CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1    BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Performance of multiple roles is part and parcel of an individual’s professional life. As employees perform multiple roles, they have to face multiple demands put on them by others; both within and outside the organization (Shailaja & Kumar, 2011). The pressures of work, for those women in work, have been intensifying in recent decades. Factors such as the advances in information technology and information load, the need for speed of response, the importance attached to quality of customer service and its implications for constant availability and the pace of change with its resultant upheavals and adjustments all demand for the employed woman’s time and can be sources of pressure (Aravind & Paramashiviah 2011).
A variety of antecedents including role ambiguity, role conflict, time demands and involvement in both the work and family domains are directly and indirectly and positively related to work and family conflict. The most common problem that working women suffer is intense psychological stress (Daultzen et al cited in Arathi & Rajkumar, 2015).
In cities, the long distance from home to work place, late working hours etc., pose a great problem in balancing between work and family life. When female employees are deficient in spending quality time with their families, work and family conflict crop up. Today women working in corporate sectors have long working hours. Overtime the process of working long hours disturbs the balance between work and non work life. Lack of work life balance not only affects the individual but also his organization (Arathi & Rajkumar, 2015).
Work and family constructs are two important aspects of employees’ life and juggling between these two spheres is part of everyday life for millions of employees across the globe (Karimi, Jomehri, Asadzade, & Sohrabi, 2012).
Arguably, work-family balance most especially in the Nigerian context, is an issue that bothers women in employment than men (Okonkwo, 2012). This may well be because women combine the very tasking domestic duties which include childcare with their paid work activities. Although both men and women are said to experience inter-role conflict between work and family domains (Walker, Wang & Redmond, 2008) but women typically assume more family responsibilities than men (Pillinger, 2002). Similarly, managing work and family obligations are particularly difficult for women in a patriarchal society (Rehman & Roomi, 2012). For example in Nigeria, the domestic duties of tidying home, cooking for the family, laundry work, and childcare are exclusively women’s job, many of whom are also engaged in full-time paid employment (Okonkwo, 2012).
In this regard, Jacobs and Gerson, (2004) indicate that psychological consequences of combining domestic duties with work responsibilities squarely fall on women. Thus, the demands of work and home pose great challenges for female employees in fulfilling the multiple roles (Peng, IIies & Dimotakis, 2011).