Abstract
The issue of balancing family and career is controversial especially based on the gender issues that tend to emerge from such debates. The following analysis presents personal experiences and worldwide view on the issue and the respective implications. It is evident that gender equality is not the solution on work-family conflicts as countries with greater gender equality level also report such cases in exception of Sweden where women are institutionally supported whether they are married or not. The fact that over 60% of the households with the school aged children are mainly dual-earning families depicts the essence of developing strategies that are aimed at addressing these problems through institutional levels.
Introduction
The issue on gender, gender roles, and views based on gender equality can be effectively addressed by examining the issue on balancing family and career. The arguments on how should take the roles in different cases reflects the different perceptions that community and the society in general has on gender based issue (Lyness et al., 2012). Raising questions such as, “when a child gets sick in school who should pick him or her up?” provides different arguments as reflected by different responses by different people within the community. Some of the responses argues that; the mother should pick the child, another response on argues the father with the third arguing that it depends on who is geographically closer between the two or who has the most meeting or least essential job. Such responses reflect the conflicts on gender based issues and the respective implications on balancing family and career.
Based on the proffered analysis, it is unfortunate that the community tends to base such a significant question on the “it depends” concept; this is more unfortunate considering the fact that even those that are highly educated tend to respond on similar notion. The analogy attached to the depicted argument depicts how the society is wrong on the issue.
Personal experiences
I believe the issue of gender, gender issues, and gender equality is controversial within the community as witnessed in everyday interactions within the community. The widespread campaign on gender equality tends to conflict the culture and other morals within the community. I believe that mothers upon delivering a child basically make career decisions that are aimed at accommodating the growing family responsibilities. Such decisions include; the reduction of the work to part time or even embracing a more flexible positions towards caring for the children. This indicates that the argument on “it depends” group encompasses of those mothers that have restructured their careers for the greater work family balance.
Such arguments are likely to be questioned by some of the people within the community who believes that the father has to play a critical role in parenting and should also make similar decisions to accommodate their family. They argue that fathers have a major role to play in parenting and this responsibility should not be solely left to the mothers. I concur with such arguments but equality on such an issue could be hard to achieve. Women should not ignore their family role towards work success within the community. They should instead make small decisions that are aimed at creating a competitive environment towards addressing the issue on balancing the work with family.
In the society as witnessed while growing up in the community, many people are unable to achieve the work family nirvana. They tend to fail in some of the parts especially family or in some cases work. Combining work and family while addressing the issue on gender is contentious within the community as some of the people within the community indicates. Furthermore, I believe that the recently witnessed cases of moral decay within the society are based on such issues where parents tend to isolate themselves from their family responsibilities. The outcomes on imbalances are witnessed within the community as conflicts on work and family tend to increase as associated with gender issues. I believe in the community, there is need for policies to address the issue and avert the respective arguments between different players within the community as such arguments yield conflicts with no significant or substantial solutions.
For instance, I have witnessed a family break due to arguments on who should take the responsibility of the children when each of the partner is working. This is more apparent in those families unable to hire or employ someone to take care of the children when they are working. The partners who had to work between the clock to make a living with two children were forced to part ways as each of the partner felt they each of them had a role to play in taking care of the children.
Worldwide view
There have been worldwide arguments on the issue of balancing work and families while addressing gender based issues. Sociologists for the last few decades have spent a lot of time seeking to address the issue of combining work and the family roles. The outcome is bulk research that identifies the individuals with the most reported work-family conflict. Based on such studies findings indicates that women, people working longer hours, professionals and also those with greater workplace flexibility are likely to witness experience family conflicts with work. The results tends to validate many of our work experiences depicting the fact that there is gender inequality, those people that are in professional positions tends to struggle with balancing work and the family roles among other entities (Zamarro, 2011).
The fact that over sixty percent of the households with the school aged children are mainly dual earning families depicts the essence of developing strategies that are aimed at addressing these problems through institutional levels. The solution to these problems however, is not based gender equality as countries such as Australia with greater gender equality anticipated to have lower levels of work family conflict indicating that women are also likely to report family to work conflicts. However, nations such as Sweden, Finland, and Norway tend to create a different pattern where the fathers in these countries are likely t report family interferes with their work life compared to mothers or individuals without children (Lyness et al., 2012). In those communities where women have institutions that support them whether married or not tend to record cases where women threatens husbands on taking responsibility of the family as evident in Sweden. The country also emails cases where women are likely to return to work fulltime after giving birth of a child hence offering men an opportunity to bond with the young children hence being an active part of the family. Although the implications tends to favor women, it is a sad story for men as offering women a more equality footing politically plus economically tends to spread family responsibilities among the parents while the implications on men’s greater family work conflict may have greater marital satisfaction plus happier and healthier families (Parker & Wang, 2013). This notion argues that by offering women the chance to work enables them to earn more and be successful in their careers especially when their husbands tend to take care of the kids.
However, although the arguments on gender equality tends to favor the notion on facilitating the bond as proffered above, the fact that countries are yet to achieve greater gender equality cannot be ignored. It is evident globally that few countries have been able to achieve such standards with some of these that have achieved such levels also recording cases of conflicts on work and family balance. This depicts that the issue extends beyond the notion on gender equality to other factors within the community. The current arguments based on the findings within the society by researchers although essential in understanding the issue, there is need for more effective policies to create an understanding on how to balance work and family roles in relation to gender.
Conclsuion
The husband felt that the wife should adjust the working schedule to accommodate the family responsibility while the wife felt the husband should make similar choices. Lack of understanding and family-work balance propelled and facilitated the divorce. Such cases are evident within the community where apart from divorce, children fails to acquire the moral aspects due to lack of guidance from the parents. I believe that although everyone in a family has a role to play in raising children, the wife plays the biggest role; this notion doesn’t violate the arguments on gender equality as men also have a role to play. However, the arguments on gender equality indicating that a man should play similar role in parenting should not be used to break families and cause moral decay. Lack of effective policies and strategic measures that are aimed at creating a platform where families can be able to effectively balance work and family roles is the major cause of such disagreements. The implication based on such arguments indicates how the assumptions created on gender equality issues is not the only solution to the issue as other factors play a critical role.
References
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