This study is intended as a different kind of response to the longstanding issue of the woman as an effective contributor to the employment marketplace. The tradition of women at work has been fraught with argument and political polarities. Mother, homemaker, worker, administrator, artist, president suggest a continuum on which women become integral to social meanings, not as new entrants to men's world, but as contributors to the same tasks as professional peers. The introduction of a distinction between the qualitative and theoretical variables to the evaluation of professional functions, redirects and even reconstructs the very meaning of effectiveness in jobs. The addition of this distinction to previous ways of judging employees and employers opens the door to an expanded awareness of employees/employers to considerations which must yield greater efficiency, productivity, and job satisfaction than was heretofore possible.

This study explores women's understandings and experiences of empowerment so that they could empower themselves by using their own knowledge to see through factors that serve to disempower them. At a time when empowerment and its future is under intense discussion in South Africa, it seems wise to move away from quantitative studies which do not facilitate the development of comprehensive theory in industrial psychology. This study provides a qualitative feminist analysis of women's understandings and experiences of empowerment in an organisation. Written protocols, interviews and a workshop were used as data collection tools and seven women from one organisation participated in the study. The research revealed that women understand and experience empowerment in a number of ways. These understandings and experiences are affected by various factors: organisational factors; personal characteristics and abilities; their relationship with others at work and at home; and societal factors such as double standards for men and women and role expectations. The breadth and scope of the results imply that any attempt to empower women should include relational, motivational and feminist perspectives on power and empowerment. In addition, the results indicate that providing a space in which the women could explore the network of disempowering practices in their lives, was empowering for the women. Through the process of the research, the participants' understandings of empowerment evolved from viewing empowerment as something that is predominantly external (for example, influenced by others and organisational factors) to something that is internal (for example, influenced by motivational factors). This study cautions against seeing empowerment as something that is solely internal because by doing so women are placing the responsibility of empowerment upon themselves thus setting themselves up for failure. However, through the process of seeing empowerment as internal, the women were able to move towards a feminist understanding of empowerment in which not only is empowerment external ("out there") or internal ("within") but includes acknowledging one's own responsibility in empowerment as well as external societal factors that serve to hamper women.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology) / During the past decades married women increasingly joined the labour market due to financial reasons as well as a need for self-actualisation, and this has had significant consequences for these womens' marriages and family lives. In addition to women joining the labour market for financial reasons, more and more women are obtaining higher academic qualifications enabling them to pursue professional careers and apply to join traditional male professional occupations, such as the medical and dental professions, the law professions, the engineering and architectural professions, as well as various other professions. Professions have been described by certain sociologists as greedy occupations. Professions tend to absorb workers to such an extent that work remain central in their thoughts even when at home, and sometimes compel them to work long hours, weekends and holidays. The division between home life and .work life becomes blurred and, to a certain extent, professional work becomes a style of life. Since the practising of a professional career requires rigorous work hours, dedication, as well as commitment, and the implications of practising such a career for the married woman with children, especially small children, are substantial. Firstly, to what extent will she be able to comply with the requirements of a professional career and adequately care for her family? Secondly, how will a professional career affect the quality of her marriage and family life? Will she be able to commit herself to both a family as well as a career? This study deals with research into the commitment of 642 married working women in the PWV-area to their work. Respondents were selected by means of a random sample obtained from the telephone directories of the PWV-area. Data was collected by means of conducting a telephonic and postal survey with the help of the opinion survey centre of the Human Sciences Research Council.

M.A. / One of the most significant trends of our time, manifesting world wide as well as in South Africa and affecting family life extensively, is the continuous rise in the rate of married women entering the labour market. The increasing interface between work and family life, within the work/ family spillover model, has led to the conventional belief that female employment, due to the stress within the work-situation, and marital dissolution are causally related. In more recent studies however, researchers are no longer concentrating only on the detrimental effects of the dual-earner family lifestyle, but are increasingly investigating intervening variables which alleviate stress in dual-earner families and which could actually contribute to higher experience of marital integration and quality. As a result of this perspective on family life of the working married woman, the question arose as to what the situation in this regard in South Africa may be. The aim with this research was to determine the nature of the mediating influence of intervening variables on the correlation between the woman's participation in the labour market and her experience of marital integration. Respondents from Johannesburg, East Rand, West Rand and Pretoria were selected by means of purposive and snowball sampling. A total of 300 respondents completed a questionnaire, which included items on biographical information and Likert type questions regarding the respondents' experiences of both family and work related aspects. In order to measure these aspects, eight scales were developed by means of factor analysis and item analysis, namely the respondent's experience of her husband's performance of domestic obligations; her husband's care-taking of the children; her husband's performance of emotion work; her commitment to growth in the marriage; her experience of marital integration; her involvement in her work; her experience of occupational stress; and occupational satisfaction. An analysis was made to determine the differences between groups that can be divided into more numerous discreet categories, by making use of multivariate and one-way analysis of variance and Scheffe's paired comparisons, as well as Hotelling T 2 and t-tests and Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficients. Three regression models were developed in order to determine the predictors of marital integration, involvement in work and occupational satisfaction. The following results regarding the family related scales were found: Respondents experience their husbands' performance of emotion work to a greater degree, than their husbands' performance of domestic obligations and care-taking of the children. In comparison with the other scales, the respondent's experience of her husband's performance of emotion work indicated the highest statistical significant correlation with her experience of marital integration. Therefore the husband's performance of emotion work may be considered as a very important variable in predicting the working wife's experience of marital integration. In the case of the correlation between the family related and the work related scales, it was found that, unlike the respondent's experience of occupational stress, both the respondent's commitment to work and her experience of occupational satisfaction indicated a statistical significant correlation with her experience of marital integration. By means of path analysis, it was possible to determine that in both the models for path analysis in the case of marital integration (endogenous variable) and involvement in work (exogenous variable), -and in—the case—of marital—integration (endogenous variable) and occupational satisfaction (exogenous variable),, in the event of controlling for the family related variables, the partial correlations between marital integration and involvement in work, as well as between marital integration and occupational satisfaction, declined. Therefore it may be said that the family related variables, namely the respondent's commitment to growth in the marriage; her experience of her husband's performance of emotion work; her experience of her husband's care-taking of the children; and her experience of her husband's performance of domestic obligations, may lead to an enhancement of the working married woman's experience of marital integration. Knowledge of these intervening variables may not only help the dual-earner family in coping with the strenuous dilemmas, but may actually contribute to a better marital and familial relationship.