symptoms, attitudes and treatment choices surrounding menopause among the Q'eqchi Maya of Livingston, Guatemala," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 732-742, August.
    8. Olivier Thévenon & Angela Luci, 2012. "Reconciling Work, Family and Child Outcomes: What Implications for Family Support Policies?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 31(6), pages 855-882, December.
    9. Gerlinde Verbist & Michael Föster & Vaalavou, M., 2013. "GINI DP 74: The Impact of Publicly Provided Services on the Distribution of Resources: Review of New Results and Methods," GINI Discussion Papers 74, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    10. Aresu, Simone & Monfardini, Patrizio, 2023. "Oppressed by consumerism: The emancipatory role of household accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    11. Subha Mani, 2014. "Socioeconomic Determinants of Child Health: Empirical Evidence from Indonesia," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 81-104, March.
    12. Kar-Fai Gee, 2015. "Development of Estimates for Household Production of Non-Market Services in OECD Countries for the Index of Economic Well-Being," CSLS Research Reports 2015-09, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    13. International Monetary Fund, 2015. "Hungary: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2015/093, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Hélène Couprie & Elisabeth Cudeville & Catherine Sofer, 2015. "Efficiency versus Stereotypes: an Experiment in Domestic Production," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01162474, HAL.
    15. Naidu, Sirisha C., 2011. "Rural Livelihoods, Forest Access and Time Use: A Study of Forest Communities in Northwest India," MPRA Paper 31060, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Elżbieta Grochans & Małgorzata Szkup & Artur Kotwas & Jacek Kopeć & Beata Karakiewicz & Anna Jurczak, 2018. "Analysis of Sociodemographic, Psychological, and Genetic Factors Contributing to Depressive symptoms in Pre-, Peri- and Postmenopausal Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-15, April.
    17. Thoresen, Thor O. & Vattø, Trine E., 2019. "An up-to-date joint labor supply and child care choice model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 51-73.
    18. Lucie Martin & Liam Delaney & Orla Doyle, 2022. "Everyday Administrative Burdens and Inequality," Working Papers 202202, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    19. Uchida, Hirotsugu & Onozaka, Yuko & Morita, Tamaki & Managi, Shunsuke, 2014. "Demand for ecolabeled seafood in the Japanese market: A conjoint analysis of the impact of information and interaction with other labels," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 68-76.
    20. Sophie Ponthieux, 2014. "L’inégalité des revenus d’activité et les niveaux de vie des femmes et des hommes - Une comparaison entre cinq pays de l’Union européenne," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 469(1), pages 85-119.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:2:p:401-409. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.