Marital Stress among Working Class Women in Kwara State, Nigeria: Implications for Counselling Practice

Abstract

This study investigated the sources of marital stress among working class women in Kwara State, Nigeria. The study also examined the influence of age, type of marriage, and length of years in service on the respondents’ views. The study employed a descriptive survey method. A total of 422 working class women in Kwara State were selected from a population size of 7,237 through a multi-stage sampling procedure. The participants responded to a researcher-designed questionnaire entitled ‘Sources of Marital Stress Questionnaire (SMSQ)’. The validity of the instrument was done by a team of experts (5) from the Department of Counsellor Education, University of Ilorin and the reliability was established using test re-test reliability method, which yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.65. The data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics at 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that the sources of marital stress of working class women were sexual incompatibility with their spouses, financial constraints, in-laws’ interference, and religious differences among others. Results further indicated that there were significant differences in the sources of marital stress among working class women in Kwara State on the bases of age, type of marriage and length of years in marriage. In view of the findings of this study, it was concluded that the sources of marital stress among working class women were numerous. Recommendations were made that counsellors should assist working class women to cope with their sexual incompatibilities with their spouses through appropriate counseling services.