Shanghai Urban Vulnerable Groups Of Women And Social Support

Disadvantaged population represents diverse groups of individuals who are experiencing economically poor and living in a low quality of life, their coping abilities are very weak. Poverty is the essential attribute of disadvantaged population. Most of the disadvantaged individuals are women, and their living conditions are so difficult that they are in need of helps and supports from the society. Social support includes emotional supports, informational supports, belonging supports and material aids that people receive from other individuals, social organizations or governments in the course of social interaction. Social support is critical for individuals to enhance their social adaptation, promote their quality of life, adjust their emotions and maintain their mental health.The participants in this study were 928 urban disadvantaged women in Shanghai. The purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics and the influencing factors of the social supports of this group. Disadvantaged women were found to maintain traditional informal social support networks, and they received more supports from their families and other people than from formal social support networks. Among the supports they received, affective supports were more than material supports, they received little informational supports from their social networks. The deficiency of social supports was the underlying causes that leads the disadvantaged women to be in vulnerable conditions, but their personalities were also important contributing factors: people who have higher self-esteem, are more sociable and have more stable emotions can receive more social supports from their social networks. There was significant positive correlation between social supports and emotions: people who received more social supports from their networks, had more positive emotions, less negative emotions, and their general happiness were higher. Compared with normal women populations, disadvantaged women had lower self-esteem, their emotions were less stable, and they received less social supports from their social networks.According to the results of this study, an ideal social support model that helps disadvantaged women to improve their quality of life was suggested: familial supports are the foundation of receiving other social supports; community supports are in the core of the support system, and play the most strong functions in helping individuals to break away from plight; market resources and occupational supports are the path that leads to a new life; relatives, neighbors, friends and colleagues are the promoters of their interests, who form the basis of an individual's social support over the life course; social security is the last support network that helps disadvantaged women to meet their basic needs in life. Educational supports, occupational supports and mental health services are critical for disadvantaged women to improve their lives, and can facilitate the development of community services.