STRESS, COPING AND DISEASE AMONG GERMAN FARM WOMEN

This article describes how strong physical and mental stress among farmers' wives is also reflected in their physical complaints and diseases. The divergence between the amount of complaints mentioned and the amount of diseases - which at first glance looks like a discrepancy between the two - becomes plausible and understandable against the background of traditional altitudes to work and the specific situation of women in a family-run enterprise, who are still the last to be allowed a rest. Traditional attitudes prevent an individually-orientated approach to health. It has been demonstrated that the causes of stress, which contribute to the bad health of farmers' wives, are beyond their control: they are the result of the modernization of society. This identity stress has a particularly strong impact in the case of larger and more modern farms.