A Study on Adolescent Girls (16-18 Years) of Their QOL of and Its Association with Socioeconomic Status and Family Type

I. INTRODUCTION

QOL is the concept that is developed in the recent times. This is gaining a huge popularity across the globe. This concept is widely discussed and has grabbed the attention of all researchers who are carrying out their research in different fields like psychology, biology, sociology, geography, medical science and other fields. This term is widely used to evaluate the key conditions of people living in communities as well as societies. This is used in different contexts and different fields like international development, economics, geography, healthcare and politics. This has become a prevailing issue. However, this should be bemused with the living standards of people, which is their income source. The standard QOL indicators should include income, job and also physical and psychological well-being, environmental in when they are up brought, education, entertainment, social belonging and free time (NCES, 2008). QOL is something that is defined as a subjective health. The importance of QOL was learnt in perceiving about the construct. QOL would help you to understand about the difference in age gap, the aspirations of people, desires, expectations of individuals and their current condition. Human adoption is very important that the lift span is adjusted to fit into the boundaries of the person and what he/she thinks would be possible for them. This will let the people who find it hard to live in their conditions to maintain a good QOL. QOL is totally depends on the understanding of life for the person based on the surroundings in which they are living like human circumstances would give you a meaning when is reflected and would create love, belief and increase legacy. On the other hand, QOL is the extent to which an individual would be enjoying the possibilities of their life. Possibilities would be related to their limitations and opportunities that everyone gets into their lives and that would reflect their interactivity with the personal and environmental elements that takes a toll on human conditions. There are two key components you find in enjoyment. Satisfaction level one would experience and achievements of key characteristics that are explained as “She enjoys good health”. The best meaning that is given for QOL differs from one person to another. The key thing that would explain about QOL is one‟s ability to enjoy the life that is given to a person. For example, the ability to jog, talk, see people and feels the things and on whole QOL is all about self and the environment around us.

other organizations has reported about social reports on a regular basis. These reports will be producing statistical and analytical changes that you find socially in their trends and how they are having an impact. The data presented would be on income, education, housing, medical care, consumption, and other areas. The time that is spent to gather and keep the data organized has become a key thing during 1960s (Baron and Byrne, 2004). However, with the development of tools the speed at which data is gathered has been increased. However, there is a lot of dissatisfaction observed and this gives limitations on economic factors and social health of citizens. There are myriad of reasons that are leading people to dissatisfaction. The first thing is the economic indicators, which are called as macro level indices. The data would be very helpful for planning at a huge scale and to analyze the social trends along with social amendments. They also explain about key elements in the society. The second factor is the economic welfare, which is the welfare of a person that would come from economic sources and is very much related to the economic activities that are not enough to explain and assess the life circumstances of an individual. The third, i.e. economic objectives are found to be given high priority due to the response received for economic indicators. However, there is lack of social objectives, which would play a major role in the society. The proponents that are gathered are called as social indicators or markers that are focused totally on economic indicators to assess the social trends and changes are too narrow. The argument was conducted on systematic gathering of data about social parameters which are very helpful for projecting, anticipating and analyzing to learn about the outcome of social trends along with changes for making policies and evaluating various other policies. The direction of research is collectively called as Social Indicators Movement. The people who are supporting the social indicator movement would provide you with statistical information, be it related to economic changes or the changes that are happening in the society, which would act as proxy and promote welfare development (Berk, 2003). One can use a social indicator to evaluate the lives of people dwelling in the society and their richness. A common social indicator would be connected to the welfare of the people in the society and also with the people living in the other societies. One can connect narrow indicators with specific groups of people in the society. When this blend with economic indicator, social indicator will give a clear cut idea about the social and individual welfare of the people. processes and methodology that was followed to meet the objectives. Quickly, this has become a different and wider field with a key difference in the approach, objective and methodology that are followed. There are no specific criteria to define about the issue or choice of the subject or to gather information. The social indicators reform has slowly started to divide into key areas that have little or nothing in common. This happened due to the quick development of social indicators research (Hurlock, 1988). In addition, the significance for its development has come from information, specifications that are related to key social decision making issues over organized clarification in conceptual approach and methodological background. One key area to develop in this field is QOL research. This has two key elements that played a major role in dividing this area. The first thing that comes is the subject to research on social indicators and the next is about methodology. On the flip side, focus on social indicators movement has been widened. The common question that arises is how to measure the social indicators. There are many projects that are done, but none of them having nothing to do with gauging the citizens‟ welfare. Few stated that the research should not be confined with the indicators that are appropriate for the welfare, since this would limit the variables range that is taken into consideration. Social indicators are used in a wide range of applications in the recent times. However, there are few other applications that are used to measure the welfare of citizens who promote a better society. This area is known as QOL research. The direction in which the research is conducted is more likely related to design and applications for QOL indices, which tried to present the welfare of people in some aspects or domains of their lives (Knox, 1975)

The three main life domains that are found include: Being, becoming and belonging. These three are the key domains that you find for QOL and these are developed from the insights that are gained from the other writers. The Being domain would have primary elements which tell about “who one is” and is sub-divided into three domains namely: Physical Being will have the views about physical well-being, hygiene of a person, nutritional factor, exercises, clothing, grooming and how he/she looks. Psychological Being would have key aspects about psychological health of a person, cognitions,

Belonging would tell about the person who fits perfectly in the environment and has three key domains Physical Belonging is a kind of connect that a person establishes with the environment, i.e. home, workplace, neighborhood, community, society and school.

Becoming is the activities that are carried out purposefully to attain personal goals, targets, needs, desires and milestones Practical Becoming would show the path that is taken by the people every day to attain goals from the actors like domestic activities that are taken up, paid work, service done at school, volunteer activities that are performed by the people to attain the milestones to meeting social needs. Leisure Becoming is a series of activities that would alleviate mental and physical stress and allow you to relax. These activities would include games, walks, outings, and family gatherings, long duration activities like going in a holiday or vacation. Growth Becoming would help you to increase your knowledge and skills like giving lectures, seminars and taking part in skill development activities The approach that is taken to measure QOL will take you from a place where are many domains to live. Every domain will give a key contribution that would boost the whole assessment of QOL. The headings would surround family, friends, work, community, education, health and spiritual activities. The key approach to measure QOL will define from position to the domains in which one is living. Every domain will contribute to assess QOL. Those domains are- family, friends, work, and community, health, spiritual and educational. The Centre for Health Promotion Conceptual Model is applicable to people who have and do not have any kind of development disabilities. This was started after doing a thorough analysis on the QOL literature and data that is gathered in the forced group after conducted extensive interviews with the

The conceptual framework would depend totally on life domains which would have three key sub-domains. There include:

• Promote personal health • Personal hygiene • Grooming and clothing • Nutrition • Exercise • Physical appearance • Promote Psychological health and adjustment • Cognition • Self-esteem, self-concept and self-control • Personal values • Personal standards of conduct • Spiritual beliefs Belonging (Related with one’s environment) • home • workplace or school • neighborhood • community

• intimate others • family • friends • co-workers • neighborhood and community

• Enough family income • Perform good health and social service programs • community events and activities Becoming (achieving personal goals, targets and aspirations):

• activities carried in the house • paid work • school or volunteer activities • seeing to health or social needs

• Few of the activities that would help you get relieved from the stress and promote relaxation include sports, books, music and relaxing activities

• Activities that help you to improve and hone your knowledge and skills • Easy to embrace change In this study, researcher has added few indicators.

It is really complicated to define the relationship that is established between adolescence and QOL. Adolescence is the individual age when he/she is growing up from a child to man or woman. During this age, an individual will gain maturity in their thinking. This maturity will develop them as an individual and give them the power to achieve things with confidence. This is also a period that will be marked as the most important phase of a person‟s life, since they need to balance both as a child and as an adult. After observing the teenagers and different age group people, it was found that no individual can be treated as still a kid in this age and also people like being treated so (Laird, et. al., 1998). The individual will turn so matured, but cannot be classified as an adult. The process of transformation from a child to adult is called as adolescent. H. Stanley was the first one to give a clear picture about this phase of life and explained about key traits, gradations and peculiarities. The definition that is given in dictionary term is:

Adolescence is the time that appears suddenly in a specific phase of life where life reaches to the peaks. This age will give you ample opportunities to try new experiences, explore new relationships which the individual have not experience in their earlier life. This boosts the inner abilities and strength of individual. Adolescence is the time to see many possibilities, risks and threats. This is also the phase when youngsters would get confused to identify themselves as a kid of adults. This is the age where they get wings to see what life is and without crossing the boundaries of ethics and customs. With freedom to explore things comes great responsibility to build a good society. There are a few rules that a person has to follow and the conditions should confirm that they are too strong. Adolescence will be seen as a new beginning to the young world that will show you clear signs of transformation from a child who was dependent to a strong adult. These transformations would continue to become sexually mature too. By this phase, people would have reached to their maximum height and have reached their mental growth that is measured conducted different intelligence tests.

Early adolescence (9-13years): This is the age where you can see slight growth followed by the development in your sexual characteristics. Middle adolescence (14-15 years): This is the age that shows the difference in development that is identified by parents; establish new relationships with the other groups and the opposite sex. Experimentation is also a key trait found in this phase. Late adolescence (16-19 years): This is the phase where adolescence is completed developed in physical traits and has formed a different identity and also has different opinions and ideas. Adolescence is the time, whether a child or individual would be affected by QOL of the individual of the people who belong to 16 to 18 years age group, since these people will be having the traits of both children and adults. When the child steps into the phase, teachers would expect the child to behave like adults in every situation and also like a child. On the flip side, the young adults are completely under social pressure to follow norms which are unclear for them as a child and as an adult. Adolescents will be adjusting to the demands of parents, teachers, and society and peer groups while coping up with the biological, physical and physiological changes that are happening within them (Papalia, 1993). considered as a perfect QOL when compared to others who fail do so such. Adolescence is the period where individual as a child or an adult would have an impact on QOL of girls, since parameters as an adult would be different to that of children. When the child steps into this phase, parents and teachers would expect them to behave like adults in a few situations and as a child in few other situations. On the other hand, young adults would be under social pressure to follow norms that are totally vague for children and adults. Adolescents will adjust to the parent, teacher, society and peer group demands while coping up with biological, physiological and physical changes that they are going through. When the complete aspects are consolidated, they will create an influence on QOL on the pubescent individual. People who get adapted to all these insistences and transformations, they supposed to gain great QOL while others will be unsuccessful in having a good QOL.

Family is the primary sociable association where a person stands separated from. Family has a couple where they live along with their two or three children. As per the context of sociologists, family holds enhanced importance in the society because of the reason family is the fundamental communal interrelation of few persons (parents) and their children. Family takes complete care of the individual by teaching them with all the social values and responsibilities. A person allocates maximum time with his/her family, poignant to their identity and leveraging modern practices where those are transmitted only by looking at some others in the other social group. A family is considered as most crucial factor in the society and will be main conception for the development of civilization in the society. As per the view of Schaefer “family is a small social group where they are connected by blood, wedding or through taking the responsibility of others for propagation and considering the values of others in the society” (Papalia, 1993). QOL of a person is mainly considered on the family group that they belong to, surrounding culture, the environment where they live and with the family perception where these all will create impact on the conduct of the individual. When all the family members hold the characteristics of being more affectionate, loving then automatically the coming generation people also will hold the same features and for those families the QOL will be more positive. While

arguments between family members all these will reflect in low QOL. When there happens any kind of critical situations or misunderstandings between family members, then the complete family will stand as great support to reduce the issues between members. Family will be the cornerstone to deal with the complications whenever required. More particular in the scenario of youngsters, family holds great responsibility to take care as because this is the age where they will be more in mental pressure, confused and family should guide them towards correct path. For a person, there exists both affectionate and substantial feelings and family should take care of all those. So, to get accustomed to the society practices and activities, a family should be more supportive to their children and let them to handle the situations in a peaceful manner. The meaning and structure for family has completely altered from the past 5 decades where joint families live with grandparents, grandsons and daughters, uncle and aunts and those got separated as individual families who live with parents and their children. In this contemporary period, a new kind of family group gets existed where parents are earning income and living with only one child. These days, there are many kinds of family groups came into existence where they complete change the definition of what a family means and in realistic scenario the meaning is very unclear.

This is the conventional type of family. This is the family where there exist two parents and only their offspring. Most often, nuclear families exist in society and they will be independent as because they need to develop their children. Offspring's of nuclear families holds very clear features, habits, and strength from both their parents and commonly holds great chances as because of economical relaxation of their parents. Parents try to spend most of their time with children and their problems are clearly discusses and it is closed assemblage.

Single parent families in the society are most common in these days where these families consist of father and mother together with their children and they take their offspring responsibility by their own. The family members here are too closely related and they discover various methods to solve their family problems like breaking down the work into different parts and everyone takes up tasks. Despite all these, there exists some sort of empty space in these

The structure of joint family looks to be bigger but there exist multiple nuclear families where every family works towards achieving their own goals and tasks like taking care of their children and manage their everyday activities. Mostly joint families consist of grandparents, parents, grandsons, granddaughters, uncle, aunts, niece, nephew and many others where all people will leave together. Extended families exist in society as because of economical complications or due to previous relations are not able to manage their own activities. As there exists various nuclear families within a single family the thoughts of one youngster in the family many create affect with the thoughts of other individual and these may result in quarrels.

So, coming to the definition of family, a childless family correctly suits with the meaning where the family consists of grown up persons and children. At the same time, these families consist of couples who think to not have children or who have no chance of giving birth to children. Childless families are sometimes the & quot; abondoned family, " as these families will not come up with the conventional strategies and assumptions put forth by the society. Childless families have only wife and husband and they earn together for their livelihood progress. These families are also termed as DINKS (Double Income No Kids).

Step families are those where two individual families get consolidated as one. This consolidation may be either childless family or single parent family or some other type. Or there can also exist other types of families such as two separated parents either with one, two or more offspring merged families, or may be one separated parent with their children married to others who has no children. The structure of step families looks to be more complicated and there happens the scenario of separation of affection between adults from their parents. There may happen the situation of parents showing love towards only one side. The family seems to be one family, but they are separated. These all results create impact on the conduct of their children.

There come two types of grandparent families, where one is Grand Parent being the leading person in the family and other type is where grandparent is not considered as the main person of the family and only, they stand as support for the

Whereas in some situations, the misunderstandings of the people are neglected. So, these may result in people getting separated and also shows more complications in the family. One cannot judge which family type of family is right or which is wrong and what type of family structure goes well with the society needs. When the family has the nature of great love and affections, it holds great importance in the society and will be more valuable too. Family members should help for themselves and this can be accomplished when there exists utmost unity. So, there exists mainly five types of family structures where those are joint families, single parent families, nuclear families, step families and grandparent families. As the character of an individual mainly depends on the nature of family and family members, family holds more importance in the development of a person. Family educates how to behave in the society. The nature of family and family members decides the QOL.

SES means it decides the position of an individual in the society. SES is also the social status or category of a person. So, SES is the consolidation of family earnings, business and culture. There are multiple tools where those are used to calculate the SES and it is consolidation of both communal and socialistic variables. Most of the research investigations need analysis of socioeconomically position of the person or family. These outcomes the financial status, health condition, requirements and buying capability. Increased score of SES shows increased rate of self-pleasure. So, this shows that QOL is so close in relation with the SES or SES is also the determining factor of QOL for a person.

The observation was operated to find out the QOL of SSC girls, an analysis that corresponds such as Family type and financial status in the society. sector that has been accentuated and calculated in the past few years and will have more support in composing exertions to prepare for modern scenarios and enhance the QOL. As teenage is the course which is the merger of both passionate and substantial transformations, people endure for enhanced chaos of transforming passionately, their life activities and the nature of people show for them also gets changed. There requires some sort of activities to be done in order to get the analysis of QOL of the offspring or adults who suffers from diabetic or overweight or dealing with some other illness conditions. The studies those are considered these days will reflect the complete QOL of teenage girls in correspondence to some critical comparisons.

The method adopted for the present study was descriptive and statistical in nature. Such studies are designed to obtain pertinent and precise information concerning the current status of phenomena and whenever possible, to draw valid general conclusions from the facts discovered. They are restricted not only to fact finding but may often result in the formulation of important principles of knowledge and solution of significant problems concerning local, state, national and international issues. Descriptive studies are more than just a collection of data. They involve measurement, classification, analysis, and also collect and provide three types of information: i) Of what exists with respect to variables or conditions in situations. ii) Of what we want, by identifying standards or norms with which to compare the present conditions or what experts consider to be desirable. iii) Of how to achieve goals by exploring possible ways and means on the basis of experience of others on the opinion of experts. Descriptive studies investigate phenomena in their natural settings. Their purpose is both immediate and long range. They constitute a primitive type of research and do not aspire to develop an organized body of scientific laws. Such studies, however, provide information useful to the solution of local problems and data to form the basis of research of a more fundamental nature. To study the whole population is rather difficult and impractical. A statistical process called sampling makes it possible to draw useful inference or generalization on the bases of careful study of

selecting a small part or specimen of a large universe of subjects in order to study some quality or characteristic of the whole. So sampling is one of the most fundamental aspects of the total methodology followed in a particular research study. It is an act of determining how many elements in a population are to be sampled, and how to be selected. The sample of the present study consists of 50 students of senior secondary school level.

Socio-Economic Status Scale (Urban) By B. Kuppuswamy Was developed for only those subjects who reside in urban areas - This scale contains Manual Two information blanks (one for the person-concerned and second for the father or guardian) and Score card- The social stratification is based on three main variables: Education, Occupation and Income of the head of the household Table: Kuppuswamy’s Socio-Economic Status Scale Content Area Item no. Education of the Head 1-7 • Profession or Honors • Graduate or Post graduate • Intermediate or post high school • High school certificate • Middle school certificate • Primary school certificate • Illiterate Occupation of the Head 8-14 • Profession • Semi- Profession • Clerical, shop-owner, farmer • Skilled worker • Semi-Skilled worker • Unskilled worker • Unemployed

• 15,095 – 20,126 • 10,063 - 15,094 • 6,038 – 10,062 • 2,033 – 6,037 • ≤ 2,032

Of the three variables education and occupation of the head of the household do not change frequently with time. However the steady inflation and the resultant devaluation of the currency necessitate periodic revision of the income variable. The change in the income scale is proportional to the change in Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI values are interpreted with reference to a particular base year. The latest CPI available for August 2015 has been calculated taking 2001 as the base year. The range of scores which can be obtained is from 3 to27 – The norms which were established can only be applicable for urban population and cannot be used for a rural population. Types of family Questionnaire As family plays a very important role in forming the personality of an individual, it teaches one how to behave socially and help them to be accepted in the society. Different family type has different influence on its members, In the present study mainly five type of families are included which are nuclear family, extended or joint family, single parent family, step family and grandparent family.

After analyzing the purpose of the study the most appropriate statistical techniques were used namely Mean (M), Standard Deviation (SD), Standard Error of difference between the Means (SEM), t-test was used to see the significance of the difference between two means. Percentage of the qualitative data was used to find the relationship and draw conclusion. The present study was intended to study the various dimensions of QOL. To see the relation between QOL and correlates associated with this age group (adolescence).

On applying t-test it was found that there is no significant difference between the QOL of two age groups as the calculated value of „t‟ was found to be less than the table value of „t‟. Therefore we reject the null hypothesis. The extent of similarity between the QOL of the two samples may be attributed to the almost same age group. The age difference between the two samples is very less i.e. both are adolescents and thus have somewhat same kind of feelings and emotions about oneself and people around and surroundings. In order to study the relation between SES and QOL of adolescent girls, firstly the no of girls falling in different SES was counted and percentage was taken out. It was found that 50% of the girls were from the higher SES 34% from middle SES and 16% from lower SES.

The average QOL scores for respective SES groups were calculated. If was then found that girls from lower SES scored less on the QOL scale and as the SES raised the QOL scores were also increased simultaneously, which shows that QOL is closely related to ones SES. Thus we accept the null hypothesis.

On drawing a graph in which average QOL scores was taken along X axis and types of families were taken along Y axis. It was found that children coming from joint families scored more on the QOL scale in comparison to the girls coming from extended joint families, which may be attributed to the fact that in joint family adolescents receive the attention and love of parents as well as grandparents where as in extended joint family there are more number of elders and children and the attention of the elders is divided which results in low QOL scores. Adolescents of the nuclear families scored more in comparison to single parents which may again be attributed to the fact that attention of both a parents is very important in well-being of an individual. The lowest score on QOL scale was of the children living with their grandparent/parents.

From the above discussion it can be concluded that high SES and joint family type were the two correlates which affected the QOL of adolescent girls and the individual groups; moreover a significant relation was seen between the QOL of adolescent girls and the family type, and QOL and SES.As we know QOL is the product of the interplay among social, health, economic and environmental conditions which affect human and social development. Families which have Feministic approach are likely to be more happy and prosperous ones.

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Research Scholar, Department of Home Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh