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Work-family conflict in Pakistan: juggling of activities on personal values and

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Article · January 2013

DOI: 10.1504/MEJM.2013.054079

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28 Middle East J. Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2013

Work-family conflict in Pakistan: juggling of activities

on personal values and commitments

Noreen Saher*
International Islamic University,
H-10, Islamabad, Pakistan
E-mail: noreen.saher@iiu.edu.pk
E-mail: noreen.saher@wu.ac.at
*Corresponding author

Tasmia Matloob, Fariya Tahreen,

Shazia Safdar Ali and Galya H. Al Sulim
Imam Mohammed Bin Saud Islamic University,
P.O. Box 5701, Riyadh, 11432, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
E-mail: tasmia.matloob@yahoo.com
E-mail: fariyatahreen@gmail.com
E-mail: alishazia678@gmail.com
E-mail: dr.ghalyh@yahoo.com

Abstract: Work-family conflict has become a buzz word in the contemporary

world of international political economy. The intensity of this phenomenon has
attracted attention of researchers; consistently, fair amount of scholarship is
available in this domain at national as well as international level. In
contemporary Pakistan, work-life conflict has become an emerging issue as
well and many researches have been conducted. But no research has
exclusively focused on work-family conflict faced by married working women
and their conflict management style from personal value and commitment
perspective. This paper focuses this research gap. The aim of this paper is to
explore the ways through which married working women manage this
phenomenon of work-family conflict. To meet the targets of this research,
qualitative research methodology was employed. Face to face in-depth
interviews were conducted to get insight of the respondents on the issue at
hand. Thematic analysis was used for research data analysis and personal
opinions of the respondents were used for the sake of result validity. Research
implications and future research direction will also be given in this paper.

Keywords: working women; work-family conflict; Pakistan; coping

mechanism; individual values and commitment.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Saher, N., Matloob, T.,
Tahreen, F., Ali, S.S. and Al Sulim, G.H. (2013) ‘Work-family conflict in
Pakistan: juggling of activities on personal values and commitments’, Middle
East J. Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.28–48.

Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Work-family conflict in Pakistan 29

Biographical notes: Noreen Saher is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of

Social Sciences, International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan. For her
PhD dissertation, she studied the impact of cultural diversity on human
resource management practices in Pakistan. She has completed her postdoctoral
fellowship with Professor Wolfgang Mayrhofer at Vienna University of
Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria. She also works as an Adjunct
Faculty with Interdisciplinary Unit of Management and Organisational
Behaviour, Department of Management Science, Vienna University of
Economics and Business, Vienna Austria. Her research interests are in
cross-cultural organisational behaviour, international organisational behaviour,
gender and women issues in management, intercultural/comparative
management, comparative human resource management, career and
cross-cultural training.

Tasmia Matloob is an MPhil scholar at the Department of Sociology,

International Islamic University Islamabad. She has received her Masters in
Gender Studies. She has teaching experience in Department of Sociology and
Rural Development at University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad.
She has great interest in research and worked in different research projects of
the university. She is socially very active, self-motivated person and is running
a non-government organisation to provide financial assistance to needy
students. Her research interests are gender/women issues, women political
participation, leadership, gender relations and women position in Pakistani
society.

Fariya Tahreen is an MPhil scholar at the Department of Sociology,

International Islamic University Islamabad. She has received her Masters in
Social Work from University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. She has the
experience of working with Gender Reform Action Plan (GRAP) and Rose
Human Rights Welfare Organisation Sialkot. She has research interest in
women issues, women rights and child education and protection. She is very
active in working on societal issues and further she has humanity loving
attitude and behaviour. She has strong leadership, research and evaluative
skills.

Shazia Safdar Ali is a regular faculty member in the Department of Social

Work, Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University Balochistan. She is doing her
MS in Sociology from International Islamic University Islamabad. She has also
experience of working in the development sector and worked on gender issues.
She has multidisciplinary academic and professional background. Social case
work, group work, human resource management and gender studies are the
main area of her interest. She has also the experience of working with the
government organisation such as the Social Welfare Departments and
Psychiatric Department. She wants to excel in gender studies and human
resource management in her future endeavours.

Galya H. Al Sulaim received her Master’s degree back in 2000 from the
Teaching and Curriculum Department of Michigan State University, USA. She
had finished her PhD degree in 2010 from the Teaching and Curriculum
Department at the Imam Mohammed Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMISIU).
During the last four years, she was assigned in many positions at IMISIU.
Currently, she is appointed as the Vice Dean for the College of Social Science
at IMISIU for the girls’ campus. She participated in many local and
international symposiums, conferences, and journals for promoting social
studies and research.
30 N. Saher et al.

1 Introduction

Pakistan is a young country but its culture reflects the traces of world’s oldest
civilisation. Collective self-identity, asymmetrical relationship and gender consideration
are the basic values of Pakistani culture (Lyon, 2002; Saher, 2010) which set the
framework for the social interaction and social division of labour. Within these normative
parameters of Pakistani society, male is primarily considered as breadwinner and female
is taken as care taker of family (Malik and Khalid, 2008). The rise of industrialisation,
removal of agrarian system and continuous changes in economic and demographic trends
have remarkably changed the family division of labour with more influx of women
particularly mothers in to the labour market. Males are no longer the sole breadwinners
for the family as women are also economically contributing to family (Ullah, 2010).
Despite the major changes in the layout of Pakistani economy, very little – or no change
has occurred in the cultural framework of Pakistani culture and cultural expectations
especially from women. Consistently, women share have increased in labour market but
their primary roles as mothers, housewives, and care takers of family have not changed.
In this way, their duties and pressures have been doubled without any relaxation. For
example, women go out of their homes to contribute to the economic resources of the
family without any change in the phenomenon of connecting family respect with the
social mobility of women. This situation puts double edged pressures on the women.
Scholarship have highlighted that working women are experiencing numerous challenges
to effectively balance their work and family responsibilities. Involvement in multiple
roles at a given time generates inter-role conflict for working women because it is not
possible for them to satisfy all expectations and demands of work and family with limited
energy, resources and time. It becomes difficult especially for married working women to
create a balance or dividing line in their work and family life (Gordon et al., 2004; Hall,
1972).
Work-family researches have shown that both synergies and trade-offs between home
and work go side by side in the lives of working women (Friedman and Greenhaus,
2000). In order to minimise conflict, working women integrate work and non-work
activities and frequently switch from one role to another by using multiple effective
strategies and social support from family and organisation (Wilson et al., 2004).
Several studies have examined the nature and impact of work-family conflict for
working women from different perspectives. Empirical evidences of many researches
have shown that social support (both from work and family) plays an essential role to
manage work-family life. Afzal et al. (2010) have explored the experiences of mid-career
professional women who combine their work and family roles. They have also studied
the affect of their multiple roles on family systems (joint and nuclear). Malik et al. (2010)
studied the relationship of social support to manage work-family conflict for working
women.
The present study tries to explore the phenomenon of conflict management with
respect to an individual’s values and commitments. Values and commitment for different
roles play very central and functional role to manage work-family life. The literature
shows that a working woman also tries to attach more values with different roles, adopt
different strategies in different situations and keeps on prioritising her tasks and roles in
accordance with the situation based on her level of commitment. Sagiv and Schwartz
(2000) defined values as desirable, vary in type, have importance and motivation for
 Work-family conflict in Pakistan 31

individuals and serve as guiding principles in people’s lives. This research attempts to
explore the way working women prioritise particular roles to maintain their work life
balance. Our focus will be to see, how working women integrate their work family life
using different coping resources. It further highlights the importance and relationship of
individual values and commitment to manage work-family life.
This research is important in a sense that on one hand it will try to explore the nature
of experiences of working women while managing their work-family life and on other
hand will focuses on role of individual personal efforts to minimise the role-conflict. The
first section of this paper consists of the review of the relevant literature. Theoretical
framework and categories with its sub themes were developed in this section. Results will
be discussed in the light of different themes developed from the literature review. The
last section will present conclusion, research implications and limitations of this study.

2 Literature review

2.1 Work-family conflict

The construct of work-family conflict is a complex and multi directional (Greenhaus and
Beutell, 1985). Kahn et al. (1964) have presented the concept of work family conflict
using the role theory framework. This theory points out that each role has different
expectations and demands so it requires time, energy and commitment to perform a
particular role. Work-family conflict arises when the demands of the family and work
place are incompatible to each other and create inabilities to meet these demands that
leads towards inter-role conflict (Kahn et al., 1964; Kinman and Jones, 2008).
According to Noor (2004) mostly working women face two types of work family
conflicts: work-interfering-with-family (WIF) and family-interfering-with-work (FIW).
These conflicts can be divided in to three types: first, time-based; second, strain-based;
and third, behaviour-based (Streich et al., 2008). Goode (1960) has identified time
constraints, energy and commitment as major obstacles in performing various roles in a
given time. Role pressures and incompatibility to manage multiple roles and demands
creates conflicting situation especially for working women to manage their household
and workplace responsibilities (Afzal et al., 2010).

2.2 Major predictors of work-family conflict for working women

Increased participation of women in labour market has intensified their dual
responsibilities and roles. Consistently, working women face difficulties to integrate their
work roles and responsibilities and manage time with household chores (Grady and
McCarthy, 2008). Based on the stress-strain model of Dunham (1984) and social identity
theory of Lobel (1991), Ahmad (2008) has developed a predictive model for
work-family conflict. She has categorised work, family and personal factors that creates
imbalance in work-family for working women. These factors includes; work time
commitment, job type, job involvement, job flexibility (work-related factors), life-cycle
stage, number of children, child care arrangements (family-related factors) and role
values, gender role orientation, locus of control, perfectionism as individual-related
factors (personal-related factors).
32 N. Saher et al.

According to Bird (2006), Matthew and Panchanathan (2011) and Cross and Linehan
(2006) disproportionate or uneven burden of the family responsibilities, child care and
other domestic duties are important factors that make it difficult for women to manage
their all domestic responsibilities with their work life. Working women also face
difficulties due to roles over load and lack of proper social support to manage
work-family life. Aamir (2004) has identified that day-care centres and reliable
servants and maids are very crucial for professional mothers as it facilitates them
to take care of their children in the course of their working hours. Findings of Gupta et al.
(1998) show that working women encounters additional constraints to manage their
work and family duties due to long distance from house to work place (negatively
affects their performance in both domains). Pattanaik and Worley (2011) found that
working women with nuclear family system experience more problems because they do
not have extra help available in family to manage between household chores and job
requirements.
Studies of Moen and Yu (2000), and Oakley (1974) also highlight that working
women mostly face time-based conflict due to role overload and excessive work and
family demands. To cope with role pressures and meet the demands of work and family,
they work for long hours and reduce their own time for rest. Sparks et al. (1997) disclose
that individual has limited energy to perform multiple tasks in limited time; working long
hours’ results in restlessness, stress, anxiety, and sometime irritability among women.
Singh (1996) shows that majority of working women feel dissatisfied with the time spent
with their children and time given to their families.
According to Budhwar et al. (2005) unfriendly working environment and differences
in treatment at workplace where most of the time women do not get proper credit or
acknowledgement of their work negatively affects their performance. Organisational
environment and attitude of colleagues/staff and supervisor have significant impact on
employee motivation and performance and can play important role to manage work-
family life.

2.3 Integrating work-family life using social support

Callahan (1993) contends that availability of coping sources depend on the form of
coping strategies of work-family conflict. Afzal et al. (2010) figure out that working
women integrate their professional and domestic lives by using different coping strategies
and support to minimise conflict and stress. In most of the researches, social support has
been found as the most important source for working women to cope with their
work-family conflict (Kirchmeyer and Lin, 1987; Shumaker and Brownell, 1984;
Westman and Etzion, 1995; Ismail, 2004). Brough and Pears (2004) have categorised
social support into two types: first, work-related support which comes from organisation
(such as supervisor, colleagues/staff and friendly and friendly policies of an
organisation); and second, personal social support that comes from spouse, parents,
children, extended family or friends.
Afzal et al. (2011) have also figured out that working women get flexibility from
both, work and family system to manage their work and family life. Hussain et al. (2010)
find that the working women in Pakistan generally use more personal social support from
 Work-family conflict in Pakistan 33

their maximum available coping sources. Banyard and Graham-Bermann (1993) have
contended that working women share responsibilities with family, friends, and colleagues
as a best strategy to deal with the multiplicity of work-life demands and to reduce stress.
Erdwins et al. (2001) also disclose that spousal and supervisor support play an important
role in minimising work-family conflict.
Goldscheider and Waite (1991) report that mostly working women perform less
domestic work and use paid labour for domestic chores due to value of time. Hochschild
(2000) contends that highly paid working women also afford hiring nannies for their
child care as a coping strategy to avoid work-family conflict. Findings of Lambert et al.
(2004) as well as Higgins et al. (2008) show that scheduling of task, flexibility,
prioritising of tasks and having fewer children are used as coping strategies to minimise
work-family conflict.

2.4 Developing priorities on personal values and commitment for work and
family life

According to Budhwar et al. (2005), working women face continuous tussle between
their equal level of commitment to their dual roles as mother and as professional
working women. Carter (2000) and Hewlett (2002) have also reported that working
women with caring responsibilities face more quests for their own autonomy while
integrating their work and non-work activities. Several studies have found
motherhood/parenting responsibility as a first priority for working women (Rehman and
Roomi, 2012).
Mordi et al. (2010) have revealed that variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors play
their role in determining women career choices and preferences. Intrinsic factors include
an individual’s personal traits (such as pro-activeness, assertiveness and self-governed
and risk taking personality) whereas extrinsic factors include family orientation, political
and economic circumstances (influence of social and cultural values on family) (Brodsky,
1993; Ituma and Simpson, 2007).
Work-family conflicts are unique and they exist in particular contexts. Friedman and
Greenhaus (2000) suggested that individual’s awareness, identification and clarification
of situation to perform specific role in a particular context is very important to manage
the conflict between two domains. King (2005) contends that individuals develop
different strategies to change and aware of what is truly important for them in particular
situation to achieve their required objectives. Carlson and Kacmar (2000) disclose that
inclusion of individual values is central to organising meaning and action from the
perspective of importance for life roles. Schwartz (1996) noted that values guide people
and high priority values have influence on personal choices. Roe and Ester (1999) also
report that values influence people’s activity indirectly through attitudes and goals that
play central role to manage work-family balance.
Wilson et al. (2004) have argued that along with availability of support, an
individual’s personal ability and attitude/behaviour play central role to reduce a conflict
in a situation. Working women actively perform multiple tasks by frequently switching
from one role to another depending on the situation. Hall (1972) has identified ‘personal
role redefinition of individuals’ as an important factor to manage role conflict in their
34 N. Saher et al.

lives. This actually deals with changing the expectations by setting priorities among and
within roles while considering certain needs essentials (for example, the needs of sick
children). Ahmad (1995) has examined the work-family conflict experienced by working
women in Malaysia and their strategies to meet the expectations of work-family roles. He
has contended that women have managed the work-life conflict through change their own
attitude and perceptions of role expectations, establishing priorities, separating roles,
choosing not to take certain role demands, changing attitude toward certain roles and
rotating attention from one role to another.

3 Research methodology

In this research, we have followed qualitative research methodology to explore the work-
life conflict experienced by married working women and their ways out to handle this
problem. In-depth interviews were conducted to gain deeper understanding of the issue at
hand through the lives experiences of participants. Using purposive sampling technique,
20 married working women with at least one child were taken from two different
universities of Pakistan:

1 International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan

2 University of Wah, Wah Cantt, Pakistan.

Research data was analysed with the help of thematic analysis. From the literature
reviews, themes and sub themes were devised. Research data was compiled and refined at
the later stage this data was categorised according to themes and sub themes.
Subsequently the data was analysed inline with the already developed themes. Personal
comments and statements were used for the sake of validity. The table represents the
major themes for this study developed after extensive study on related topic (see
Appendix).

3.1 Demographic profile of the respondents

Table 1 describes the descriptive statistics of the respondents (age, profession, type of
family, qualification and number of children).
Demographic data was analysed through descriptive statistics to analyse the
demographic characteristics of sample. Findings show that most of the sample of the
working women (60%) was consisted of less than 36 years of age. The 30% were
between the age of 36 to 40 and (10%) between the age of 40 to 45. All the respondents
belonged to teaching profession with (50%) from International Islamic University,
Islamabad and (50%) from University of Wah, Wah Cant, Pakistan. The 60%
respondents were living in nuclear families, 30% respondents were living in joint family
and 10% were in extending families. Among all respondents (20%) have Masters (16)
degree, 60% have MPhil degree and 20% have PhD degree.
 Work-family conflict in Pakistan 35

Table 1 Demographic profile

Demographic characteristics Frequency Percentage

Age
26–30 8 40%
31–35 4 20%
36–40 6 30%
40–45 2 10%
Qualification
Master 4 20%
MPhil 12 60%
PhD 4 20%
Type of family
Nuclear 12 60%
Joint 6 30%
Extended 2 10%
Number of children
1 8 40%
2 5 25%
3 3 15%
4 4 20%

4 Results and discussion

4.1 Major predictors of manage work-family conflict for working women

The research results reveal that working women face numerous challenges to integrate
their work and family activities. They experience work-family conflict with various
intensities depending on their social class, economic background of family, employed
adults in a family, family support and involvement in official work. 75% of the
respondents have reported that they face dual role pressure as the biggest challenge to
manage the work-family life. According to one respondent:
“My family and work both are equally important to me. Although I put all my
efforts to give my best and quality of time to both domains but sometimes I feel
tired to meet the demands and expectations of the work and family”.
This statement shows that working women perform multiple roles at a given time. The
respondents have shared that on one hand, they have to handle children, kitchen and other
domestic commitments at home and on the other hand, they have to meet the official
assignments at work place. They further have highlighted that involvement in multiple
roles and demands; and expectations of family and work creates conflicting situation for
working women to manage their household and workplace responsibilities.
36 N. Saher et al.

The respondents have shared that they work at night for longer hours to meet the
expectations of their family like they cook at night; they iron and sew the clothes at night,
etc. They also have mentioned about the physical fatigue, stress, anxiety, irritability and
restlessness due to tough work without rest at home and workplace. Most of the
respondents have highlighted the behaviour of restlessness that disturbs the quality of
their work and relation at home and workplace. 69% of the respondents have pointed out
that they feel continuous restlessness and stress to manage their work and family. They
have mentioned that they are consistently struggling hard and juggling between multiple
roles and demands by sacrificing their own time of rest. As some respondents state that:
“I face problem in managing family role due to my job, my family especially
husband is not supportive. I always think of managing the dual roles, especially
when it comes to the rearing of my children while also taking care of all the
other household matters at the same time”.
Some women who get family support also face similar situation as some respondents
said:
“I have full support of family in managing my work and family responsibilities.
I, however, still face problem in managing things. Sometimes, I get extremely
tired and stressed. I have to sacrifice myself, my needs and rest to manage
things in order to avoid conflict in my family and work demands”.
Similarly, a respondent has also stated that:
“To meet the demands of the work and family I have to compromise for my
own self, reduce my rest time and I feel continuous restlessness to manage my
work-family life”.
As above statements show that women with and without family support face similar
challenges of managing these dual roles. Majority respondents have shared that they
experience continuous stress and tension while performing these roles. They contend that
this continuous tension of work and family responsibilities negatively affects their
personal lives as they do not get proper and quality time for themselves. Some
respondents have reported that they perform their major household tasks such as cooking
and cleaning at night time or on weekends in order to manage their duties. They work
hard to manage their multiple roles with very limited time. They try to cope up with these
conflicting situations by planning and prioritising different tasks while compromising
their own rest and sleep time. Sharing of responsibilities with family and colleagues is
also one of the strategies used by majority of the respondents.
Research results have also figured out that economic position of women plays an
important role in coping with role pressure. The results reveal that the women who have
limited financial resources often find it difficult to manage these role pressures. A
respondent have mentioned that:
“I cannot afford to hire maid to help me in rearing of children and managing
household chores. So I need to do all the tasks myself, which makes me moving
around and doing work all the time”.
The analysis of the research data have pointed out that respondents mostly face
time-based conflict due to excessive work and time and schedule conflict. The data shows
that mostly women with nuclear families are facing time-based conflict as a major
challenge to integrate their work and family responsibilities especially with their young
children as pointed out by Grady and McCarthy (2008).
 Work-family conflict in Pakistan 37

According to a respondent:
“The big challenge for me as a professional woman is to manage my quality
time for my children. Sometimes I feel dissatisfaction about the time I give to
my children’s studies, health, and socialization because of my professional
assignments”.
Above response shows dissatisfaction with her due to insufficient time she give to her
children’s healthcare, their studies, and socialisation. This stance was share by most of
the respondents. The analysis of the result reflects that the working women living in
nuclear family system experience more problems regarding their child care as compare to
women living in joint family system. The data also reveal that majority of working
women (58%) were living in nuclear family system and they have shared a sense of
dissatisfaction regarding their time spent with their children especially young children.
On the contrary, women with joint family system experience more satisfaction regarding
their children’s care and socialisation. Family support especially from grandparents is
helpful for them to reduce their tension regarding their child care. They feel more
satisfied as they think that their children are in safe hands; receive high quality care from
their grandparents in good environment and socialised as required.
As one respondent said:
“Joint family is a blessing for me. I feel more comfort at work because of my
mother-in law and husband’s support to handle my children at home”.
In the same vein another respondent shared:
“I live in joint family. I always get up at 8’o clock. My mother and sister-in-law
prepare breakfast and lunch and my husband make children ready for school. I
give all my time to family after returning home, prepare dinner, and spend time
with children”.
Both the above statements show great satisfaction of women living in joint family
system. The presence of grandparent minimises the responsibility of rearing and
socialisation of children. Similarly, according to respondents family members help in
managing the household responsibility that reduces the workload.
There were 55% respondents who reported that long distance from their work to
home add difficulties for them to fulfil their family and professional commitments on
time. 35% respondents were using public transport. Most of them said that tension of
long travelling on public transport make them tired both physically and mentally.
Consequently, it becomes difficult for them to manage family and household chores at
home.
One respondent said:
“Tough routine at work and then long traveling after work makes me so much
tired that I don’t want to talk even with my own children. I give time to my
family after taking a rest of one an hour”.
Also some said that:
“I face major problem in traveling long hours from home to office, every day I
change many vehicles to reach to my workplace. This causes tiredness, which
affect my professional responsibilities and also my role in family. The time
spent on traveling often reduces the quality time in preparing and delivering
lectures”.
38 N. Saher et al.

One of the respondents also said:

“If we get proper time, we can spend quality time on preparing effective
lectures and involving students in different healthy activities in their learning
process”.
Similar responses have been given by respondents from University of Wah as well as
International Islamic University. The travelling distance affects equally those who use
their personal vehicles and who avail public transports. Majority of the respondents have
shared that long travelling cause mental and physical tiredness which affect their quality
of work at home as well as at work place. Respondents also have showed dissatisfaction
in preparing quality lecture due to the long travelling problem.
The respondents’ have pointed out about the value of equity and friendly policy of
organisation that can play a pivotal role in facilitating female employees. In this regard,
most of them have mentioned about the facility of day care as one of the most important
elements of such policy. In response to the question regarding the problems that create
role pressure, respondents from University of Wah have identified unavailability of day
care centre in their institution as a major problem. Most of respondents have shown
dissatisfaction towards the organisational role regarding the facilities provided to female
staff.

4.2 Integrating work and family life using social support

Despite of many challenges, working women integrate their work and family role to
manage their work-family life. Majority of the respondents of the present study (75%)
have reported that they receive family and organisational support as main sources to
minimise conflict and stress. It includes help from husband, joint family system, friends
and relatives, supervisor and colleague. Spousal support for working women was found
as a major source to balance their family-work life.
As one respondent said:
“My husband’s attitude is always very supportive regarding my work-family
life. He always tries to manage family urgencies, that’s why I am more
committed towards my work life”.
Another respondent said:
“My husband’s attitude is always cooperative and encouraging towards my job
and he facilitates me to deal my work-family activities”.
The above data shows that women were getting more support in terms of encouragement
and motivation from their spouses. Mostly, working women were hiring different
services. Majority respondents with nuclear family were using paid labour for their
domestic chores and some respondents hire housemaids especially for their child care.
However, some women also have shared that though their husbands support them, but
this support is very much dependent on who will pay for the services of the labour. The
respondents have also mentioned about inhibitions of their husbands to give them a
helping hand in household chores due to cultural stigmas; so most of the time these men
encourage their wives to handle the stuff rather than actually helping them. Most of the
respondents (65%) were using their personal vehicle to reduce their time-based stress and
to save their time for family commitments.
As one of the respondent said:
 Work-family conflict in Pakistan 39

“I use services of nursing houses for my children at first time. To reach to

specific task such as to office, picking up and dropping my children to school, I
use my personal transport to save my time. I have hired maids to help me in
household chores”.
The research results highlight the role of economic sources and background of the family
in devising the cope up strategies for managing the conflicting situations as highlighted
by Callahan (1993). As some of the respondents stated that:
“My salary is not enough to afford to get a maid or buy a car to save my time
for effective handling of my dual responsibilities. Consistently, I focus more on
time management to do all the tasks myself, by doing major tasks on weekends.
I do cooking, washing, and cleaning of house mostly at time comprising on my
own time”.
There were some other respondents who also reported the excessive amount of work
stress due to lack of economic sources. Increased inflation and economic recession have
forced men and women to work together. Women compromise in many ways to take the
burden and minimise their expense. They work hard to manage their multiple roles with
very limited time and resources. They use different strategies to avoid the conflicting
situation by performing the tasks in available times. According to some respondents, they
often perform major tasks at night or on weekends. They also share their responsibilities
reciprocally with family members and colleagues. Sharing of tasks with colleagues,
friends and family are the best strategies which working women adopt to reduce work
over load and decrease stress. Most of the respondents (85%) were very satisfied with
their working environment and colleagues support. Attitude of supervisor was very
supportive in performing urgent tasks. Majority of the respondent’s share and exchange
major assignments of work with each other in difficult situations, similar situation has
been witnessed by Wilson (1999).
As one respondent said:
“My colleagues are just like my family and they are an important resource for
me to deal with extra burden of work at home as well as at work, as I share my
work with them in urgencies and I also cooperate with them in situation of their
urgencies”.
However, on the contrary, there were three respondents (15%) who did not feel comfort
at workplace due to unfriendly environment; and they avoid taking any kind of help from
their colleagues. The internal professional jealousy from female bosses or colleagues
makes it difficult for them to share burden. They always prefer to give extra time to
manage their official work. Organisational culture plays an important role in minimising
the role pressure and help women to integrate these roles effectively. Similarly some of
the respondents also complained about the lack of acknowledgement from their bosses
which led them to avoid performing challenging tasks. These women also face less
vertical growth due to their dual roles. As one of the respondent said that she avoids
exposing her abilities in the office, according to her, bosses specifically female bosses
usually take advantage of their skills without acknowledging them in front of top
management.
Developing effective communication and social networks with others plays central
role in managing different tasks in different circumstances (Clark, 2000; as cited by
Rehman and Roomi, 2012). Research data has depicted that most of the respondents have
very good relations with their family members, friends and colleagues; and they were
40 N. Saher et al.

effectively using these networks to achieve work-family balance. This enables them to
actively find solutions to their problems.
Advancement in telecommunication technology has facilitated females to reconcile
the demands of work and family simultaneously. Mostly, respondents said that
advancement in communication technology has made it very easy for them to maintain
their social relationships. The use of communication technology has lessened distances
and they remain in contact with their family members.

4.3 Managing activities on personal values and commitment.

Mostly, working women with domestic and care responsibilities face quest to develop
priority for their own autonomy (Budhwar et al., 2005). Majority of the respondents have
shared that they cannot compromise on quality and prime time for their children;
motherhood was considered as top priority for these women but they also showed their
commitment and concern regarding career development.
According to a respondent:
“I always try to give my best time to my office work and my husband has very
supportive attitude regarding child care but I always prefer motherhood as my
first priority”.
According to the above data, majority of the respondent preferred motherhood over
professional life. However, they also said that they could not leave their jobs and wanted
to grow in the competitive environment. They give special attention to their children
while manage their work in office. The analysis of the responses has unleashed that dual
role kept women away from the promotional ladder; these women have skills and
abilities but they do not get proper time to utilise their abilities.
Majority of the respondents have revealed that they prefer to give quality and prime
time to their children as their first priority at home. They prefer to use paid labour for
domestic chores due to the value of their time with their children and family. Findings of
Goldscheider and Waite (1991) show that working women perform less domestic work.
Results of our study also identified that working women often reduce or post-pone other
household activities to spend more time with their children. They listen and talk to their
children about their whole day activities; scheduling at least one outdoor activity with
them and try to socialise them by engaging in different learning activities.
“I take my children with me whenever I go for shopping, by doing this my
children spent some time with me and they also enjoy the outdoor activities.
They help me in shopping.”
Family orientation of the respondents plays an important role in developing their career
choices and progression. Majority of the women (60%) have said that they had a working
environment at home which encouraged them to be more committed towards their career
development. Akrivos et al. (2007) noted that variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors
have strong influence on working women to choose career choices and to make
preference what is important for them as being working women as well as a mother. One
of the respondents said:
“As my parents were from educational sector and I always found them highly
concerned and less compromising on their commitments towards their
profession. I got inspiration from my parents and my husband also supports me
 Work-family conflict in Pakistan 41

to always prioritize all my work related to commitments along with my

domestic duties”.
The above data shows that working environment at home and educational background of
the family play an important role in the career development of these women. Women
often get prime inspiration from their parents in developing priorities and performing
their roles meaningfully. Respondents also said that they attach level of commitment and
values to each role from the perspective of important tasks in the specific scenario. For
most respondents, prioritising of motherhood and profession was equally important to
them.
A respondent who was leading a department management shared:
“According to the nature of my job, I realize that I should be in the office all
the time, because my decision and signature require in every matter. Similarly I
also don’t want to sacrifice my children and family. Therefore I face great role
pressure. However I don’t sacrifice my commitment towards my professional
duties. I use different strategies according to the scenario.”
The analysis of the above data says that these women go through hard time in both
places. They manage their duties at the maximum level, and often take the pressure of
work on themselves. Respondents have further mentioned that their absence in the family
when they are in office, family and specifically children suffer, that is the hard time for
them but they have to compromise for their career.
Mostly, respondents with nuclear family system showed more commitment to their
jobs along with motherhood. Husband’s support, availability of good day cares and hiring
services for domestic chores has made it easy for them to equally prioritise their both
domains.
According to one of the respondents:
“I always consider my both domains equally important. But if an urgent
situation occurs at home, and I have already made commitment for my office
assignment, then in that situation I always try to meet my office assignment and
try to cope with family using different supportive social networks”.
Working women also focus more on time management, scheduling and planning tasks,
establishing priorities, separating their roles, and they have more flexible attitude. One
respondent highlighted:
“The secret behind my successful work-family life is time management. I don’t
compromise on time management. I switch from one role to another role by
quick analysis of the situation and allocating and prioritizing time for each task.
I am satisfied with my life because of my skill to schedule the things all the
time. This saves me to avoid the conflicting situation. I think working women
should do right things at the right time without leaving any task pending”.
According to the statement of the respondents in the above paragraph, time management
is one of the personal values that working women use for managing and minimising the
role pressure. They always prefer to do the right work at the right time. According to Roe
and Ester (1999), values influence people’s activity indirectly through attitudes and goals
and play a functional role in the work family-related processes and outcomes. Values
play central role to determine the work-family balance (Berings et al., 2004). The data
analysis has unleashed, time commitment as a core value for working women to create a
balance in their work and family life.
42 N. Saher et al.

The inclusion of individual values is central to organising meaning and action from
the perspective of importance (Carlson and Kacmar, 2000). Women in the present data
chose nuclear family system as their prime value to avoid the extra work burden. Data
shows that majority of the respondents’ switched to nuclear family for making their
career while balancing their dual roles.
“I am more comfortable in nuclear family where I am responsible only for my
own family; I try to give my full time to my children, husband and my work.
Majority of respondents said they prefer to live in nuclear family. They also said that they
I want to be responsible of my own family only, because it is very difficult to meet the
expectations of all family members in joint family system.
The result showed that professional women value only meaningful social
relationships, participate only in important activities and avoid extra/less important social
relationships. Mostly, respondents identified that that although they try to avoid extra
involvement in social activities but sometimes they have to sacrifice their participation in
important events of primary family relationships because of their work commitment.
As according to one of them:
“As I am fully aware that I don’t have extra time with my job and family
responsibilities, I try to avoid extra social events of my family and relatives”.
Working women try to maintain a boundary between their work and family domains.
They always try to give the best time to their job at work place avoiding extra family
tensions. They prefer to give quality and prime time to their children as their first priority
at home. At workplace they always try to give their best output. They do not compromise
on their official tasks and always try to finish it on due date.
“I always schedule my work and family activities and try not to delay any task.
I always try my best to complete both my official and family work on the
specific timings. And I never feel a conflicting situation except an urgent
situation”.
Along with availability of support, an individual’s personal ability and attitude/behaviour
to handle the situation plays central role to reduce work-life conflict. Working women
redefine the personal role and set priorities and frequently rotate attention from one role
to another (Hall, 1972; Wilson, 2004). This study also shows that, the attitude and
behaviour of women matters a lot when they have to deal with domestic and official role
at the same time. It is also observed from this study that women with flexible attitude are
in more ease and they easily cope up with the difficult tasks and conflicting situation.

5 Conclusions

The study explored the experiences of working women regarding managing their work-
family life with their multiple responsibilities of household and work. It was found that in
spite of many problems, working women are managing conflicting demands of work and
family by using support from maximum available resources. The results confirm personal
support (husband’s and family support, day cares services, hired labour and joint family
system for child care) as a main source for minimising work-family conflict. The results
have shown that working women with more strong financial position uses more advance
technologies to manage work-family life. Mostly, working women spend less time with
 Work-family conflict in Pakistan 43

domestic chores. They take hiring services, such as servants, housemaid, laundry
services, using personal vehicle to save their time for family and professional
commitments. Husband’s support has been identified an important and major source in
managing work-family life. Some respondents shave figured out that keeping their
husbands happy is necessary and very effective strategy to maintain a work-family
balance.
Motherhood was considered as a top priority for working women along with their
professional development. They try to maintain a boundary between their work and
family domains. They prefer to give quality and prime time to their children when they
are at home. Working women prefer to live in nuclear family system as they want to
avoid extra social responsibilities of joint family for their own career development. They
always try to prioritise their schedules, focus more on time management, and develop
more flexible attitude, and shift their attention from one role to another leaving less
important activities. They engage themselves only in meaningful social activities; create a
boundary between different roles, by giving quality time to each role. The lack of support
from husband, redistribution of roles within the family to share responsibilities inside the
home is not widely accepted and practiced. Organisational policies are also very crucial
to provide supportive services such as day-care to facilitate working women to manage
their multiples roles.
One has to be conscious while generalising the result of this study as it has some
limitations. The very first and obvious limitation is that study was conducted in only two
cities and respondents were university teachers. The other limitation is the limited
number of respondents. Though these are some of the limitations to our study but the
results are reasonable and justified from the literature review and are appropriate to verify
the main objective of this study. Despite limitations, this paper is a valuable contribution
to literature on work-life from personal values and commitment perspective. From
practical perspective, it provides knowledge and understanding about working women
and their strategies to handle these problems. This paper can be helpful for individuals as
well as managers and policy makers to understand problems of working women and
devise policies and systems to effectively incorporate women into the main stream
activities in a way that they can have a healthy life. A number of avenues for future
research emerge from our study. First, additional evidence is needed within Pakistan
beyond the regional constraints of our study. Second, future research could go beyond
qualitative research and based on more large-scale survey studies would especially help
to clarify how widespread the issues addressed in this paper are.

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 Work-family conflict in Pakistan
Appendix
Major themes of the study
Themes
1 Nature of family problems
faced as a professional women
2 Nature of organisational
problems as a professional
women
3 Multiplicity of roles at a given
time
4 Time given to your family
5 Time given to work
6 Time given to children
7 Stress and tension due to
multiplicity of roles
8 How do you minimise stress
47
Subthemes
• Child care issues
• Spousal care
• Household chores
• Care of elder/dependent members
• Self care and well-being of family
• Community roles
• Non-flexible working hours
• Non-cooperative behaviour of supervisor and
colleagues
• Overload obstacles in leave
• Extra tasks and assignment
• Less acknowledgement at work
• Manage household work with office work
• Using different resources to meet the demands of
roles
• Extra time to work and family
• Time given to spouse
• Elder members of the family children
• Friends and relatives
• Reach and leave office on time
• Participation in extra assignments
• Meet all official tasks on time
• Quality of time to your children’s health
• Their study, socialisation, entertainment and leisure
with children.
• Working long house
• role overload
• Extra demands from family and work
• Restlessness and anxiety due to less time for rest
• Taking rest
• Postponing activities
• taking leave
• prioritising and planning
• entertaining yourself
 48 N. Saher et al.
Major themes of the study (continued)
Themes
9 Strategies to cope work life
conflict
10 Nature of coping strategies
11 Preference for time given
12 Reasons of preference
13 Opinion regarding women
participation in job market
14 Preference to family/official
responsibilities in conflicting
situation
15 Recommendations to
minimise work life conflict
View publication stats
Subthemes
• Taking family support
• Taking colleagues support
• Taking supervisor’s favour
• Hiring services
• Using technologies
• Proper planning and scheduling to family and work
tasks
• Active coping strategies
• Avoidant coping strategies
• Acceptance coping strategies
• Preference to your family tasks
• Preference to your work tasks
• Considering motherhood/parenthood as major
responsibility, Emotional attachment with family
• Less concerned with career development.
• Must work if social support is available
• Economically independent
• Work after children grown up
• Family cannot be ignored in any case
• Meet commitments weather work or family
responsibility
• Share responsibility with others
• Better financial incentives for work
• Flexible working hour, day cares
• Organisational family support
• More acknowledgement at work place and home