A Study On Work-Life Balance Of Women Employed In Teaching Profession

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ABSTRACT

In India changing societal attitudes, inflation and rising educational levels made more women than ever before to drive into the paid workforce. The Indian women, who were confined only to the socially acceptable jobs like banks, teaching, nursing etc., are now stepping into various sectors.

Irrespective of education, income and employment, professional women in India are still doing three jobs – office, housework and child care. Professional women hardly find space for themselves to accomplish basic necessity of life like adequate sleep, exercise and a healthy diet. Domestic pressure, stress at work, child mental or physical distress due to lack of attention adds on to the psychological effect among working mothers. They also find it difficult to make up for the loss of experience and hence maternity leave can cause a major setback to their career advancement and personal growth.

The purpose is to arrive at suggestions and recommendations to improve the work life balance among women employees in order to increase the efficiency level.

To know how working female teachers manage their work life and family life. To gain an insight into current working time policies and practices, as well as work-life balance issues in private colleges of Mumbai, India.

INTRODUCTION

Liberalisation, extending Privatisation and Globalisation policy has created a drastic change in an Indian economy in the past twenty years. More women are venturing into areas that were traditionally dominated by men. Women have now become a visible part of the workforce. Work Life Balance of Women employee has become an important subject since the women are equally sharing the earning responsibility for the betterment of their family. Women are getting into jobs and they continue to work even after marriage. A married woman has more responsibility than man in taking care of young children and family. The working women efficiently overcome difficult situations by their commitment and perseverance. The participation of women in income generation activities lends them to satisfy their home needs to a greater extent. This paper aims to review the existing literature on Work Life Balance of Women Employee with an identification of various characteristics towards the achievement of WLB.

What is Work Life Balance?

Work-life balance refers to the level to which an employee experiences feeling fulfilled and having his or her needs met in both work and non-work aspects of life. Through experiencing greater work-life balance, individuals details feeling better in general (e.g., greater job and life satisfaction) and tend to behave in favourable ways (e.g., lower turnover and absenteeism).

Need for ensuring work-life balance of female employees

(a) Being able to effectively manage multiple responsibilities at home, work and in the community without guilt or regret.
(b) Being part of a supportive workplace that values and trusts staff.
(c) A good quality of life
(d) An enjoyable work life and career progression

Family Purpose of the study

This project is based on the work life balance prevailing among women employees working in private colleges in the city of Mumbai. An attempt is made to analyse the company’s performance through the employees’ satisfaction about the work life balance. The purpose was to arrive at suggestions and recommendations to improve the work life balance among women employees in order to increase the efficiency level.

Statement of the problem

One first needs to understand about work life imbalance, as with the understanding of the origin, causes and effects of this imbalance, the balancing act becomes easier. Due to this work pressure it becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain a family life. This study aims at identifying the level of work life balance among women faculties in private colleges in Mumbai, India.

Objectives of the study

To know how working female teachers manage their work life and family life.
To gain an insight into current working time policies and practices, as well as work-life balance issues in private colleges of Mumbai, India.
To understand the stress level of working female teachers at work place.
(To give recommendations to the Management to improve work life balance among women employees working in private colleges.

Statement of Hypothesis

Null Hypothesis Ho: There is no significant difference between women taking work home and women working more than agreed number of hours in private sector colleges.
Alternative Hypothesis H1: There is significant difference between Women taking work home and women working more than agreed number of hours in private sector colleges.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Work Life Balance means the competence to schedule the hours of an individual Professional and Personal life so as to lead a healthy and peaceful life. It emphasizes the values, attitudes and beliefs of women regarding their age to work in organizing and balancing their work and personal life. (K. Santhana Lakshmi and S. Sujatha Gopinath, March 2013). The following variables influencing the experience of WLB were identified while reviewing the various literatures.

Krishna Reddy and Vranda (2010) discuss the issues of Family and Work Conflict and Work Family Conflict are more likely to exert negative influences in the family domain, resulting in lower life satisfaction and greater internal conflict within the family variables impact the experience of WFC and FWC.

While the conflict between work and family may be inevitable, researchers such as Friedman and Greenhaus (2000) suggest alternative methods for reducing the stress. For example, more autonomy in the workplace and networking with peers can increase the quality of work life.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The present research is conclusive, descriptive and based on single-cross sectional design. Quantitative data was generated to test the research hypothesis.

In order to collect data on the dimensions of the study, a research instrument was designed. The study was conducted on private college’s teachers in Mumbai with the sample size 120. At colleges level data was collected from professional courses, as college’s faculty at professional level. Appropriate design gains an insight into the “how” and “why” of teachers attaining work-life balance. A research instrument designed for the purpose was personally administered to the teachers through personal interview and survey through questionnaire.

FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY

84% of the respondents feel that they are able to achieve work-life balance to a great extent
87% of the female teachers are satisfied with the working hours
Maximum female teachers i.e., 57% occasionally work on holidays or overtime
77% of the female teachers sometimes miss out their family and friends time
83% of the female teachers state that their institution doesn’t take initiatives of employee work life balance
63% of the female teachers sometimes feel tired and depressed due to work
73% of female teachers agree with the fact that the institution involves family members in at reward functions
53% of the female teachers are happy with the amount time spent on working
70% of the female teachers say that their institution’s management is approachable.
All the female teachers state that they are provided with health care programs by the institution but not any other facilities.
Maximum female teachers devote more of their time to job related activities then that of the family.

Conclusion

With dual career couples widely prevalent in this modern era, there is a need for systematic research into the nature of work-life conflict and further insight is required into ways by which the work-home interface can be more effectively managed. Considerably more research is needed to gain additional insight into the meaning and consequences of work–family balance. This study was able to measure employees’ work–life balance and found weekly hours of work and the stress associated with work were very important determinants of employees’ work–life balance, alongside their occupations, age and caring responsibilities. Conflicts in work-life balance of working women affects their health who report more stress, headaches, muscle tension, weight gain and depress than their male counterparts. Juggling between the obligations towards the families and expectations of the organisation and constant struggle to maintain a balance between work and family can have serious implications on the life of an individual by affecting their well-being and overall quality of life. There is a widespread demand from employees for the right to balance work and home life in today’s busy world where finding time for oneself seems impossible. Health and wellness programs can, for sure help working women in balancing their personal and professional life. But they alone cannot be the answer to addressing the problems of imbalance. The problems and difficulties of women are multi-dimensional as evident from the literature reviewed; therefore, they require further probing to help working women in balancing their work and family life. Indeed, women in the work place can be blessings only when both family as well as organization will receive proper service from them and they will be able to contribute to both family as well as organization only when the origination will ensure flexible working hours (roistered days off and family friendly starting and finishing times), transport facility, residential facility, child care center, flexible work arrangements/ job sharing, reduced working hours and workload and child.

To conclude, there can be no debate on the fact that work life balance is essential and important for a stress free and fulfilling life, especially for a woman. Juggling between the burden, obligations and responsibilities of work and multiple family roles, balancing becomes an uphill and an ongoing task for teaching professionals, as much as, if not more than any other working woman. The findings of the study can justify its utility since knowing the faculty members precisely and reaching out to them in the effective way, is the key to minimize stress. The study can also direct employers of institution to evolve flexible work strategies and provide better working conditions which will help in overcoming stress in faculty members to some extent.

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