Maternal Attitudes of Greek Migrant Women
| Published date | 01 March 1987 |
| Author | M. DIKAIOU,M. HARITOS‐FATOUROS,D. SAKKA |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.1987.tb00126.x |
| Date | 01 March 1987 |
Maternal Attitudes
of
Greek Migrant Women
M. DIKAIOU
*,
D. SAKKA,
M.
HARITOS-FATOUROS"
Studies dealing with migrant women and their attitudes towards children are compara-
tively rare. This is particularly true for cultural groups coming from Southern European
countries about which there is almost a complete lack of information. The few cases where
studies were initiated by a country of origin such as Italy (Saloutos, 1965
;
Lopreato, 1966),
or Greece (Bernard and Comitas, 1978
;
Collaros and Moussourou, 1978), they were based
on purely descriptive data, relative to the returnees'problems in general.
On the other hand, research in the receiving countries deals mainly with the psycho-
social conditions under which migrants are living and their various reactions
to
these
conditions (Inkeles and Smith, 1974; Florou, 1975
;
Beiser and Collomb, 198 1
;
Steinhau-
sen and Remschmidt, 1983), and is usually based on clinical and retrospective data.
Questions about the extent to which such conditions influence maternal attitudes, or
about the factors that might mediate such influences, and the characteristics of special
subgroups of migrant women, have not been explored. These however, are highly relevant
issues and can readily be appreciated if we consider the fact that in 197 1, the proportion of
female Greek workers in
W.
Germany covered 57.6% of the Greek migrant population
(Greek National Service
of
Statistics, 1975).
Some studies have shown that women live under particularly stressful psycho-social
conditions because of the fact that they have acute language problems and usually live in
ghetto conditions (Len, 1981
;
Lie, 1983; Defigou, 1984, Svob,
1984).
Most live in indus-
trialized suburbs and have strenous jobs; there are rare opportunities for social integration
and particular problems in combining work with domestic care and child rearing (Ber-
nard, 19.75; Sluzki, 1979). They feel generally insecure about their parental role and
pressurized by prejudices prevalent in the host country (Steinhausen and Remschmidt,
1983). However, difficulties continue for the migrant women even when they return
home. Here the absence of information for home conditions, the limited opportunities for
employment and the demands for re-adjustment to the old traditional values and ideas of
the home country, are some of the problems returnees are faced with (Collaros and
Moussourou, 1978).
*
Department
of
Philosophy, Education and Psychology, Aristotelian University
of
Thessaloniki,
Thessaloniki
54006,
Greec.
**
Aristotelian University
of
Thessaloniki, Greece.
73
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