Married female workers'(who have a preschooler) work and family promotion and conflict and job satisfaction
- Data analysis of female panel in year 2 -
The research targets married women with preschooler and its aim is to consider the coexistence o...
Married female workers'(who have a preschooler) work and family promotion and conflict and job satisfaction
- Data analysis of female panel in year 2 -
The research targets married women with preschooler and its aim is to consider the coexistence of work and family and look into both the aspect of conflict and promotion. Through this, this research ultimately aims at making work compatible with family. Korean Women's development Institute received a research reques from Ministry of Gender Equality & Family and then conducted 『KLoWF: Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women & Families󰡕. From the 2nd KLoWF, we analyzed 2,034 married women with preschooler who are fit for the purpose of the research and got these results.
First, about coexistence of work and family, married female workers who are research subjects generally showed the tendency that they have positive feeling more than negative one. Through this, we can figure out that an individual resolves a conflict from coexistence between work and family with the right function of work such as job satisfaction, good relationship with fellow workers and social supports. While, they developed their abilities to deal with the overwork causing from performing both roles simultaneously.
Second, married female workers are most satisfied with work and relationships in office but are least satisfied with benefit packages. The fact that coexistence policy such as family friendly system is not well established may have affected that. In other words, running family friendly policy in company, it can light married female workers' burden and it leads to higher job satisfaction. So, realistic solution to ease their burden and raise the rate of enforcement of policy is needed. Besides, efforts to improvement their work environment are also needed.
Third, it is said that in promotion from work to family, family related variable influences positively. Through this, in coexisting work and family, we can say that influence of family is high. This meaningful effect implies that we should conduct a research about husband and wife more than individual workers and we should be concerned about the local community which has growing double-income families. In this modern society, social supports and harmony are needed rather than just emphasizing the importance of support to families.
Fourth, about conflicts from work to family, the shorter the time for housework is and the longer the working hours are, negative influence gets high. We can guess that the reason is, if the working hours get longer, stress in office becomes high and it also leads to bad performance in house. Eventually, it becomes the conflict between family members. Therefore, to achieve the coexistence of work and family, not only reducing the working hours of women but also reducing male worker's working hours is also needed to divide the household labor and have more time with kids. This policy needs to be introduced. While, about conflicts from family to work, the lower satisfaction about domestic division of labor is and the lower the degree of husband's support is, conflicts happen more frequently. In other words, husband's role influences highly in married female workers' work efficiency. Therefore, to achieve the coexistence of work and family, we need to change the traditional gender role and create an atmosphere of gender equality. Also, the lower the age is, the more deficient the experience is. So, they lack ability to solve the stress from family and work. It is still difficult for them to play both roles smoothly in office and house.
Fifth, influence of individual, family, company related variables and promotion, conflict of family and work on job satisfaction is higher in regular position and highly educated females. That is, due to longer trend of unemployment, less educated females had no choice but to work as temporary workers. So, they could not get enough benefits that regular workers can get. This may have caused low job satisfaction.
Sixth, in promotion from work to family, the shorter the husband's housework hours and the higher the husband's support degree, married female workers show more positive reaction. Conflict from family to work, when the satisfaction of domestic division of labor and degree of husband's support gets high, conflicts become rare. When the working hours become longer, conflict from work to family happens more frequently. This means that the stress which emerges from the long working hours make frequency of family conflict high.
Synthesizing this results, we suggest these policies.
First, company should develop family friendly programs such as improvement of communication skills between husband and wife or gender role value programs. Government should provide incentives like public relation of company or giving rewards to company to develop these programs actively.
Second, company and government should have a practicable and concrete policy for workers to manage both work and family life. Also, not only external institutionalizing but also practically vitalizing the institution. For example, institution to promote the implement of paternity leave paid vacation, removing women-biased maternity leave, participating in infant care, husband's housework and creating the atmosphere of using these institution as privilege are needed.
Third, institution for coexistence of work and family should not be recognized only as a vitalization for female workforce. If doing this, the institution would be difficult to implement properly. Above all, only supported as female workers supporting system, according to the traditional gender role, they will occupy the temporary position. Consequently, we cannot overcome the gender role and we are going to be caught in a vicious circle.