Journal of International Academic Research (2012) Vol.12, No.1.

30 April 2012

An Empirical Analysis of Factors Affecting Work Life Balance among University Teachers: the case of Pakistan
Noor Fatima: Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Pakistan. noor_e_fatimah@hotmail.com Dr Shamim A.Sahibzada: Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and
Technology, Pakistan. shamim@szabist-isb.edu.pk Abstract
Balance in work and family life is an emerging challenge for both employees and employers. The present research categorises selected variables as work and family related factors to study work life balance. This paper analyses the determinants of work and life imbalance with respect to male and female university teachers. A total of 146 teacher’s responses from both private and public sector universities are included in the study. Statistical analysis reveals that partner support, colleague support and job resources are positively associated with the work life balance whereas unfair criticism at job is negatively associated with work life balance. Independent sample t-test is used to analyse the effect of independent variables on work life balance with respect to male and female university teachers. The variables, partner support, childcare responsibilities, elder dependency, and colleagues support have different effect when analysed by male and female university teachers as independent samples.

Keywords:
Work life balance, University, Teachers,

1. Introduction
Work/life is commonly referred to as work and family. To balance between the family responsibilities and work responsibilities has become a challenge for the people in many professions. Felstead, Jewson, Phizacklea and Walters (2002) defined the work life balance (WLB) strategies as those strategies which enhances the independence of employees in coordinating with the work and non-work aspects of their lives. Work- life conflict is a form of inter- role conflict where the role demands of work interferes with the role demands of home or leisure activities (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). The strain due to the disagreement between home and work domains has increased amongst employees in most sectors of the economy (Lewis, Gambles and Rapoport, 2007). Employees expect from their employers to address their need of work life conflict (Kossek, Dass and DeMarr, 1994). There is a dire need that organisations adopt such human resource policies and strategies that could accommodate the work and life needs simultaneously to lessen the work and family role strain (Cieri, Holmes, Abbot and Petti, 2005). Russell and Bowman (2000) asserted that the issue of work/ life balance is gaining an increasing attention by the employees related to all organisations and managing the conflict between work demands and family responsibilities have become a serious challenge for organisations. Managing rising demands from the work and family domains represented a source of high strain for many employees which even lead to the health problems among employees. Although it is believed that work family role strain is more common among women
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employees, but men also experience stress resulting from differing roles and demands (Burley, 1994). Strain between work and family roles is a common experience among university employees. According to the study of Anderson, Morgan and Wilson (2002), university employees reported higher dissatisfaction with the work- family life than corporate employees which lead to stress and cause harm to the psychological wellbeing of the employees thus affecting their job performance negatively. Whenever the conflict arises between work and family among the university employees it also affects the quality of higher education (Elliott, 2003).Fisher (1994) found that academics experienced more problems in maintaining effective work life balance than other professionals, as their profession incorporates a wide range of responsibilities with potentially challenging demands. Most academics surveys supported that their work produced strain that made it difficult for them to fulfil their family and social obligations. Work and family role strain reduces worker’s productivity and increases turnover and absenteeism of the employees. More importantly; however, the majority of academics felt dissatisfaction with their institutions and complained that their institutes do little to help employees to achieve a fair balance between their work and family lives. In Australia, Winefield et al. (2003) found that the majority of academics complained about the conflict between work and home commitments. The present study aims to explore the factors that affect work life balance of the teachers of the public and private universities of Pakistan, and to find out the major determinants of work and family role strain among university faculty.

1. Literature Review
Work-life balance refers to people having enough time to have balance in their job and home life. Karakas and Lee, (2004) explained work life balance issues as spending good time with family members, getting free time to be able to relax for emotional wellbeing and health of family members , having good communication and support from the fellow colleagues, obtaining high quality child care and education; and being satisfied with the work load. According to the study of Kinman (2001), the strongest factor of psychological distress and job dissatisfaction was related to work life conflict. He found out that over half of the academics surveyed complained that they have to regularly work at home during the evenings which cause stress. Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian (1996) asserted that majority of the employees reported that they remained preoccupied with work issues even after leaving the workplace and feel difficulties in sleep at home. The demand from organisations to attend to the family responsibilities of employees has been increasing due to the rise in the number of single parent’s households and dual earners (Goodstein, 1994). Elliott (2003) explained that major problem faced by the working parents of children, aged six or younger, is to afford high quality child care which is costly and consumed a large portion of income and reduces the likelihood that the mother will be employed. The double burden of child care and elder care puts more emotional burden on women than on men. In reality, it is still women who keep hold of the major responsibilities for childcare and are much more likely to work part-time, sparing time for family responsibilities (Daly and Lewis, 2000). Gerson (1993) explained that fathers also experienced tension in child caring as their working wives are not present at home to look after their kids. Thus, in early decades of twentieth century some large companies felt the need that employers should allow free time and energy to workers to look after their children. Child care facility thus positively affected employee’s decisions to remain employed at the company (Kossek and Lambert, 2004). Ross and Mirowsky (1988) demonstrated that employed mothers who felt difficulty making child-care arrangements suffered from high depression. Research by Jaffrey and Karen (1991) indicated that relative to childcare, elder care involves more unexpected care giving situations, and it is more difficult to manage and causes greater levels of stress for the care provider. Greenberger et al., (1989) showed that married women often spend a lot of time and energy in taking care of their in laws, especially the parents of their husbands, in short the principle care givers for the elders are women,
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who provide care in their roles as wives, daughters and daughter in laws. In addition, because many women who care for the elders also care for the children as primary caregivers they become more accustomed to care giving as compared to men (Blair and Litcher 1991). Like child care, eldercare can adversely impact employees personally, and professionally as well as emotionally, and financially. The impact of elder care on professional lives of employees includes increased absenteeism, sluggishness, a reduction in work hours, unavailability for overtime work, a shift from full-time to part-time work, and in some cases early retirement. (Ross and Mirowsky, 1988).Not only the elder care responsibilities have affected the employed workers but also prevented some people to enter the work force (Frone, Russell and Cooper, 1992). The cost of elder care manifests not only in economic and financial terms but also in terms of caregiver’s overall health. Caregivers report feelings of depression, isolation, loneliness and stress due to their care giving obligations (Kossek and Lambart, 2004). According to Sullivan and Lewis (2006) schedule inflexibility increased depression in both men and women and increased physical distress such as insomnia, appetite problem, tension related aches and pain. Christensen and Staines (1990), found that flexitime programs decreased late comings, absenteeism, and turnover. In their research, Thomas and Ganster (1995) have found a positive association between flexitime policies and job satisfaction. They concluded that flexible time policies enhanced employee productivity by decreasing absenteeism and turnover, and positively served families by decreasing depression in employees as families get more time to spend together which reduces work/ family conflict. Gilbert (2002) stated that longer working hours though reduces general family satisfaction, but workers who are more committed to their work reported significantly higher family satisfaction as compared to the workers who are less committed to their work. So it is not only the work timings that affect family but the behaviour of workers towards their jobs that affect their family life. Greenhouse and Powell (2003) have suggested that certain working conditions, such as time flexibility can mitigate the negative effects of work demands on family life. New requirements at jobs have brought an increased workload. Professional lives characterised by more and more challenges, frequently changing assignment, work and time schedules, job insecurity and frequent relocations are some of the factors which cause work life strain. Most of the faculty new to the campus report that they feel isolated, and they are often besieged due to unclear expectations and heavy workloads (Luce and Murray, 1998). Frone (2000) found that work-home conflict equally affected the health of men and women whereas Emslie, Hunt and Macintyre, (2004) did not find any significant gender differences in perceptions of work-home conflict. According to the study by Thompson et al. (1998), it is a general perception that organisations with lower level of work life conflict possess supportive organisational culture. Kossek, Dass and DeMarr (1994) explained that one of the reasons of the work life strain is a lack of integration between the employee’s life and organisation’s goals. He further asserted that negative culture, poor working environment and bad attitudes of supervisors create barriers to the implementation of work life balance. Roehling and Moen (2001) predicted that earnings (salary), schedule flexibility, family friendly work policies, and supportiveness of colleagues are related to work and life strain. Non supportiveness of colleagues affects the employee loyalty negatively. They further found that a partner with unstable or low income increases the financial burden on other partner. Smith and Smith (2008) found that future accountants give high importance to work-life balance in making career decisions and they feel that a healthy work-life balance positively
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affects their job performance. They further explained that Maslow’s hierarchy theory and McClelland’s motivational needs theory provide theoretical support for understanding people’s motivation to achieve a healthy work-life balance. According to Kinman and Jones (2008), reward imbalance is one of the reasons of work stress among the employees. In their study, schedule flexibility and the autonomy of the employee in his work were found to be a key predictor of work- life balance. Parasuraman and Simmers (2001) also found that selfcontrol or having autonomy in the work can help individuals to schedule work in a way that reduces the likelihood of work-family conflict. A study by Warren and Jhonson (1995) showed that managing dependence on colleagues at the job increases social demands and stress. Personal problems with colleagues affect the employees psychologically and make it difficult for them to manage household work effectively. Kinman and Jones (2008) reported that work related stress has increased in the educational sector. They reported heavy workload and resource and time limitations as the most nerveracking aspects of academic work. Smith et al., (1995) studied stress on faculty, they differentiated role-based stress (resulting from unclear responsibilities and criteria for evaluating success), task-based stress (resulting from work overload), and person/system-based stress (resulting from high self-expectations and pressure to compete). They concluded that stress appears to play a negative role in university faculty work lives and that work overload is a major source of the stress experienced. Such factors as discipline, rank, and sex were significant in explaining taskbased stress. There result showed that associate professors and women report relatively higher levels of stress. Lease (1999) examined the stress experienced by tenure-track faculty at three universities, and found that satisfaction with salary, working hours, and perceived support of colleagues directly influence the level of stress and indirectly affects satisfaction. In accordance with the study on Australian university employees conducted by Winefield et al., (2003), academics are generally contended with intrinsic factors such as the degree of intellectual inspiration they experience while supervising and teaching their students, and with the opportunities to take initiative; while they are less satisfied with extrinsic factors of the job such as salary, promotion prospects and working hours. A university which aims to gain competitive advantage needs to develop an approach to work life balance strategies that meet the needs of the faculty. Faculty and staff feel dissatisfied due to heavy work load. Universities usually face low budgets which have negative impact on salaries and working conditions of the employees which is disappointing for the vast majority of the faculty and staff who work long hours and are committed to their students, their work, and their institutions and results in increased stress among the university employees especially the faculty members. If university administration wants to improve faculty performance and in order to retain qualified faculty, they must identify those issues that causes work life conflict and strain among university employees. Educational institutes particularly have lower budgets, which is apparent from the salaries and working conditions of the universities, resulted in the lower quality of work life, the productivity of the university employees is important to the university authority, they must identify those issues which are important to the lives of university employees. The purpose of the present study is to analyse the determinants of work life conflict among university teachers.

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3. Objectives of the Study
3.1. Research Objectives The purpose of the present study is to identify causes of work and family role strain among university teachers of public and private sector institutions. Among the selected impediments of work life balance, the present research intends to analyse the differences that may exist between work life balance of male university teachers and female university teachers in Pakistan. 3.2. Research Questions The present research aims to answer the following research questions: 1. What are the factors that contribute to the work and family role strain in male and female university teachers? 2. Do differences exist between overall work life balance of male and female university teachers? 3.3. Research Hypotheses

The following research hypotheses have been developed to analyse data. The conceptual framework has been adopted from Elliott (2003) to test these hypotheses.
H1: There is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers. H2: There is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to the partner support. H3: There is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to the childcare responsibilities. H4: There is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to the elder dependency. H5: There is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to the job resources. H6: There is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to the colleague support. H7: There is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to the unfair criticism.

4. Research Design
4.1. Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework has been adopted from Elliott (2003). The variables included in the study were partner and spouse support, elder dependency, job resources, colleagues support, unfair criticism, childcare responsibilities and work life balance. In the current research, work life balance is treated as dependent variable whereas different family and work related variables are taken as independent variable. Selected work related factors that may cause stress are included in the framework i.e., job resources, colleague support and unfair criticism. Likewise selected family related factors that may cause stress are identified as partner support, elder dependency and childcare responsibilities. All variables in present research are elaborated as under:

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Causes of Work and Family Role Strain Partner and Spouse Support Elder Dependency Job Resources Colleagues Support Unfair Criticism Childcare Responsibilities Work Life Balance Source: (Elliot, 2003)

Stress caused due to conflict between demands of work and family role Partner support and help to fulfil responsibilities Dependency of aging parents Availability of adequate resources at work Social support from colleagues as praise for work Lack of support and criticism on work Child care issues of 18 years younger children Work and life satisfaction by managing both responsibilities adjacently

Causes of Work and Family Role Strain

Work Life Balance

Female
Job Resources Colleague Support Male Unfair Criticism Work Related Factors

Partner Support Elder Dependency Child Responsibilities Family Related Factors

4.2. Sampling and Data Collection The objective of the research is to identify the causes affecting work life balance in male and female university teachers. Having thoroughly examined relevant previous research tools, a questionnaire that suits to the local and social settings of Pakistan has been developed which is based on the study of Elliott (2003).Various factors from this study have been modified to address each of the variables of the present research framework. The questionnaire was self-administered with a covering letter to motivate respondents to carefully provide their neutral opinion against the factors under investigation. The research target population mainly included married male and female university level teachers of both public and private universities of Pakistan. Convenience sampling method has been used to get the responses from both public and private sector universities. With the response rate of 58%, a total of 84 responses from public sector universities and 62 responses from the private sector universities are included in the research. The questionnaires which failed to provide adequate data for analysis purposes, such as incomplete questionnaires, responses from unmarried teachers and biased responses, have been excluded from the study. The
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reliability of the data was measured using Cronbach’s Alpha, which shows an estimate of 0.7 thus assuring the data reliability.

5. Data Analysis 5.1. Results and Discussions Data is entered and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 13.0. Two different statistical tools applied to test the hypotheses are: (i) Independent sample t-test; and (ii) One –Way ANOVA
i) Independent Sample t- test Independent sample t-test is used for analysis purpose because the data collected are further sampled as of two different populations i.e., female university teachers and male university teachers. This is to test whether there is significant difference between the work life balance and its factors for male and female university teachers. Having met the test assumptions, it allows to significantly compare the means of two sample groups to test the research hypotheses. Descriptive statistics to compare the mean values of male and female university teachers is given as table 1.
Table 1: Group Statistics Sex Partner Support Childcare Problems Elder Dependency Job Resources Colleagues Support Unfair Criticism Work Life Balance Male Female male female male female male female male Female Male Female Male Female N 97 49 97 49 97 49 97 49 97 49 97 49 97 49 Mean 3.1149 1.9388 2.2371 4.1224 2.6701 4.2041 3.1619 3.0694 3.0478 2.4833 3.5515 3.6224 2.8892 2.4633 Std. Deviation .79575 .78980 .83881 .59974 1.08706 .40721 1.08704 .95442 .76775 .59005 .57047 .40222 .72278 .36782 Std. Error Mean .08080 .11283 .08517 .08568 .11037 .05817 .11037 .13635 .07795 .08429 .05792 .05746 .07339 .05255

Independent sample t-test is used to test whether there is significant difference between the work life balance and the related factors of male and female university teachers.

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Table 2: Independent Sample T-Test Levene's Test t-test for Equality of Means for Equality of Variances F Sig. T Df Sig. (2tailed)

Mean Difference

Std. Error Differen ce .13912

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower .90119 Upper 1.4511

Partner Support

Childcare Problems

Elder Dependency

Job Resources

Colleagues Support

Unfair Criticism

Work Life Balance

Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed

.973

.326

8.454

144

.000

1.17617

8.475

97.085

.000

1.17617

.13877

.90075

1.4516

2.556

.112

-14.017

144

.000

-1.88534

.13451

-2.15120

-1.6194

-15.606

127.489

.000

-1.88534

.12081

-2.12438

-1.6462

64.745

.000

-9.532

144

.000

-1.53398

.16093

-1.85206

-1.2159

-12.295

135.786

.000

-1.53398

.12477

-1.78071

-1.2872

.448

.504

.505

144

.614

.09247

.18310

-.26944

.45438

.527

108.273

.599

.09247

.17542

-.25524

.44017

.333

.565

4.515

144

.000

.56457

.12504

.31741

.81173

4.917

120.970

.000

.56457

.11481

.33727

.79187

4.888

.029

-.777

144

.438

-.07090

.09122

-.25120

.10940

-.869

128.681

.386

-.07090

.08159

-.23233

.09053

9.239

.003

3.875

144

.000

.42591

.10992

.20864

.64318

4.719

143.980

.000

.42591

.09026

.24751

.60431

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The first research hypothesis states that there is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers. Descriptive statistics in table 1 shows that work life balance among male university teachers (2.88) is greater than the female university teachers (2.46). It indicates that male university teachers feel more balance between work and life than the female university teachers do. In order to check the significance, refer to the independent sample t-test in table 2. Levene’s test for equality of variance shows that F (9.239) is significant (Sig. 0.003 < α 0.05), in this case, the significance of equal variances not assumed is considered as it shows significance. Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that the work life balance of male and female university teachers is different. The second research hypothesis is that there is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to partner support. The mean value of male university teachers (3.11) is higher that female university teachers (1.93). This difference is significant (Sig. 0.000 < α 0.05) as shown in table 2. Thus we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a significant difference in work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to partner support. Third research hypothesis is that there is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to childcare responsibilities. The mean value of female teachers (4.12) is more than male university teachers (2.67). The difference in mean values is statistically significant as shown in the table 2. Thus we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers in context of childcare responsibilities. The fourth hypothesis is that there is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to elder dependency. Under descriptive statistics, the mean value of female university teachers (4.20) is greater than male university teachers (3.16). This difference in mean values is significant as (Sig. 0.000 < α 0.05). Thus we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is a difference in work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to elders’ dependency. The next research hypothesis is that there is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to job resources. Descriptive statistics in table 1 exhibits that male university teachers (3.16) have more work life balance with respect to job resources as compared to the female university teachers (3.06). This difference is not significant as the significance level is 0.614 > α 0.05 as shown in table 2. Thus we do not reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is no difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to job resources. Next research hypothesis is that there is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to colleagues support. The mean value of male university teachers (3.04) shows that male university teachers have more work life balance in context with colleagues support than female university teachers (2.48). As per the Levene’s t test (0.00), speaking, this difference is significant. Thus, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that statistically work life balance of male and female university teachers is different with regards to colleagues support. The next research hypothesis states that there is difference in the work life balance of male and female university teachers with respect to unfair criticism. Mean values indicates that the unfair criticism is more related with the female university teachers (3.62) as compared to the male university teachers (2.89). But the Levene’s T-test demonstrate that the difference in mean values is not significant (0.438 > α 0.05). Thus we do not reject the null hypothesis and conclude that there is no difference in work life balance of male and female university teachers in reference to unfair criticism.
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ii) One way – ANOVA One way-ANOVA is another statistical technique used for testing mean differences between male university teachers and female university teachers (two different independent samples). Thus it has been applied here to find whether data from male and female university teachers have a common mean which validates the results obtained from the Independent sample Ttest. As shown in Table 3, One way-ANOVA examines mean differences’ using the Fstatistic, whereas t-test reports the t- statistic.
Table 3: ANOVA Sum of Squares 45.036 90.730 135.765 115.716 84.812 200.527 76.604 121.402 198.007 .278 157.163 157.441 10.376 73.298 83.675 .164 39.008 39.171 5.905 56.645 62.550 Df 1 144 145 1 144 145 1 144 145 1 144 145 1 144 145 1 144 145 1 144 145 5.905 .393 15.012 .000 .164 .271 .604 .438 10.376 .509 20.385 .000 .278 1.091 .255 .614 76.604 .843 90.863 .000 115.716 .589 196.471 .000 Mean Square 45.036 .630 F 71.478 Sig. .000

Partner Support

Between Groups Within Groups Total Between Groups Within Groups Total Between Groups Within Groups Total Between Groups Within Groups Total Between Groups Within Groups Total Between Groups Within Groups Total Between Groups Within Groups Total

Childcare Problems

Elder Dependency

Job Resources

Colleagues Support

Unfair Criticism

Work Life Balance

The ANOVA results in table 3 also demonstrate that significant difference exist between male and female university teachers for determining work life balance in partner support, elder dependency, colleagues support and childcare problem, whereas the difference between male and female university teachers in the context of job resources and unfair criticism is insignificant . Finally it is also shown in the ANOVA table that male university teachers are significantly more satisfied with the work life balance as compared to female university teachers. So it is shown that One-Way ANOVA analysis validated the results of independent sample t-test.
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6.

Conclusion and Policy Implications

Glass and Estes (1997) revealed in their study that conflict between paid work and family responsibilities lead to low employee productivity and caused poor family functioning. Educational institutes particularly have lower budgets, which is apparent from the salaries and working conditions of the universities, resulted in the lower quality of work life. Smith et al., (1995) concluded that stress appears to play a negative role in university faculty work lives. Pfeffer (1994) asserted that in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, employers relied on a committed and productive workforce. The productivity of faculty and the ability to retain the productive faculty is very important to the universities in this era of cut throat competition. So universities must be able to identify the issues that matters to the quality of life of their faculty. Present study examined issues relating to work/life balance in lecturers working in the universities of Pakistan. This research categorised the causes of work life imbalance as family related factors and work related factors among male and female university teachers. Further the difference between work life balance and other factors affecting work life balance between male and female university teachers is explored. The results of this study show that that there is a statistically meaningful difference between the work life balance of male and female university teachers. Moreover, the overall satisfaction with work life balance of male university teachers is greater than the overall satisfaction of female university teachers. These results are in accordance with the study of Elliott (2003) that women felt greater work and family role strain than men. MacEwen and Barling (1994) found that work – home conflict badly affected the women’s psychological health as compared to men. By looking at the factors affecting work life balance, result indicates that spousal supportiveness at home and colleague supportiveness at work contribute positively to work life balance, whereas child care problems, elder dependency at home and unfair criticism at work place contributed negatively towards work life balance. This study concluded that with reference to partner support male teachers are more satisfied with work life balance as compared to females. It is found that female university teachers felt more work life strain due to child care responsibilities, and it is further noticed that elder dependency is doubling the burden of women than men. As Daly and Lewis (2000) also concluded in their study that in reality, it is still women who primarily carry the major responsibilities for care. Work life balance with reference to colleague support provide evidence that female university teachers are less satisfied with their colleague supports as compared to their male counter parts. One reason for dissatisfaction with the colleague support could be that as females are over stressed due to over burden of household chores. It is also shown by the results that females are more affected by the unfair criticism at the work place than do the male faculty members. As generally females are more sensitive by nature, so feel bad about unfair criticism as compared to males. Elliott (2003) asserted that unfair criticism at work place increased work life strain and unpleasant experience at work affected the family life badly. Emslie, Hunt and Macintyre (2004) concluded that factors affecting work- home life did vary by sex; having children and being in a senior position were more strongly related to work – home conflict for women than men.

7.

Recommendations

It is recommended that universities must pay attention to work and family conditions when designing their work and family policies. Further research is necessary in order to help to formulate the policies that academics might adopt and strategies that organisations might introduce in order to enhance work-life balance in the sector. The challenge is to develop a balanced social agenda that includes government supports and regulations that not only holds employers accountable for the implementation of
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strategies but that also motivated them to provide incentives to give out work–life opportunities widely.

8.

References

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