a study of the problems facing the girls and women between 18 to 50 years of age in mashhad and the factors involved

the purpose of this article is to study the problems facing the girls and women between 18 and 50 years of age in the city of mashhad. the number of the subjects was 470, and sampling was done in two stages and randomly and based on a reasonable proportion. the problems were described using foul- indices: absolute depravation, relative depravation, general depravation and self actualization deficiency. in the statistical society under study, the typical woman was about 31 years old, housewife, belonging to a lower middle class. whose husband had only one wife, completing grade 10 of high school, with an average of two children, whose first child was born ten years ago. the subjects described their problems to be economic, social, cultural, legal and natural, and in that order. they considered themselves as deprived from all the three forms of depravity, deprived from an economical point of view, deprived from others' support and deprived from educational opportunities, and in that order. as the ages of women in the sample increases, the degree of their depravity increases loo, while the degree of their absolute depravity is directly linked with tl7eir education. they consider studying as an escape from their problems, most ol' which are economic. an improvement in the present economic state has the greatest role in decreasing all forms of depravity, and the father's level of education, has the greatest reverse relationship with selfactucili/.ation deficiency in unmarried cirls and women.