Illness and the Legitimation of Failure

In achievement oriented societies one may use illness to justify failure to fulfill socially prescribed role obligations. This hypothesis is tested on two samples of welfare mothers and one sample of working class black women. Many welfare mothers accept the dominant cultural view that being on welfare is a result of personal failure. When women accept this view and give up hope of getting off welfare, they are prone to adopt the sick role to legitimize their self-defined failure. Women who can no longer justify their dependency by the presence of pre-school children are particularly likely to make this adjustment. We conclude that the sick role may offer substitute status for one who lacks other socially approved statuses. Furthermore, we show that women who viewed themselves as inadequate wives and mothers were more likely to define their health as poor than those satisfied with their performance in these roles.