The Work-Life Conflict among Married Women
In the contemporary world where modernization, urbanization and realization of women’s rights are inevitable, work-life imbalances are rampant. The imbalances and inconsistencies between work and family life mostly impact on the various career women who are married. The problem becomes even worse where the working married woman is a mother to children and more so young children that still depend on the parents to a considerable extent. The women get themselves torn in between the demands of the workplace and the social commitments to the family and other social units. The difficulty in striking a balance between occupations and commitment to family is referred to as the work-life conflict. Such conflicts exert stress on the family unit. The conflicts are remarkably common in economies where the type of employment is full-time. Research carried out in the European Union indicated that the commonest type of employment was and still is full time employment. The findings of the research further indicated that Europe was the second worst hit by the work-life conflict after India. This paper explains the struggle of an average married woman who is in full-time employment in light of the GCC woman in the case study.
The struggle in the life of a married woman is endless for as long as she is in employment. The woman in the case study for instance is torn between the family life and employment. Given the fact that the hard economic times cannot allow the woman to quit employment, it becomes clear that the dilemma is a serious one. Certainly, the fact that the woman has to leave home at 0500hours and come back at 2200hours means that she does not find time to interact with her family and husband. Naturally, the fact that the woman working in Gcc does not find enough time to be home means that the household chores will be delayed or even come to a standstill.
Bearing in mind that the woman does not even have enough time to bring up children, it is possible that this woman does not have time to go about such home duties as doing the laundry in good time. Leaving the house at 5 am and coming back at 10pm implies that the woman is usually very tired at the end of a working day. As such she may not be in a position to grant the husband his conjugal rights. The intimacy between the woman and her husband becomes compromised. In a marriage intimacy is essential and that is why the law recognizes it through making connubial activities a marital right. The fact that the woman working in GCC does not have time for conjugals with her husband, there may be chances of infidelity in the home.
It is rather obvious that since she comes home at ten in the night, she does not find the time to prepare food for her husband. At such late hours, it is likely that she will have been so exhausted by the tasks in the office. As such she can not cook for her husband and family. This weakens the social bond between the woman and her family. The woman cannot find sufficient time to have interactive moments with her family. For example, she cannot have time to go on picnics and holidays with her folks and spouse. The woman becomes some kind of working machine or some form of object. Thus is the work-life struggle of a woman working in GCC.
