Haredi women, haredi men, stress and distress

Abstract

This report examines data from interviews with 179 strictly-orthodox Jews living in London. The impetus was a debate in this journal on the question whether men or women in the strictly-orthodox (haredi) community are more stressed. Many of the observations made in this journal on the quality of life among haredi men and women in Israel were borne out among the strictly-orthodox London Jews interviewed. Quantitatively, severe stress and clinical levels of depression and anxiety were similar among the men and women studied, but women had overall more eventful lives than men, and were more likely to suffer from borderline depression and anxiety--though these differences were only marginally significant. It is suggested that the London sample studied were probably similar to haredim in Israel, and that the findings might therefore be applicable.