This thesis investigates the view of the Swedish government on how working hours can be used as a tool to promote equality in Sweden. Previous research shows how women are experiencing a bigger challenge than men in achieving a balance between work and family life since they take a larger responsibility for the unpaid work at home. This leads to inferior prerequisites in life for women, which in turn means that we live in an unequal society. At the same time research shows that there are two ways to go when it comes to changing working hours in favour of equality: an extension of the working hours for women who work part-time or a shortening of the working hours over all in the Swedish society. The aim of this thesis is to investigate which of these alternatives that is promoted by the Swedish government. This will be done through a critical discourse analysis.   The investigation shows that the Swedish government promotes the alternative where the women working part-time extend their working hours to full-time as a solution to the equality problem. This goes in line with what previous research has shown on this matter; that the working culture in Sweden is strong and that the idea of a “working line” is a strong concept that has been used since the start of the 20th century to this day. This also shows that there is a reigning discourse where it is not possible to talk about a shortening of working hours as a solution to the equality problem. As previous research has shown, this investigation also finds that the government continues to emphasize the economic consequences that come out of the fact that women to a large extent work part-time. The question of who is going to take care of the unpaid work at home when women starts to work full-time, however, remains unanswered.

This thesis investigates the experiences of Malaysian dual-career couples combining career and family. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were used to collect data from 23 dual-career couples. The findings indicate that being in a dual-career relationship impacts upon how they perceive the family’s provider role; career priorities; how decisions are made; and how family work is divided. The experiences described by the participants reflect their gender role ideologies and the salience of family and work roles. The results also reveal how interaction between partners can shape their ideologies and role salience, in addition to how religious and cultural values influence their gender attitudes. A number of challenges faced by the couples are identified. The supports and strategies that help them cope with housework, childcare and work demands are also critiqued. The thesis also highlights the implications of the government and organization’s policies and support to the couples and the kind of policies and support that the couples would like to see introduced. The similarities and differences between dual-career couples in the Malaysian context compared with the West are explored. Additionally, the findings extend the use of gender role ideology and role salience theories to develop an understanding of the couples’ experiences. A summarizing framework of their experiences based on the analysis is presented. In summary, the thesis firstly fills a gap in the dual-career couples’ literature which has previously focused upon Western couples only. Secondly, the study has examines the utility of gender role ideology and role salience as a framework to understand the context of dual-career couples. Thirdly, the current research also makes an important methodological contribution in a Malaysian context. Finally, it provides some recommendations for the government and organizations in Malaysia in terms of policies that promote work-family balance and gender equality for dual-career women.

The purpose of this work was to investigate basic personality mechanisms underlying life balance, to specify why life balance is beneficial for peoples well-being, and to identify specific self-regulatory competences that affect that balance. The approach of life balance was initially conceived of in terms of the work-family balance or the work-family conflict. Addressing the suggestion that the work-life system is multi- and not just two dimensional, life balance as a multidimensional construct was operationalized and investigated in the present research. Life balance was defined in terms of appropriate proportion of time spent in major life domains that comprises of activities related to work, social contact and family, health, and the overall meaningfulness of life. Two life balance measurements - the Life-Balance Checklist and the Life-Balance Questionnaire - were constructed as a part of this research. Both measures were found to have sufficient internal and external validity. The main findings were: (a) the congruence of needs, goals and goal attainment within the time invested in goal-relevant behavior predicted the level of life balance and may be viewed as a mechanism underlying life balance; (b) the fulfillment of psychological needs mediated the relationship between life balance and subjective well-being; (c) affective coping (i.e., action orientation) buffered the negative impact of stress on life balance; (d) time management behavior was found to have a positive impact on life balance through improved perception of control over time and reduced procrastination; and (e) persons especially skilled in self-motivation and self-relaxation reported to high competence to choose and attain self-concordant goals (i.e., self-determination) and, as a result, to balance their time spent across life domains more effectively.

The purpose of the present study is to find the relationship between characteristics of working life such as job demands (e.g. workload), and job resources (e.g. colleague support) and job attachments of employees, such as burnout, work engagement, and workaholism. Moreover, the effects of work characteristics on physical health, organizational commitment and work-family balance are investigated. Additionally, the relationship between three major employee attachment styles to work, namely, burnout, workaholism and work engagement was examined. Psychometric qualities of the main study scales were established through a pilot study. Data for the main study were collected from 266 Turkish hotel and health care service employees. The results of regression analyses showed that job demands have effect on burnout and work engagement / whereas job resources are related to increased workaholism and decreased burnout. Work engagement predicted physical well-being, increased organizational commitment, and work-family harmony whereas burnout had a negative effect on these outcomes. Workaholism was related only to organizational commitment. Mediation analyses showed that burnout mediated between job demands, and resources and perceived health, organizational commitment and work-family harmony, whereas work engagement mediated only between job resources and the above consequences. A proposed job stress framework was tested through Job Demand and Resources (JD-R) Model. Structural Equation Modeling results exhibited good fit to the model, thus providing support for employee well-being aspect of JD-R Model. The analyses also showed that burnout, workaholism and work engagement are different constructs. Implications for managers, limitations of the study and suggestions for future studies were presented.

This thesis examines the time-use patterns of adults in dual-earner households with and without children as a function of several individual and household socio-demographics and employment characteristics. A disaggregate activity purpose classification including both in-home and out-of-home activity pursuits is used because of the travel demand relevance of out-of-home pursuits, as well as to examine both mobility-related and general time-use related social exclusion and time poverty issues. The study uses the Nested Multiple Discrete Continuous Extreme Value (MDCNEV) model, which recognizes that time-decisions entail the choice of participating in one or more activity purposes along with the amount of time to invest in each chosen activity purpose, and allows generic correlation structures to account for common unobserved factors that might impact the choice of multiple alternatives. The 2010 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data is used for the empirical analysis. A major finding of the study is that the presence of a child in dual-earner households not only leads to a reduction in in-home activity participation but also a substantially larger decrease in out-of-home activity participation, suggesting a higher level of mobility-related social exclusion relative to overall time-use social exclusion. To summarize, the results in the thesis underscore the importance of re-designing work policies in the United States to facilitate a reduction in work-family conflict in dual-earner families. / text

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:30:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 4687.pdf: 2147587 bytes, checksum: fb3ffdc3f9a7de1a4f918afe236b0c49 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-24 / The need to study work-family balance derives from the experiences of couples who are developing their careers at the same time as they are raising children, and who enter into conflicts at home and at work as a result of the great difficulties that exist to integrate these involvements, in the absence of strategies and supports that would better enable them to establish an adequate level of balance. Focused on couples in this phase of their lives, this study was designed to address two key objectives: a) compare men and women with respect to five factors: personal resources; their professional, marital, household and parental involvements; use of external resources; satisfaction with their involvements; and psychological well-being, so as to identify similarities and differences in the trajectories for each sex, at this stage of their lives; and b) verify the relationships that exist among these five factors, for men and for women, on the basis of the work-family model that underpins this study. As such, an interview protocol was developed, based on a new model of work family balance derived from other models described in the research literature. Individual interviews were conducted with each member of 50 couples, who differed widely in terms of their ages, occupations, and socioeconomic levels. All the study participants were engaged in paid work and were raising a child of up to 5 years of age. The interview protocol included open-ended questions, as well as standardized scales used in other studies in the area of work-family balance. The responses of male and female participants were compared by examining the frequency with which different categories of answers emerged in their verbal accounts, using inferential statistics to compare their results on the standardized scales, and, finally, comparing the relationships that emerged among the five factors included in the theoretical model of work-family balance, using linear regression analyses. The results indicate distinct family and professional trajectories for the men and women who participated in this study. The undervaluing of women s professional work was reflected in the lower salaries paid to the women in comparison with the men. The women also reported greater difficulties than the men to reconcile the demands they faced, together with higher levels of burden, stress and lower satisfaction with workplace support. The strategies used by the couples were marked by the unequal division of family work, reflecting traditional gender perspectives. In a similar vein, the support that was available via organizational strategies was insufficient for both sexes and didn t meet the needs of parents of young children. Given that simultaneous work and family involvements are becoming normative, the results of this study point to the need to create interventions that can prepare couples to more equally share family demands, as well as widening institutional strategies to support workers and introducing public policies that can help couples with young children. / A necessidade do estudo de equilíbrio entre demandas profissionais e familiares parte da experiência de casais que procuram desenvolver suas carreiras ao mesmo tempo em que criam seus filhos e que passam por conflitos em casa e no trabalho, em função das reais dificuldades que existem para conciliar estes envolvimentos, na ausência de estratégias e recursos que lhes permitem estabelecer um equilíbrio mais adequado. Focando nesta fase de vida destes casais, com este estudo, buscou-se abordar dois objetivos principais: a) comparar homens e mulheres em relação a cinco fatores: recursos pessoais, envolvimentos profissionais, conjugais, domésticos e parentais; utilização de recursos externos; satisfação com seus envolvimentos e bem estar psicológico, buscando desta forma verificar semelhanças e diferenças nas trajetórias para cada sexo, nesta fase de suas vidas; e b) verificar as relações entre estes cinco fatores, para homens e para mulheres, segundo o modelo de equilíbrio trabalho família que embasa este estudo. Para tal, foi desenvolvido um roteiro de entrevista, estruturada a partir de um modelo de equilíbrio trabalho família novo, baseado em outros já existentes na literatura científica. Entrevistou-se, individualmente, ambos os membros de 50 casais, que eram de diferentes idades, profissões e níveis sócio-econômicos. Todos estavam trabalhando e criando um filho de até 5 anos de idade. A entrevista continha questões abertas, junto com escalas padronizadas, utilizadas em pesquisas na área de equilíbrio trabalho-família. Comparou-se as respostas dos homens e mulheres que participaram por meio do exame da freqüência com a qual diferentes categorias de respostas emergiram nos seus relatos verbais, utilizando análises estatísticas inferenciais para comparar os escores obtidos nas escalas padronizadas e, por fim, observando as relações que surgiram entre os cinco fatores que o compunham o modelo teórico de equilíbrio trabalho e família, por meio de análises de regressão linear. Os resultados indicam trajetórias familiares e profissionais distintas para os homens e as mulheres que participaram deste estudo. Notou-se a subvalorização do trabalho profissional feminino, uma vez que as mulheres recebiam salários mais baixos do que os homens. As mulheres também relataram maiores dificuldades do que os homens para conciliar as demandas que enfrentavam, junto com níveis mais altos de sobrecarga e estresse e menor satisfação com o apoio no ambiente de trabalho. As estratégias utilizadas eram marcadas pela divisão desigual de tarefas familiares entre os cônjuges, embasadas na concepção tradicional de gênero. De forma similar, as estratégias institucionais de apoio se mostraram insuficientes para ambos os sexos e não contemplavam as necessidades dos pais de filhos pequenos. Visto que envolvimentos simultâneos no trabalho e na família estão se tornando normativos, os resultados deste estudo apontam para a necessidade da criação de intervenções que preparem os casais para dividir de forma mais igualitária as demandas familiares, ao mesmo tempo em que sejam ampliadas as estratégias institucionais para apoiar funcionários e implementadas políticas públicas que apóiem casais com filhos na primeira infância.

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / The aim of this research study was to assess the existence and impact of career barriers on women in a municipal environment and to understand whether career salience explains some of the differences in the perception of career barriers. To answer the research hypothesis, permission was obtained from the municipal management to embark on the study and the respondents were notified in writing of the purpose and benefits of the study. A cross-sectional, convenience sample of 89 female employees in post levels one to ten was used. The survey questionnaire consisted of a demographical questionnaire, The Career Barriers Inventory-Revised (CBI-R) (Swanson, Daniels & Tokar, 1996) and a career salience scale. The statistical analyses included descriptive, inferential statistics and analysis of variance. The data was also subjected to a Scheffe’s test to determine the differences in perceptions. The results (N = 89) of this study do not support the hypothesis that there is a significant difference between age and women’s experiences of sex discrimination as a career barrier. The first and second hypothesis, which meant to prove a significant relationship between career salience and career barriers and a significant difference in women’s perceptions of career barriers based on their career salience, was partially accepted

Research shows that although the representation of women in the workforce has increased over the past couple of decades, there are many industries that still remain male dominated. In addition, it is generally known that such male-dominated industries have minimal female representation at their managerial levels. One such male-dominated industry in South Africa is the air traffic control (ATC) industry. Women represent about 30 percent of the industry, which suggest their status in the industry is still quite low. The purpose of this study was to examine male and female air traffic controllers’ perceptions of factors that facilitate and constrain women’s career advancement, and to determine whether there were any significant differences in their opinions. The study also identified what male and female air traffic controllers (ATCOs) think the industry can do to help prepare women for leadership positions in the industry, and how to eliminate barriers that may exist to women’s career advancement. Data for this study were collected through an online questionnaire adapted from Zhong’s (2006) study on a convenience sample (N = 147) of male and female ATCOs in South Africa. The data analysis was executed by using factor analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Content analysis was used to analyse the two open-ended questions. The findings from the ANOVA suggest that there were four significant gender differences in perceptions of the Personal effort/External support, Attitude/Internal character, Equity, and Family issues. There also were significant differences in opinion on External support/Personal effort, Attitude/Internal character, Equity and Family issues, depending on the number of children the respondents had, and significant differences of marital status on the External support/Personal effort and Family issues. Finally, significant differences were found in the years’ experience variable for Attitude/Internal character. In response to the open-ended questions, most of the respondents suggested that the ATC industry should offer training programmes to improve awareness of possible barriers within the industry, as well as to offer advice on how to overcome them and improve their leadership skills. This could be done by creating programmes on the knowledge and skills needed to advance one’s career or by providing mentors or role models. Future research could compare the perceptions of employees from different race groups and their perceptions of women’s career advancement in male-dominated industries. It is also recommended that researchers conduct in-depth qualitative interviews together with the current questionnaire to evaluate perceptions of the career advancement of women more critically. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

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