DETERMINANTS OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE FOR WORKING MOTHERS

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vibhuti Tripathi ◽  
Sakshi Misra Shukla ◽  
Kadambari Randev
Keyword(s):  
Working Mothers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Working Mother ◽  
Main Research

Despite the growing prominence in the work force, working mothers are still found to be juggling hard between work and family responsibilities with their increasing share of dilemmas and disparities. The paper studies the determinants of work life balance of working mothers and the potential sources of stress specific to working mothers and their consequences. The study addresses the main research objective which was to find out solutions to ease the dilemma that a working mother encounters while dividing her energy and capabilities between parenting, work, relationships and self. The survey was conducted in the city of Allahabad and 100 working mothers were surveyed on a structured questionnaire. SPSS software was used to analyze the data with the help of statistical tools like frequency, cross tabulation, chi square and Z test. The major findings of the survey highlighted that working mothers are mostly stressed with their primary responsibility of motherhood to the extent of forgetting one’s own well-being and physical health. The study recommends significant ways to balance work and family and achieve the most desired contentment of a working mother. The study reassures working mothers by reinventing, evolving and transitioning positively through the trials of working motherhood with knowledge, practice, strength and fulfillment. The modern work environment needs to reconsider the special needs of this working population, changing its orientation from male dominance to gender neutrality and parenting friendly behavior. Last but not the least, the family as a whole, needs to adjust accordingly, to the needs of the working mother so as to allow a healthier family to develop and grow consistently.

scholarly journals Balancing Work Life and Family Life: Problems and Remedies

Pravaha ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-232
Author(s):  
Tej Narayan Prasad Nepali
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Time Management ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Simple Task ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
Life Balance

Work- family balance” is a term that refers to an individual’s perceptions of the degree to which s/he is experiencing positive relationships between work and family roles, where the relationships are viewed as compatible and at equilibrium with each other. Like a fulcrum measuring the daily shifting weights of time and energy allocation between work and family life, the term, “workfamily balance,” provides a metaphor to countervail the historical notion that work and family relationships can often be competing, at odds, and conflicting.There was a time when the boundaries between work and home were fairly clear. Today, however, work is likely to invade our personal life — and maintaining work-life balance is no simple task. Family work balance is a complex issue that involves financial values, gender roles, career path, time management and many other factors. Every person and couple will have their own preferences and needs. The problem of maintaining a balance between work life and family life is not a new one. But in the recent few years social scientists have started paying more attention to it. Now there is growing concern in Nepal and experts are of the view that a constant struggle to balance both sets of life will have serious implications on the health of an employee.The seriousness of this problem increases many times in the cases of women workers in our society which is a traditional one and where women are still supposed to have greater family responsibilities. They are expected to look after their children, entertaining the guest, taking care of their parents, in laws and other elderly members of their families as also managing kitchen and other household affairs. Neglecting any of these responsibilities for the sake of discharging work in office or in other institutions where they are employed is not tolerated by their husbands and other male members of the society. We talk of women empowerment but we fail to understand the problems which working women are facing in the tradition bound society like of ours. The study is a pioneering work to investigate into this problem. It is a modest attempt to understand the manner in which women workers try to maintain balance between their work and family lives. The study also explores the ways and means by which female workers can be enabled to maintain proper balance between the two sets of their lives. The findings of this study may be of great use to employers, and business executives as well, who have now come to realize that the responsibility to maintain a healthy work life balance rests on both the organisation and employee. Pravaha Vol. 24, No. 1, 2018, Page: 217-232

scholarly journals Highly Skilled South Asian Migrant Women in Australia: Hidden Economic Assets

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 130
Author(s):  
Najia Syed ◽  
Cathy Banwell ◽  
Tehzeeb Zulfiqar
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Work Skills ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Economic Assets

Finding a balance between work and family life is challenging for many women, particularly migrant women living in Australia without family support. This study provides insights into their dilemmas, difficulties and strengths in terms of household responsibilities and employment pressures. Design: Qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with ten South Asian skilled mothers living in Canberra, Australia. Findings: Participants were positive about contributing to their family’s income and gaining financial independence. However, as skilled migrant women, they struggled to use their work skills due to increased demands of domestic responsibilities. They often negotiated work and family life by seeking low-prospect careers. Conclusion: The socio-cultural factors faced by South Asian migrant women have a significant impact on their work-life balance. Deskilling, increased work pressures and lack of support may negatively impact their career aspirations and well-being. Flexible policies can help mitigate these barriers to help migrant women maintain a work-life balance.

scholarly journals Influence of sense of coherence on work-life balance at the South African public service

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abe N. Ethel ◽  
Ziska Fields ◽  
Atiku O. Sulaiman
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Sense Of Coherence ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
The South ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
Life Balance

The inability of workers to achieve balance between work and family responsibilities has led to heightened incidence of illnesses associated with stress. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the role of Sense of Coherence (SOC) on the achievement of work life balance by focusing on individual managers at a municipality in the South African public service. These individual managers often struggle with work-life balance (WLB) challenges like HIV/AIDS, relational tension, single parenthood, child and elder care, alcohol and substance abuse, debt and financial issues, absence of job autonomy, function vagueness/role conflict and job stress. A sequential transformative mixed methods research design is adopted. Data were collected using self-report questionnaire administered to 364 individual managers; additional eleven members of top management were interviewed. Quantitative data gathered are analyzed using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 to test the reliability and validity of the instrument as well as the bivariate association between the variables. NVIVO is used in organizing qualitative data for ease of content analysis. The findings indicate that SOC should be considered when designing strategies to address employee work-life needs. Furthermore, it confirmed that the presence of strong SOC does not lead to achievement of WLB

scholarly journals Juggling between work, studies and motherhood: The role of social support systems for the attainment of work–life balance

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustine Osei Boakye ◽  
Rebecca Dei Mensah ◽  
Magdalene Bartrop-Sackey ◽  
Patricia Muah
Keyword(s):  
Working Mothers ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Conservation Of Resources ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Managerial Implications

Orientation: In recent years, work–life balance has become one of the most important issues of interest to researchers and policymakers. Although women have been identified to be more at risk of work–life imbalance, little is known about the work–life balance pursuits of women who study in addition to their work in non-Western contexts.Research purpose: Drawing from the ecological system theory and the conservation of resources theory, this study explored the lived experiences of women who study in addition to their work to understand how they achieve work–life balance.Motivation for the study: The views of working mothers on how they strive to balance their work, studies and motherhood can influence the development and implementation of HR policies that empower women to climb the upper echelon of organisations.Research approach/design and method: Six respondents knowledgeable on the subject were recruited with snowball sampling and further interviewed.Main findings: Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts revealed work flexibility, co-worker support, supportive supervisor, supportive family and programmed work–life as the main themes, which explained how working mothers maintained a sense of well-being. Cardinal amongst the themes was the synergistic role of extended family members.Practical/managerial implications: Organisations are encouraged to develop and implement family-friendly policies that can promote healthy well-being of its workforce whilst facilitating the training and development of women.Contribution/value-add: This study contributes to work–family literature by providing empirical evidence from a non-Western context as previous research was predominantly conducted in Western contexts.

scholarly journals Gender, availability and dual emancipation in the Swedish ICT sector

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Line Holth ◽  
Ann Bergman ◽  
Robert MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Career Development ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Competing Demands

Set in the context of the Swedish state’s agenda of dual emancipation for women and men, the article shows how a global ICT consultancy company’s formal gender equality goal is undermined by competing demands. Employing the concept of availability, in preference to work–life balance, the research found women opted out of roles requiring high degrees of spatial and temporal availability for work, in favour of roles more easily combined with family responsibilities. Such choices led to poor career development, plus the loss of technological expertise and confidence. These outcomes were at odds with the company’s gender equality aims, as well as government objectives to make it easier for women and men to combine work and family, and increase the number of women within ICT.

Work/Life Balance

Sociology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misun Lim ◽  
Joya Misra
Keyword(s):  
Poor Quality ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
Worker Turnover ◽  
Work Family

There are many different ways to define work–life balance. Some scholars emphasize that work–life balance requires balancing demands of both paid work and family responsibilities or maximizing satisfaction by minimizing conflict between paid work and family responsibilities. Others view work–life balance as encompassing the way that boundaries blur between work, family, and leisure time. In attempting to address work–life balance, workers are generally trying to preserve both quality of life, and potential for career advancements, while employers are trying to preserve high productivity and reduce worker turnover. Although the term “work–life balance” is widely used, alternative terms are also employed, such as work–family balance, work–life integration, work–life harmonization, or work–life articulation. Research on attempts to manage paid work along with family and other parts of life has been carried out for decades. Yet this scholarship has exploded in the last two decades, particularly as middle-class women have increased their workforce participation, but also work is being carried out during nonstandard hours, technology is creating more permeability between work and home, and union protections have been weakened. Work–life balance efforts may lead to poor-quality jobs in terms of earnings, job security, working time and promotion opportunities, rather than long-term quality employment over the life course that allows for leisure and family time. Research on work–life balance should take structural, rather than individual approaches, to consider workplace cultures, including by occupation and gender inequality, and recognize the different assumptions underlying policies aimed at addressing work–life balance.

Work, Life, and Im/balance: Policies, Practices and Performativities of Academic Well-being

Somatechnics ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Saltmarsh ◽  
Holly Randell-Moon
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Tertiary Sector ◽  
Family Responsibilities ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Policy Narratives ◽  
Policies And Programs ◽  
Personal Interests ◽  
Australian Universities

Work-life balance policies have become a ubiquitous feature of university strategies for formally recognising that employees have personal interests, ties and obligations beyond those of the workplace. However, rationales for work-life balance policies and programs in Australian universities predominantly link personal health, well-being and family responsibilities to imperatives for a more productive and competitive tertiary sector. In this paper, we call for an encounter between work-life balance policies, everyday organisational practices and the performativities of academic subjects. Informed by poststructuralist theories of institutionality, governmentality and subjectivity, we draw on personal and policy narratives to argue that ‘well-being’ is a construct through which the risky humanity of academic subjects is not only managed, but also appropriated into normative discourses of obligatory productivity and self-governance. Informed by Sara Ahmed's recent work on the cultural politics of emotion and in particular, what she terms the obligation or ‘duty to happiness’, we consider how academic performativities are implicated in discursive fictions that equate work-life balance with personal and organisational well-being.

scholarly journals Strengthening of work-life balance while working remotely in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Živilė Stankevičiūtė ◽  
Svetlana Kunskaja
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Remote Work ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
Manager Support ◽  
Family Demands

BACKGROUND: Recently, quite a number of employees have been asked to choose remote work or even have been forced into it as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding the benefits suggested by remote working, e.g. saving on commuting time and expenses working from home generates numerous challenges for employees, including the blurred line between the roles of working and private life. While, previous studies have demonstrated that work-life balance, which refers to the ability of every individual to coordinate work and family obligations successfully, has a significant impact on employee well-being and organisational performance, ways for maintaining the balance under crisis remain underexplored. OBJECTIVE: Trying to narrow the gap, the paper aims at revealing the antecedents of work-life balance while working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A quantitative survey has been conducted in Lithuania (pilot study). The data have been collected from the employees working only remotely. RESULTS: The results provided evidence that employees struggled with work-home balance while working remotely. In line with the results, work and family demands served as detrimental factors for work-home balance, while manager support, co-workers support, job autonomy, and job control increased work-home balance. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, the research results expand the knowledge on the antecedents of work-life balance in a crisis situation. Moreover, the findings have significant implications for employers demonstrating that organisations need to carefully plan and implement new strategies and practices for work-home balance improvement for the employees who work from home.

scholarly journals Work-life balance in Higher Education: a systematic review of the impact on the well-being of teachers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciane Silva Franco ◽  
Claudia Tania Picinin ◽  
Luiz Alberto Pilatti ◽  
Antonio Carlos Franco
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Software Tools ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Systematic Review Methodology ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The work-life balance needs to be exercised by individuals who perform functions in the fields of work and family, including Higher Education teachers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the work-life balance in Higher Education and the impact on the well-being of teachers. Based on a systematic review of 53 articles retrieved from the ScienceDirect, Scopus and Web of Science from 2005 to 2020, this article has a rigorous systematic review methodology using the Mendeley and EndNote software tools. The VOSviewer and Microsoft Excel software tools were also used in the following techniques: citation analysis and co-ocurrence of terms/words. In addition, main topics discussed about the work-life balance among Higher Education teachers, research areas, field of activity and SWOT analysis (opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses) were identified in the literature. Findings suggest that gender inequality, stress level at work and the absence of a healthy workplace impact on the work-life balance and consequently on the well-being of Higher Education teachers.

Work Life Balance and Job Satisfaction - A Structural Equation Modeling

GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 156-162
Author(s):  
Dr. D. Shoba ◽  
Dr. G. Suganthi
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Study Results

Work-Life balance has its importance from ancient days and the concept is very old, from the day the world has been created. There was a drastic change that has occurred in the market of teachers and their personal profiles. There are tremendous changes in various families which have bartered from the ‘breadwinner’ role of traditional men to single parent families and dual earning couples. This study furnishes an insight into work life balance and job satisfaction of teachers working in School of Villupuram District. The sample comprises of 75 school teachers from Government and private schools in Villupuram District. The Study results that there is increasing mediating evidence in Work-life balance as well as Job satisfaction of teachers are not affected by the type of school in which they are working. Job satisfaction or Pleasure of life will be affected as a whole by Work life balance of an individual which is the main which can be calculated by construct of subjective well being.

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