The Obstacles of Happiness from the View of Female-headed Households of Tehran

Abstract

Abstract This research is aimed at studying the statements of family-headed women about their lives; happiness and unhappiness, their background and consequences. Happiness and Unhappiness are emotions that influence performance and productivity, social relations, social trust, and social interactions and cooperation of people and prepare the ground for social integration and solidarity. In most researches family-headed women are a deprived social group and are mentally and materialistically at risk. This is a qualitative research. We applied semi-structured and deep interview to get theoretical saturation. This research investigated the causes, the ways to confront and the consequences of happiness and unhappiness through deep interview with 30 family-headed women in Tehran. The findings of the research demonstrated that the obstacles of happiness interfere with the family-headed women’s lives in different ways and finally results in an imposed and optional exclusion. Inappropriate conditions of the past and the present and predicting a disturbed future prepare the ground for reducing happiness, create opposition measures such as depression, mental and spiritual stresses and sense of injustice and lead to consequences such as feeling injustice about oneself and social exclusion.

Keywords

• happiness
• depression
• injustice
• social exclusion
• unfairness