Mental Health and Emotional maturity of Dalit Working and Non-Working Women

In Indian society, caste is a major determinant of social status. It largely determines the life options and alternatives. The dalit form is known as a large proportion of the lowest caste. Social segregation, rituals of purity and different culture are the origins of differential access to education, health, nutrition, employment etc. In some places, the position of women is highly compromised, they carry the dual burden of being a dalit and a woman with full of responsibilities. The present study was conducted to measure the mental health and emotional maturity of dalit working and non- working women. The total sample comprised of 45 dalit women each from the two categories (i.e. working and non-working). The sample was randomly selected. The mental health inventory developed by Jagdish and A.K Srivastava (1983) was used to assess the mental health of the participants. Further, Emotional maturity scale developed by Singh and Bhargava (1988) was administered to measure the emotional maturity of women. The result shows that there were highly significant differences in all dimension of emotional maturity except only one social maladjustment.  Similarly, there was also found a highly significant difference on mental health.