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MORRIS I. BERKOWITZ
The data presented above is based upon information gathered from 35 households currently living within the new housing area, supplemented by information from depth interviews with some respondents. Of these 35 households, in 17 we interviewed both husband and wife, in an additional 16 we were able to interview only the wife, and in only two cases did we interview only the husband. In all cases, we will only use one respondent from each family for this analysis.
Willingness to Move and Present Happiness
The villagers report that they were overwhelmingly favorable to the idea of moving when it was first presented to them, although there were significant numbers who showed some reluctance. It would be tempting to conclude that life conditions in the village, which were undeniably harsh and economically marginal, had created this willingness, but such a conclusion may not be justifiable. It is quite possible that this retrospective happiness is an attempt to lessen psychological dissonance in the present: at least the prospect should be entertained. But with this reported willingness to move is a similarly reported unhappiness with living in the resettlement area. A majority of these respondents avow they are now unhappy and would prefer living in the villages.
Closer examination of the data reveal that twelve people (9 males and 3 females) prefer living in the resettlement area, 16 (6 M., 10 F.) preferred the village, and 7 were unwilling to choose or liked both equally (5 M. and 2 F.). The women are by far the more traditionally oriented and prefer the village despite the fact that their lives in the resettlement area are probably physically easier. The difference becomes more impressive when male employment figures are examined: five of the six males who would prefer returning to the village are currently unemployed. The ownership of additional flats, per se, in the resettlement area seems to have little or nothing to do with contentment, and one might be tempted as a result to say that the current dissatisfaction stems largely from non-economic grounds. This would be premature as there are many economic problems revealed in the interviews, but economics does not seem to be the only central issue. Supporting this preliminary conclusion are two other pieces of information: of the six men with no schooling, three preferred the village while of those men with schooling of any kind, only 3 of 10 preferred the former life.
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