Balance of Life: Causes and Effects of Work-Family Balance in Employed Parents (Malaysia Context)
Introduction:
According to ((1997), “the transition of gender inequality and gender roles away from traditional to modern gender role expectations has been observed to constitute cultural universals that affect the work-family interface”. The steady growth in dual-earner families has been accompanied by the growing number of educated women who participate in the urban, organized, industrial sector in technical, professional, and managerial positions ( 1997; 1992). Men have been led to identify themselves in terms of the work role while women have identified themselves with the family role. This is caused by the gender role expectations and gender-based socialization. The participation of women in the paid employment has been seen as the forerunner of changes in gender relations within the family, reflected in the term new families. The concept of new families can be described as 1) egalitarian norms of family relationships, 2) equitable distribution of domestic labor and 3) shared decision-making patterns and gender free perceptions. Women are taking on new roles in the society as more and more of them get educated. Globalization has played an important part in the new gender role inside the family. More families nowadays are composed of dual earners – both parents are working. There is also an increase in terms of single parenthood, forcing women to join the workforce to support the family.
Research Problem:
One of the problems I encountered is the lack of sufficient research to explore the possible causes/antecedents and outcomes of work-family balance in previous research such as job characteristics and organizational and individual initiatives that could enhance control over work and family roles. The previous research dealt with only three sets of antecedents of Work-Family Balance – Personality, Role environment comprising role experiences and Role involvement. Also, my study revealed that recent researches on the subject matter have been limited to mainly the western culture context only. Comparable studies in non-Western context are very limited. There are different factors and predicators that underlie the conflict and facilitation components of work-family balance that the previous research failed to identify and discuss. The available Resources are based on Western context and western culture, which is a lot different from the subject of my study. The previous research presented theories that are based on the researches made in the Western Countries.
Significance of the Research Topic:
The study aims to identify the causes and effects of Work – Family Balance in employed parents in Malaysia. More specifically the study is intended for the following:
Research Gap;
Previous researches represent partial depictions of the experiences of individuals who are involved in the daily negotiation of work and family demands. The conflict and stress inherent in managing work and family responsibilities have been shown to be counterbalanced by the psychological benefits that stem from participating in the work and family domains (1998). Researchers have drawn attention to the need to complement the focus on conflict by examining how work and family experiences enrich the lives pf individuals through the conceptual lens of work-family balance or integration ( 1998). Research on work-family conflict has been conducted primarily in Western industrialized nations, most notably the United States, but economic and business globalization has made work-family issues increasingly important in developing countries. There are very limited researches that tackle work-family issues in the Asian Region particularly in Malaysia. This study will focus on the sources of work-family conflict in the Malaysian Society. It will also tackle the antecedents and effects of work-family balance to employed parents in Malaysia.
Literature Review:
Research on work-family conflict has been conducted primarily in western industrialized nations, most notably the United States, but economic and business globalization has made work-family issues increasingly important in developing countries (2000). According to (1992), Employment problems are more acute in developing nations where employment opportunities are limited. Multinational companies need to be aware of cultural influences on their operations and to develop culturally appropriate strategies to deal with work-family conflict and its effects (1991:1984).The relationship between employees’ work lives and their no work pursuits has undergone recent scrutiny (1977; 1980). The problem of balancing work and family arises from work-family conflict, which reflects a mutual incompatibility between the demands of the work role and the demands of the family role. Due to the time pressures and role overload experienced by women in dual-earner relationships, their partners are facing increased pressures to assume a larger share of the responsibilities for home maintenance and child rearing. According to (1992), balancing the demands of work and family roles has become a principal daily task for many employed adults, in part because of changes in employee demographic characteristics and societal attitudes about work and family”. According to (1995), work family conflict can be defined as a type of inter-role conflict wherein some responsibilities from work and family domains are not compatible and have negative influence on an employee’s work situation. (1981), has observed that employees who experience “interaction fatigue” at work may withdraw from personal contact at home.
(1994) indicate that there is considerable conflict generated in families as work experiences spillover into family life and vice versa, because more and more women are entering the workforce than ever before. It has been reported that large families produce conflict primarily for women whose husbands are highly involved in their own career works (1989). (1996) indicate that work family conflict is related to workplace consequences such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction and intention to leave the organization. Adams et al found had a similar finding stressing the relation of work-family conflict to job related attitudes such as job satisfaction, job distress and turnover. Conflict happens when engagement in a job and family role contributes harmfully to each other ( 2001). Reducing work-family conflict may positively affect some important organizational outcomes such as performance ( 2001). It has been reported that employees make adjustments in their home lives rather than their work lives ( 1992). Organizations can benefit from reducing work-role overload since because it has been negatively related to work performance, commitment and satisfaction (1987). Adopting policies and implementing programs that will directly reduce work-family conflict can be used to build commitment (1995). Affective commitment describes the level of loyalty between the person and their employing organization ( 1990). (1992) support the view that family-work conflict is related to workplace consequences as well as non-work attitudes and behaviors.
Research Questions:
1. What is the impact of the causes/antecedents of work-family balance?
Hypothesis:
Theoretical Framework:
Role Theory has provided the theoretical framework for research on the work family interface. Through role enactment, roles provide not only form and structure to social relationships among individuals but also the means to achieve important internalized life goals ( 1987). Two competing perspectives, scarcity and expansion-enhancement, have been used to examine the process of participation in multiple roles. The assumption on scarcity perspective is that individuals have a fixed amount of psychological and physiological resources to expend on their role obligations, and involvement in multiple roles will exhaust these resources and ultimately impair one’s functioning. In contrast, the expansion-enhancement perspective focuses on the net positive gains to be obtained from involvement in multiple roles.
Work-Family Conflict
Work-Family Conflict
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