Role Demands and Work-Life Balance among Women Lecturers in Sri Lankan Universities

Abstract

At present, finding a balance between the role demands of work, family and work life balance is a challenging problem for women employees. This issue has been discussed in many professions by the researchers such as military, managers, and factory workers as on. This study is particularly relevant for teaching profession especially for the university academic staff. Work and personal lives are one of the most challenging aspects of female academicians. Therefore, university academic staff are facing a greater challenge in achieving a balance between professional and personal life due to the demands of work and family roles. There, multiple roles influence both the professional and personal life balancing thus, most women academic staff are under pressure to balance the priorities of family and work. The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between role demands of work, family and work life balance. Also, this study tried to explore the factors that influence the supportive work life balance of the women academic staff in university. The qualitative and quantitative research designs were used to achieve the study’s objectives that were, to examine the relationship between role demands of work, and family, and work life balance and explore the factors that influence supportive work life balance among women lectures in state universities. In quantitative phase of the study, a questionnaire survey was used to gather data from state universities in Sri Lanka. There were 265 responses were obtained. Twenty in -depth interviews were conducted in same universities as gathering qualitative data. Finding of structural equation modeling indeed indicate that the significant negative relationship between role demands and work life balance, it fills a gap in the literature by validating the associations between role demands and work life balance dimensions. The qualitative data were analyzed via thematic exploratory analysis, which suggest that supportive factors for work life balance, such as workplace flexibility, avoiding role interference, correct prioritization, good working environment and personal factors against the role demands, that will be useful to Sri Lankan women in the academic profession to avoid their imbalance of work and family life and it also sends an important message to individuals to encourage work and family satisfaction. This study focused only the academics women’s work life balance experience. Thus, it needs to encourage the research in this area focusing men and both gender and other professions in other sectors.