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The Role Family in
Working Women’s life : A Critical Analysis
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| Paper Id :
19571 Submission Date :
2024-12-04 Acceptance Date :
2024-12-22 Publication Date :
2024-12-25
This is an open-access research paper/article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.14670779 For verification of this paper, please visit on
http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/innovation.php#8
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| Abstract |
The increasing participation of women in the workforce has led to significant shift in the dynamics of family life. This study aims to explore the role of family in working women’s life, examining the challenges and opportunities that arise from this intersection. The study explores a sample of 640 working women in Kota city, Rajasthan. A sample of 640 working women was selected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results show that family support is a crucial factor in enabling working women balance their work and family responsibilities. How ever, the study also reveals that working women face significant challenges in managing their work and family life, including lack of support from their families, societal expectations, and workplace pressures. The study concludes by emphasizing the need for policies and practices that support working women and their families. |
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| Keywords | Role, Family, Support, Analyzed, Opportunities. | ||||||
| Introduction | The participation of women in the workforce has increased significantly in recent years, leading to a change in the dynamics of family life. Working women face unique challenges in balancing their work and family responsibilities and the role of family in supporting or hindering this balance is a critical area of inquiry. This study ains to explore the role of family in the lives of working women in Kota city, Rajasthan. As, the growth and development is taking place, the joint family system is no more a reality. People have to leave their native places and need to shift to their work areas leading to prevalence of nuclear family system. Both, the family system have pros and cons attached to it. But, for working women, which family system is more suitable?. This is the major query of the research paper. For this, Family as an Institution needs and explanation to be answered. Family is considered to be the most essential part of a person’s life. Every individual is taught about the importance of a family since their childhood days. Ford (1994) defined “Family as any living arrangement of two or more people who have child also”. Now, there could be number of types of families that normally exist; family may include single parent family. Two parent family, extended family, step parent family etc (Anderson, Burton & turner, 1993; Crowder and Teachman, 2004; Groman & Braverman, 2008; Miller, 1997). Therefore, a nuclear family is a social unit composed of two parents and one or more children. And, joint family system is composed of parents, their children and the children’s spouses and their own children also. Joint Family – Joint family teaches to remain close knit as a unit. Children are raised by grandparents without any need of creche or day-boarding schools. Children are exposed to the value system of the family.
Nuclear Family – Nuclear family has come into existence. As, people need to shift to their workplaces. And, Children, either go to day care centres or boarding schools or mothers have to sacrifice their working life to raise their children. But, nuclear family gives more time to the couple to spend together. Some of the characterstics of nuclear family are as follows:
But, the question arises which family is suitable for working parents. An, Answer is simple i.e. Joint family. Because, Joint family can only take care of the children properly without being baised or so. |
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| Objective of study |
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| Review of Literature | Rakesh K. Chadda and Koushik Sinha Deb (2013) expresses and opinion that unlike the western society, which puts impetus on “individualism”, the Indian society is “Collectivistic” in that it promotes interdependence and cooperation, with the family forming the focal point of this social structure. In a situation, where the mental health resource is a scarcity, families form a valuable support system, which could be helpful in management of various stressful situations. Mitra and Mukherjee (2012), conducted a study on one hundred female, adolescent students and their mothers. The tools used were “Perception of satisfaction” from communication with parent scale modified and adopted by Mukherjee (1993), adapted version of state trait Anger Expression Inventory and Family Pathology Scale. Underachievers were found to face slightly more family pathology. Achiever’s communication satisfaction correlated negatively with both anger expression and family pathology. Family pathology and anger expression were found to be positively correlated. The study revealed that family related problems are crucial for predicting student’s achievement. Satisfaction from communication with parent is a positive emotion which equips individual with happiness and better adjustment. Sabre (2016), investigated the level of marital adjustment among women with reference to their type of family belonging to Madhya Pradesh. For the conduction of study a sample of 120 women (nuclear family = 60 and joint family = 60) was purposively selected. The measure used for data collection was Pramod, K; Kanchana, R. Marital Adjustment scale. The data was analyzed by computing means, SD, t-test. The results revealed that there was a significant difference in marital adjustment among women of nuclear and joint families. The women belonging to nuclear showed higher levels of marital adjustment as compared to women of joint families. |
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| Sampling |
Sampling Strategy : A stratified random sampling technique was used to select the sample. Data Collection – Data was collected using a structured questionnaire that was administered to the sample of 640 working professionals. The questionnaire included questions on demographic characterstics, family structure and level of support received from family members. |
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| Statistics Used in the Study | Problem Statement – “Which type of family is more suitable for working women, joint family or nuclear family?” Research Design – This study employed a quantitative research design, using a survey questionnaire of 640 samples from 16 wards of urban working women mainly employed in white collared jobs. As, Kota North and Kota South has 180 wards in total, 08 wards from each municipal corporation contribute to 40 samples each from every ward and 10 samples each from Govt. school, Govt. office, Bank and Private schools were taken. |
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| Findings |
The findings of this study support the hypothesis that joint families are more supportive in raising the children of working professionals. The joint family structure provided an extended support system, where multiple family members can contribute to childcare and emotional support. In contrast, nuclear families ofen rely on a single care giver, leading to increased stress and decreased support. |
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| Conclusion |
The study highlights the importance of joint family support for working professionals in raising their children. Policy makers and employers can use these findings to develop support systems and benefits that cater to the unique needs of working professionals in joint and nuclear family setups. |
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| Suggestions for the future Study | 1. Employers should provide flexible work arrangements and family-friendly benefits to support working professionals. 2. Policy makers should implement policies that promote family support systems, such as child care and parental leave. 3. Working professionals should priortize building strong relationships with their extended family members to leverage their support. |
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| References |
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