Balancing Family and Work Life

Balancing Family and Work Life

Introduction

The paper discusses the work life and family balancing by women. Families take balancing work and family as a challenge. With time, the status of women as house wife became working women. This was mainly because of the marital status, children and contributions from husband. Women normally used to work before their marriage and preferred taking care of their husband and home after their marriage. Women work at home with children. Women felt encouraged and motivated when they felt that they could earn and contribute to their family's expenditures. Men also felt less stress to become the sole income earner in the family (Lawler, 2006).

Discussion

Every family is concerned with the balance of work and family just after the trend has spread of working women globally. The main concerns are time, energy and relationships. As a woman, she has to give time to her husband, children and house chores also manage the working life side by side. This balance is often very challenging to achieve by women. According to a survey, 95% of working women were concerned that work takes too much of their time. Mostly home and family are the ones which are sacrificed for the job and work. 40% of the workforce is comprised of dual-earner couples.

The challenge of balancing both work and family affects both men and women. Working women call themselves torn between home and work. Men, who have working-women as wives, have to do house chores and entire household responsibilities. Often men who do not have much experience and idea about doing household chores get frustrated. The maintenance of balance is more severely challenging for any single parent. The work and family balance have gained serious consideration over time because of global competition, aging workforce, renewed interest in personal lives and family values. Family and work have an impact by several factors, which are globalization, employment relationships, social and institutional changes, family and demographic changes, change in organizational work and change in the composition of the workforce (Lockwood, 2003).

The positive work and family connection is very important as it has a favorable impact on family and work. Both family and work have an impact on each other. Good feelings at home would remain same in work and work stress and, tensions can come home with the employee and make the environment tensed. A tough day at work can lead to arguments at home. A proper balance between work and family leads to reduction in stress and conflict. Work helps to reach family goals and family support makes successful in working achievements.

For an effective balance between family and work, the individual should identify his /her support system. A specific individual is always there which is supporting the working woman to achieve the balance, for say, mom, dad, husband, or kids. Next, the working woman should evaluate her employment decision. If the financial requirements are partially fulfilled by the husband, then maybe she does not need to work full ...