Work-family and work-life issues

Domestic violence has stems in Indian society because of women’s subordinate position relative to men in families and society. While some progress has undoubtedly made to decrease the violence, women in India continue to suffer from violence at homes mainly by their partners. Seeking to address the problem, this study tries to identify how does prevalence of spousal violence vary by educational and occupational status of women? What is the relationship between spousal violence and education? What type of occupation has stronger effect on spousal violence? Data for this study is Indian National Family Health Survey-3 (2005-06). The study shows that highly educated women experience less spousal violence as compare to uneducated women or women with less education. It has also been found here, working women were more likely to experience violence from their husbands. Further, violence is high among women who were agric employee or engaged in service or skilled or unskilled manual work. The interaction effect of education and occupation show that illiterate and working women experience more violence as compare to other interaction categories. Thus, the study points the seriousness of the issue and reveals that spousal violence against women is widespread and an alarming global concern.

Modernisation coupled with survival needs push women into jobs formerly dominated by men in Africa. This study examined married women’s involvement in one of these jobs and the implications on family structure in southwest Nigeria. Consequently, 150 copies questionnaires were purposively distributed among female bankers and complemented with 20 in-depth interview sessions in selected banks in Ado-Ekiti. Findings revealed that 72.0% remained in banking jobs so as to cater for their needs and that of their families. While 95.3% contributed financially to the family upkeep, majority of respondents’ spouses were not supportive of the job and about 80.7% quarrelled with their husbands over their job demands. However, 95.3 % were not willing to quit their jobs in spite of challenges faced. Further, 46.6% were able to cope with the rigors of family and work demands through house-helps; support from husbands (24.7%) and care givers. Chi-square results showed a significant relationship between income and continued stay in the job (p=001) while no significant relationship was found between women’s involvement in the job and separation/divorce. Women involvement in paid employment has affected women’s roles as mothers and wives. This change, however, may not affect the stability of their marriages

The process of urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa has had gendered consequences as economic, socio-cultural and environmental transformations have resulted in the greater intensification of women’s burdens compared to men’s. In such shifting contexts the combination of maternal productive and reproductive roles may be increasingly difficult which raises the question of how mothers cope with their multiple responsibilities. This research develops a greater understanding of the coping strategies adopted by mothers of young children in Accra, Ghana through the use of mixed methods. Qualitative data was analyzed according to Hall’s (1972) typology of coping mechanisms. Whilst a diversity of coping strategies was found to be employed by mothers, the majority of these were of a structural role redefinition approach. Of primary importance was the childcare strategy utilized. In order to quantitative investigate variation in the adoption of this coping strategy multinomial regression was performed on data from the Accra Urban Food and Nutritional Security Survey. This study found that mothers are active agents involved in the shaping of the expectations of their work and family roles. In particular the implementation of coping strategies, which vary by the age of their children allows them to reduce vulnerability.

The purpose of this study is to investigates the profiles of the busiest people in Korean Society. I have composed the typology of time experience in the population by combining paid work hours, an objective measure of time use, and subjective time pressure. Research questions are follows: 1) How prevalent people experience time shortage (especially for those who are workaholic or time complainers) in our society 2) Who are they? , and 3) Why do they feel harried (or not harried)? From the original 2009 Korea Time Use Survey, the study sample of 5,251 diary data from second shift family was selected. The results of CHAID revealed that about 14% of the sample was likely to experience long work hour- heavy time pressure (Type 1). About 22% of respondents were sorted as Workaholics (long work, less pressed), and 18% of workers were included in Time Complainer (short work, high pressure) Type. Most workaholic types were mechanics or small shop keepers, whose work requires more time consumption. The profiles of Time Complainers showed that they are likely to be in their 30’s-early 40’s with young children. Male time complainers were more educated, likely to have two jobs. Female time complainers were likely to be in service sectors, and were more likely to enjoy other leisure activities.

A large fraction of literature has devoted to gender studies, differences between sexes in the labor market are an established fact. Meanwhile, informality is large and persistent for most developing countries. Some authors link the women’s vulnerability and their customary child care activities, carried out by women, to higher rates of informality by women. However, recent trends in middle-income countries may pose a challenge to such results as women may be choosing formal jobs, over passing men. We present such result for the Colombian case, by using the NTA-gender methodology and a review of educational attainment, child labor and labor market statistics by gender. The massive increase in female education, the proliferation of child labor in paid activities, that “favor” boys over girls, and the rampant growth of the informal market, that includes illegal and profitable activities in Colombia, drive gender segregated decisions with the formal/informal duality in an unexpected way. That is, women working in the formal sector earn almost as much as men working in the informal sector. But women show at all ages larger consumption patterns of health, for which they prefer formal jobs that guarantee access to the social security system for them and their kids.

Child mortality rate in Nigeria is one of the highest in the world. Studies have shown that childhood diseases, poor management of these diseases and poor feeding practices are responsible for most of these deaths. Also, non-integration of women’s empowerment into policies aiming to improve child health is responsible for the persistent high rate.
The main objective of this study is to examine the relationship between female labour force participation and child health outcomes. Little work has been done in this area in developing countries, hence this study.
The study will employ primary and secondary data. Secondary data for the study will be extracted from the 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health survey (NDHS). Data on ever married women aged 15-49 years that have had at least a child within the last five years will be extracted for 6,790 women sampled in South West from the NDHS (2008).
Primary data will be obtained between 2nd and17th November 2012 through twenty (20) in-depth interviews of currently married women of childbearing age who have had at least a child within the last five years to complement the results from the secondary source. Data will be analyzed using appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics

This study is inspired by a query challenging whether marriage or marital status does matter to affect one’s happiness in the contexts of Thai society. It employs a set of secondary data from the “1st round Happiness Survey among Thai Workers” in 2012 in the analysis (n of the workers aged between 35-54 years =4,050).
Marital statuses are defined to be “single”, “married” and “ever married” (those widowed, separated, and divorced). Happiness scores are computed into two happiness composite scores; “self-outward happiness” (including the scores of happy heart, happy soul, happy society, happy work life and happy brain) and “self-inward happiness” (including the scores of happy money, happy relax, happy body and happy family).
Preliminary results reveal the significance of “marital status” in affecting happiness/unhappiness of individuals in the middle-aged. For self-outward happiness, the married individuals are more likely to be happy than those who are single. The ever-married are found more likely to be happy than the single. Looking at self-inward happiness, the married individuals are found more likely to be happy than the single individuals. Somehow, the significance is statistically weak at 10 % level. The ever-married individuals are least likely to be happy compared to other groups.

Although flexibility is often mentioned as a key feature of the Swedish parental leave system, focus of earlier studies on parental leave usage is almost exclusively on the sharing of leave. The flexibility however makes it necessary for parents to decide on what we will call a distributive pattern of parental leave that includes decisions also on length, timing and frequency of periods of both paid and unpaid days of each parent. We identify four dimensions in the decision: the total length dimension, the labor market dimension, the economic dimension, and the shared responsibilities dimension. Data include dated parental leave days taken for all children born in Sweden in the years 1994 to 2009. First, we identify different types of distributive patterns found in the data. Second, we investigate the determinants of each distributive pattern in the light of the different dimensions.

The present paper is an attempt to study the various dimensions of women’s work including employment status, type of work, working hours and place of work and the impact of women's work on household chores including child caring. The data has been collected from 700 households of 20 villages in Bhandara district. Anthropological approach is used for collection of extensive information. It is revealed from analysis that most of the women were working till marriage and after marriage in Bhandara district to support family economically and to support family work. Half of the women are working seasonal/part of the year and nearly one quarter of women is working throughout the year till marriage. Seven out of ten women contributed their entire income to the total family income and most of the women reported that their monetary contribution to the family is important. Thirty two percent of women are carrying their children with them at the place of work. Nearly three fourths of women reported that that they take care of schooling and immunization of child when they are working. The improvement in work conditions can more effectively improve child care. This would entail a more widely dispersed development programme.

There has been an increasing concern on the essential of balancing family and work-life as a way to promote personal happiness and quality of life. While workers’ happiness drive productivity and, then, thrive organization, it is important to know how family and work factors determine workers’ happiness to suitably design measures that improve their happiness. This paper aims to estimate the influences of work and family factors on workers’ happiness and compare their influences on happiness among generational cohorts. The study is based on a sample of 3,468 industrial workers in Thailand. The study finds the high influence of job satisfaction on happiness of all generations. However, family satisfaction was only matter to happiness among workers in Generation Y. Considering compensating differential, there were differences in the level of marginal rate of substitution of family for job between individual generational cohorts. Older workers were willing to give up more family satisfaction to obtain an additional job satisfaction. Comparing to the older generations, value of family was relatively high for Generation Y workers.