Emergence of women’s resilience in interaction with demographic conditions: a comparative analysis of five countries

This research examines women’s resilience in China, Germany, India, Japan and the USA through the lens of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The research examines how multiple social, economic and cultural characteristics come together to influence women’s capacity to cope with adversity, focusing on conditions such as place of residence, income level, family size, education, employment and age. The CAS paradigm emphasises how women’s resilience develops from the dynamic interplay of human agency and structural constraints and the adaptive methods they use in response to changing circumstances. The findings show that there are differences across countries in the conditions under which women’s resilience emerges, including urbanisation, income, extended family structure and employment in China; extended family structure in India; education level in Germany and the USA; and different interactions of each condition in Japan. These findings suggest that women’s resilience is influenced by each country’s unique socio-economic and cultural conditions. This comparative research emphasises the need to increase access to education, employment, and social work in order to enhance women’s resilience and address global gender inequalities, drawing particular attention to the supportive role of the social services discipline in assisting vulnerable groups.