Term Paper on "Work Family Conflict Impacting Career Goals"

Term Paper 4 pages (1960 words) Sources: 25 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Work-Family Conflict Impacting Career Goals

The purpose of the research contained in this work is to identify issues related to work and family conflict that impact the career goals of women.

The research questions of this study are: (1) What factors or issues related to work and family conflict impact the career goals of women?; and (2) What may be done to address these issues?

This research is importance because of the knowledge that will be added to previous research in this area of study as well as the information that may be provided which will assist women in more effectively addressing these factors that impact the career goals of women relating to work and family conflict.

The methodology of the proposed study is one of a qualitative and phenomenological nature and is to be conducted in the form of a critical and extensive review of literature (Silverman, 2001) of academic and professional nature. A phenomenological approach is appropriate in understanding the experiences of a group of individuals. (Stewart, et al., 1998) the review of literature "shapes the study...and promote cumulative advances in knowledge." (Padgett, 1998) a qualitative review of literature is appropriates in the approach to conceptualization of social reality. (Punch, 2000) the literature review is stated to "serve four broad functions: (1) demonstrates the underlying assumptions behind the general research questions; (2) demonstrates that the researcher is knowledgeable about related research and the scholarly traditions that surround and support the study; (3) shows that the researcher has identified some gaps in previous research; and (4) refines and redefines the research questions by embedding them in larger traditions of inquiry." (Marshall and Rossman, 2006)

LITERATURE REVIEW

The work of Kehrberger states: "Juggling career and family presents women with pressures, choices, dilemmas, struggles, and time crunches." (2004) the work of Friedman and Greenhaus states that "...work and family, the dominant life roles for most employed women and men in contemporary society, can either help or hurt each other, they may be allies, or they may be enemies." (2000) Friedman and Greenhaus state that time is not the major problem but the more "subtle and pervasive problem is the psychological interference of work with family and of family with work. Psychological interference reduces family satisfaction and satisfaction with personal growth." (2000) Furthermore, psychological interference "...between work and family also diminishes the parental performance of both mothers and fathers." (Friedman and Greenhaus, 2000) the work of Bartosz, Stevens, and Steens entitled: "Women's Career Decision in Different Developmental Stages" relates that "women have learned to create a network for themselves that assist in their success..." (2006) the work of Unwalla (1977) conducted a study of "50 married women executives, 50 unmarried women executives and 50 housewives from the banking, marketing and advertising industry in Mumbia (India)." This study was conducted in order to "assess if work interfered with the family lives of women executives. Sixty-five percent of the women in her sample said that work remained at the back of their minds indicating psychological spillover of work into the family domain." (Rajadhyaksha and Smita, nd) the research of Ciabattari (2007) and Bailyn, Drago and Kochan (2001) reports research conducted in order to determine the family conflict among low-income, unmarried mothers. Results of this study state that "social capital reduces unmarried mothers' reports of work-family conflict, especially for low-income women. In addition, mothers who report high levels of conflict are less likely to be employed, these patterns hold for women who are looking for work and those who are not. However, even at high-levels of conflict, low-income women are more likely to be employed. The results suggest that work-family conflict has two consequences for unmarried women: it keeps them out of the labor force and it makes it more difficult for women who want to work to maintain employment stability." The work of Ferber, O'Farrell and Allen (1991) states similar findings. The work of Mason and Goulden states that: "In the sciences and engineering, among those working in academia, men who have early babies are strikingly more successful in earning tenure than women who have early babies. The effects of having late babies, those who join the household more than five years after the Ph.D. is earned, are far less dramatic. Overall, women with late babies and women without children demonstrate about the same rate of achieving tenure, a rate higher than women with early babies." (nd) the research of Fassinger, Scantlebury and Richmond entitled: "Career, Family and Institutional Variables in the Work Lives of Academic Women in the Chemical Science" states that: "Structural features of the workplace (such as inflexible academic tenure timelines) also make the home-work interface difficult for women." (2004) the work of Juthani (2004) states in relation to women psychiatrists that: "Conflicting demands are often made on these women to receive appropriate training, provide financial support to their families, and fulfill the cultural expectations to carry out their domestic responsibilities, and they constantly juggle between family and career which frequently leads to tremendous stress. Most international women do not have professional women as role models and mentors during their professional training in their country of origin. This often leads to self-imposed as well as culturally imposed expectations to be a superwoman and do it all. While some international female psychiatrists have succeeded in cultural adaptation, managing time, and receiving professional satisfaction, others have compromised by not pursuing leadership positions and sacrificing promotions and financial opportunities." The work of Kilmartin, Newell and Line (2002) reports a qualitative study to identify key issues affecting women general practitioner in their professional and nonprofessional lives. Conclusions of this study state: "The conflicting demands made on women GPs diminish their job satisfaction and lead to stress and imbalance in their lives. Recommendations to ameliorate the problems for women GPs include appropriate training, policy formation, financial and other support, and a change in cultural expectations of women GPs by the community, the profession and governments." The work entitled: "Work and Family: Is Peaceful Co-existence Possible" states that: "...Motherhood remains a career liability for women." (2000) Bombardieri relates the story of a young woman stating: "In Rud's field, biology, women are 46% of the doctorate recipients from the nation's top 50 biology departments. But they make up only 30% of assistant professors and 15% of full professors." (2005) the work of Caplan (1995) relates the difficulties that women encounter in the pursuit of a career such as the conflict "between professional and family responsibilities."

The work of Raymo and Sweeny (2005) relates that: "Work-family conflict is positively related to preferences for both full and partial retirement." It is related in Sorensen (1983) that the "hypothesis that women's role in modern society is characterized by role specialization over the life course has received much attention since its formulation; but this interest rarely has extended to empirical research." The work of Carr relates that women who have failed to fulfill their career goals by midlife "suffer from lower levels of purpose in life and higher levels of depression..." (1997) Etzion and Bailyn report that in a comparison study of Israeli women and American women that American women tend to have more career-family conflict "and to have more negative responses to this conflict." (1992) Another source of stress for women that represents a career-family conflict is related in the work of Williams (2003) who states that women are less likely to leave their present employment to take a position that pays higher when those women are mothers of young children.

SUMMARY and CONCLUSION

This work has identified various work-family conflicts in the career path of women including time restriction, psychological run-over from work to family and from family to work, cultural conflicts of women's roles and the fact that women are less likely to be promoted or tenured when they have small children. Women are less likely to leave their present employment for new employment even if it pays better. Women with small children also tend to earn less than their peers who have no children. Finally, structural features of the work place has been identified to result in work-family conflict impacting the career goals of women.

Bibliography

Stewart, Law M. et al. (1998) Guidelines for Critical Review of Qualitative Studies. Online available at http://www.usc.edu/hsc/ebnet/res/Guidelines.pdf

Silverman, David (2001) Doing Qualitative Research. 2nd ed.

Padgett, Deborah (1998) Qualitative Methods in Social Work Research: Challenges and Rewards. Sage Sourcebooks for the Human Services. Vol. 36.

Punch, Keith (2000) Developing Effective Research Proposals. Sage Publications London: Thousands Oaks.

Marshall, Catherine and Rossman, Gretchen B. (2006) Designing Qualitative Research. Sage Publications 2006.

Friedman, Stewart D. And Greenhaus, Jeffrey H. (2000) Work and Family-Allies or Enemies? What Happens When Business Professional Confront Life Choices. Oxford University Press: U.S.

Bartosz, Kay L.; Stevens, Patricia; and Stevens, Ellen (2006) Women's Career Decision in Different Developmental Stages. VISTAS 2006. Online available at http://www.counselingoutfitters.com/Stevens.htm

Unwalla, JM (1977): Beyond the Household Walls - a Study of Women Executives at Work and at Home, PhD Thesis, TISS, Bombay.

Rajadhyaksha, Ujvala and… READ MORE

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