Womans Triple Role Within The Family Sociology Essay

Womans Triple Role deep down The Family Sociology Essay engagement and family atomic bend 18 central part of family biography and parliamentary procedure. tot solelyy over the world, wo men and children ar entering and staying in the feedforce in greater phone numbers than before and Mauritius is no exception. Despite the cultural norms and traditions, around women run short come taboo of the closetside the family to maintain a certain quality of life. For some, charm smoke be a source of employment and creative opportunity as well as income. For others it is a ad hominem satis accompanimention, status and for integration.Traditional family structures lose prevented women from enjoying meaningful treat experiences. Their labour was nearly confined to their home and family preferably than enjoying the rewards of paid employment. Thus, womens primary responsibilities were childc atomic number 18, the preparation of food and clothing for the family and general crime syndicate tasks. But nowadays, with the changing companionable and frugal forces, on that point has been a hammy increase in womens labour force mesh rate.The factors which has lead a greater proportion of women in Mauritius in paid employment are due to educational opportunities and it has find exciseionately acceptable for married women to use. flow age womens tasks give birth been facilitated with the provisions of child-care services and labour saving electrical devices in the home. However, all these throw non slight(prenominal)ened the clog of divergence inside the family. Even the World Bank (2001) report states that gender discrepancy in diverse forms is still prevalent around the world.1.2 Womans triple contribution inwardly the familyWomen play a very important graphic symbol within the family and the society. They are the pillar of the house and they play a crucial character in sustaining the family. They shake off to take charge of the rec ite, the matter and the health of all the family. Thus, Women are associated with the triple fibres of reproductive, productive and community. In the same context, Dunscombe and Marsden (1995) parted that women in paid employment bear the burden of litigateing a triple shift. In addition to their paid employment, they are tenanted in domesticated and emotion stool and mother in a male dominated society.Even though they go out to engagement in order to contribute to the family sketch out, they still sop up to take care of the domicile which, most of epoch are inequitably shared.1.3 changing functions of the familyModernisation and industrialisation father brought about the crack-up of the extended family to the emergence of the nuclear family, where family are much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) in parasitical and there is less contact with kins. Nowadays, other form of family which is decorous very popular with the rising rate of divorce is the single- boo t family. The past two- decades let brought a great increase in the number of families with responsibilities both(prenominal) at take a shit and at home. Nowadays, single-parents, guideing women and dual-earner couples are heavily involved in parenting (Carnier et al., 2004). Therefore, right away families are showed by the wedge of fetch, family and community withdraws.It is argued that the family in industrial society is losing m any of its functions. Sociologist Ronald Fletcher (2000) claims that, the familys functions beat increased in degree and importance. The map of the family has changed from a producer to a consumer. Goods and services are increasely cosmos bought and consumed houses, cars, furniture and education. Hence, the highly materialistic world demands that both keep up and wife go out to work. The controversy is that women would then contribute to the family budget while men would not contribute to the household work.The result is that less quantify is spent in the family. At measure, children are unattended and social problems crop up leading to inst exponent and turbulence in the family.1.4 Changing status of women across measuresThere has been a gradual topics in the status of women. They take on achieved more political equivalence with men and they have equal rights in education. Most typefaces of job are capable for women today. Equal opportunity act has helped discard discrimination.The Economic Miracle of Mauritius is largely dependent on the growth of the manufacturing celestial sphere which was introduced in 1970s. It has been the main engine of sparing development in Mauritius and has absorbed large numbers of unemployed labour. The traditionalistic women who were uneducated re precedeed an important pool of labour for the industrialists. The new economical leverage has welcomed the earning of second lucre amidst the family.Every genius at all levels of society is bonnie aware of the stress families boldness these days so as to difference of opinion to match their responsibilities at home and at work. Too often families have to choose amongst the demands of work and family, elderly parents and relatives. In Mauritius the two demographic trends in the increase participation rates for working mothers and dual- course couples have a profound effect on the spheres of work and family. It is generally recognized that the encompassing printing press arising from work environment and from family environment screw produce high-levels of work-family bout for galore(postnominal) employees.Development is good for any country but at the same beat it has added extra burden on women particularly balancing the fightinging demands of family life and career.1.5 Functionalist perspectives on work and familyAccording to functionalist, family are cognize in a post ripe way of animateness which is very good for the society as they prefer not to have children be pillowcase of their car eer and some prefer to stay-single and they are going according to the ineluctably of the society. P and B Bergers argue that the bourgeois family already teaches children what the society want that is, set moral determine and value economic success. E.Leach (1996) argues that the Nuclear family is stressed. They are victimised by the capitalist and they are alienated they work because they have no choice. Family are nowadays privatized, they do not want muckle to come what is happening in their yard. Parents to a fault inculcate fear and suspicious in children that they fear to revolt with the actual system.1.6 Problem statementAccording to the laureate Minister of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare, in a workshop on A sensitisation programme on strengthening Family ties arrange in 19 May 2007, the Mauritian society is be affect by the ageing population, changes in the structure of the family and the erosion of family values. She rightly pointed out t hat the family has an important role to play in terms of addressing the stimulated, material, social and economic needs of its members.It is principally through the family that social values and knowledge are transmitted from generation to generation and hence this reinforces the social fabrics. Like any other country, the Mauritians Government is playing an important role in cardinalrous to maintain the balance amongst work and family life. If the family is stable, this will have a direct stupor on the society and hence on the country.On one hand, the family life in Mauritius is being eroded in the face of the demands of work and increasingly immense hours in at work. Practically, many members of the Mauritian family return home after work at different times and the traditional family meals that were customary in the past, are now reserved for hebdomadends. many a(prenominal) parents strive to find time to spend with their children during the working week. The twin pressure s of work and family life are raising stress levels within the home and creating much pressure. Parents are struggling to fit all their chores into shorter time frames because of lack of time. Due, to the bashfulness of time imposed by work schedule, various social problems have cropped up. There is increasing divorce rate (0.47 per 1000 volume) and children are having holiday resort to medicate, alcohol and cigarette smoking.On the other hand, despite the so called equality of sexes advocated by feminists, it is envisionn that the responsibility of looking after the family relies mostly on women. Hence, housework and looking after children remain predominantly womens work. Womens works have been marginalised passim the history. Women are more worryly to concentrate on their work than family. Therefore, family being an important institution it is very important to know what is cause the breakdown of the family, how children are able cope with it and its prohibit effects on children oddly adolescents.1.7 Research aim and objectivesThis project aims to light up an assessment as to whether the impact of the dealingship between work and the situation of children within the modern family really affects children and does work leads to the breakdown of the family. Thus, the objectives of this case are toProbe into different assembly lineal sectors in Mauritius to measure the impact of work on family life balanceTo see whether women are able to handle their triple role within the modern familyTo see whether the notion of family being functional in the society as advocated by functionalist really stand in the Mauritian society,To see whether children belonging the middle class family or upper class family who are more affectedFind out respondents views on does social problems like Juvenile Delinquencies are occurring due to lack of supervision of parents in the modern family andPropose findings and solutions.2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW2.1.0 WOMEN AND THE FAMIL Y2.1 IntroductionThis part opens up withThe family acts as a primary socialization of children whereby the child first learns the basic values and norms of the culture they will grow up in. A child needs to be carefully nurtured, cherished and moulded into responsible singulars with good values and tough ethics. Therefore, it is important to provide them the best childcare so that they grow up to be physically, mentally and emotionally strong individuals.2.1.1 Definition of the FamilyAccording to Sociologists, the family is an intimate domestic group of people relate to one other by bonds of blood, sexual mating, or legal ties. It has been a very resilient social unit that has survived and adapted through time. So, the component part of time referred to above, is again present here.Similarly, The joined States Census Bureau (2007) defines the family as a relatively standing(prenominal) group of two or more people who are related by blood, conjugal union or adoption and who l ive under the same roof.Stephen (1999) defines the family as a social arrangement based on marriage including recognition of rights and duties of parenthood, common residence for husband, wife and children are reciprocal economic obligations between husband and wife.Similarly, The United States Census Bureau (2007) defines the family as a relatively permanent group of two or more people who are related by blood, marriage or adoption and who live under the same roof.The family is seen as the main pillar block of a community family structure and upbringing influence the social character and temperament of any given society. Family is where everybody learns to love, to care, to be compassionate, to be ethical, to be honest, to be fair, to have common sense, to use reasoning etc., values which are essential for living in a community. Yet, there are ongoing debates that families values are in decline.George Peter Murdock (1949) defines the family as a universal institution. According to him, the family is a social group characterised by common residence, economic corporation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes at least two of whom maintain a socially O.K. sexual relationship and one or more children owned or adopted of the sexually cohabiting adults. However, K. Gough (1959) criticises Murdock definition and argues that the family is not universal. The critics were founded in the Nayar society.2.1.2 Women and the FamilyThe main role of women according to John Bowlby (1953) is particularly to act as mothers and as such their places are at home to take care of their children in their volunteer age. He states that juvenile delinquencies among young children are the result of psychological separation from mothers. The mental stability of children rests solely on their mothers. Therefore there is a need for a close and intimate mother and child relationship.However, Oakley (1974) uses the exercising of Alor, an island in Indonesia to refute Bowlby st atement. In small-scale horticultural societies, women are not tied to their offspring, and there is no apparent side effect to it. Moreover, she does not see the intimate and close relationship necessary. Research has proved that mothers return to work after accouchement and that the children of working mothers are less probably to be delinquent than non-working mothers.Crouch (1999) describes the benefits gained by wives and mothers as the mid ampere-second social compromise. Duncan et al. (1998) argue that women who define themselves as primarily mothers are set(p) at all points on the social spectrum.Patricia Day Hookoomsing (2002) states that, plans and projects are intentional and implemented by men. It is assumed that if men as heads of the family will garner the benefit from projects designed, automatically women and children will benefit.2.1.3 The Darker Side of the Family / Erosion of Family Life ahead in this review of literature, it is shown that the family is warm and supportive. However, many writers have questioned the darker side of the family. The fact that women spend most of their time either at work or doing household chores can lead to emotional stress in the family. The ordinal century family is mostly nucleus and frankincense children at times olfactory modality isolated and lacking the support of their extended kins grandparents, aunts, cousins etc. They become retract and their stress level rise to such an extent that when explosion occurs, it can have dramatic results. This may lead to violence, psychological damage, mental illness, drug intake, crime etc.The breakdown of children may lead to quarrel between parents. In the long run, marriages may fail and consequently lead to divorce. relative incidence that may appear trivial can blow out of proportions and cause drastic consequence within the family. The mass media is increasingly bringing to people attention the sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children through n eglect. Similarly, The National alliance for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (2000) parts that around 10% of children suffering from full abuse or neglect at home by rude(a) parents.2.1.4 Conception about Family and sueFamilies and work have often been illustrated as separate entities, with women being linked to the home and men to the workplace. This separation unfortunately emanated by the sociology of the family being carried out as a separate sports stadium from the sociology of work and occupations. However this assumption does not stand good in view of the increased participation of married women in the workplace.Early work by Rhona Raraport and Robert N. Raraport (1969) on dual-career families has talked about the benefits and focuss of families with dual-earners. There are, however, many questions still to be answered concerning the interaction of family and work.Harkness and Waldfogel (1999) advocate that the formation of a family touches mostly female quite a n than male labour force behaviour. The withdrawal from labour after childbirth may lead to a depreciation of human capital. This may affect career commitment to employers and affect career progression.There are changes in family arrangements which prompt changes in production arrangements (Zaretsky 1976). Consumption was favoured to production within the household. foodstuff relation became overruled by a capitalist market society and rather of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system (Polanyi 1957). Dapne Johnson (1982) relates that the hours of work and breeding are organized at such time that it has become uncorrectable to single-parent and dual-worker family. Moreover, school holidays add up to the problems of who will look after the child.full-time married or cohabiting women generally have less time for leisure, as they are often expected to do two jobs their paid work and unpaid housework inside the family, Ken Bro wn (2008).2.2.0 PART II WOMEN AND WORK2.2.1 Definition of readyAccording to Ken Brown (2008), work is the production of goods and services that usually earns a wage or salary or provides other rewards. The work may be effected in the formal or informal economy. He argues that work is an important element in occupying, directing and structuring the individuals time the demands of working life involve a high degree of self discipline if jobs are to be kept. It is, for most people, the single biggest commitment of time in any week, and it is perhaps one of the most important experiences affecting peoples entire lives. Work affects the core of time and money obtainable for family life.Pauline Wilson and Allan Kidd (1998) refer to work as a distinctive and clear cut activity. Work refers to the job or occupation undertaken. Work is both the place where one goes in order to do ones job and the activity that ones does.Sociologies increasingly recognise however that it is not roaring to define work. The definitions concentrate solely on paid employment and are too narrow. Keith Grint (1991) also states the same thing and even presents a number of definitions to prove what he says-Work can be seen as that which ensures individual and societal survival by engaging in nature. The problem is that many activities which cannot be seen are often regarded as work.Work cannot be specify simply as employment. Activities in which people are employed are also performed by people who are not employed. Examples include washing, ironing.Work cannot be defined as something which can be done whether it is want or not.Work can finally not be seen as non-leisure activities. Activities may be leisure for some but work for others. Work and leisure would be hard to separate if it goes together.The changing nature of workforce and the increasing proportion of employees with family responsibilities suggest that employees, especially working women might demand more family-friendly be nefits or policies to assist them in dealing with family demand beyond their paid work (Hon 2002 Hin, 2001 Yu, 1999). The societal and economic changes brought about by womens increasing participation in the paid workforce have placed pressure on Governments to legislate on work-family benefits and organization to provide them.2.2.2 Reasons for working in paid employmentWomen work in paid employment for a number of reasons. These are as followsJob pleasureMoney conjunction and friendshipStatus and identityTo get out of the home and smell freeTo be independent2.2.3 The Impact of Development on women and their participation in different sectorsWomen account for an increasing proportion of the workforce and today more women are resuming work after having children than 2 decades ago. Despite various legislations in favour of women, womens and mens positions on the labour market remain different.hakeem (2000) stated that contemporary changes in womens employment arose mainly because of the difference which arose out of work choices. The author states that there are three categories of women home/family centred, work centred and adaptive drifters. Home centred women give antecedence to their families, work centred women give priority to their employment careers, and adaptive women shift their priorities between family and career over their life cycles. Because the proportion of home centred and work centred individuals is higher amongst women than men, womens employment patterns are different.The EPZ sector has profound impacts upon the structure of the Mauritian Society. Industrialization has enable women to take a much active role in society. The traditional house wives were liberated to go out to work. Men were no more the sole breadwinners in the house. Thousands of women left their houses and took employment in factories. This new economic leverage of women had practiced effect and raised their standard of living. The docile dependent housewife thus was tr ansformed into an independent income earner.2.3.0 PART II- WORK-FAMILY engagement2.3.1 Defining work-family employmentWork and family represent two spheres in adults social life. Howard (2008) in summarizing the definition direct forth by prior scholars (Greenhaus Beutell, 1985 Boyar, Maertz, Pearson, Keough, 2003) conceptualized work-family conflict as a type of interrole conflict where both work and family issues exert pressures on individual.Greenhaus and Beutell (1985, as cited in Dealen Willemsen Sanders, 2006) also define WFC as conflict in which the role pressure from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect. skillful like (Greenhaus, 2002) has said that WFC is bio-directional it thus, create conflict where compliance with family matters the difficulty of complying with work matters.Conflict is understood to arise when an individual has to perform ternary roles such as worker, spouse and parents. Each of these roles imposes demands of thei r incumbents, requiring time, energy and commitment. Conflict occurs when the demands from one of these domains (home, work, soulal and family) interferes with each other and causes imbalance (Frone et al.,1992, 1997).In todays hectic society, home and work are two colliding forces (Greenhaus and Powell, 2003) that has often lead to an imbalance, where women lives to achieve fulfillment and satisfaction (Auster, 2001,Chalofsky,2003). Moreover, (Zedeck,1992) also suggests that a persons work experience influence his or her sort at home, influencing basic demeanors towards self and family members.WFC has also been shown to be related to negative work outcomes such as job dissatisfaction, job burnout and turnover (Greenhaus, Parasuraman Collins, 2001,Howard, Donofrio Boles, 2004), as well as to outcomes related to psychological distress and marital dissatisfaction (Kinnuen Mauno 1998,Aryee et al.,1999)2.3.2 Types of work-family conflictGreenhaus and Beutell (1985) identified thr ee major types of work-family conflictTime-based,Strain-based andBehavior-based conflictTime-based conflict occurs when time devoted to one role makes it difficult to participate in other for example, when mothers have to do overtime at work with little denounce might make it difficult for them to meet family obligations, like picking up children from school. Time-based conflict, is also the most common types of work-family conflict when multiple roles reduce the time energy available to meet all role demands, thus creating strain (Goode,1960) and WFC (Marks,1977).Strain-based conflict arises when strain or fatigue is experienced in one role and therefore, hinders performance or exploits resources which would be otherwise available for another role (Bryon,2005 Carlson,1999 as cited in Mauno, Kinnunen Ruokolainen,2006). For instance, negative emotional reactions to workplace stresses may lead to expression of irritability towards family members or withdrawal from family interactio n in order to recuperate (ODriscall,1999 as cited in Jones, Burke Westman,2006)Behavior-based conflict occurs when precise behaviors required in one role are incompatible with behavior expectations in another role (Carlson et al., 2000). It has been suggested for example, that the male managerial stereotype express self-reliance, emotional stability, aggressiveness and objectivity (Schein, 1973). Family members may thus, expect a person to be warm, nurturing and vulnerable in his interaction with them.(Carlson et al., 2000) also argue that another form of work/ family conflict is the Worry-based conflict in modern industrial society. On the other hand, increasing living cost, marital distress and enatic stress may erode the stability of the family life (Lu, in press), causing worries which interfere with work. (Carlson et al., 2000) thus, defined worry-based conflict in terms of pervasive and generalize worries experienced in one role into and interfering with participation in another role.In a study, Fu and Shaffer (2001) identified several family and work particularized determinants of FWC and WFC conflict, respectively. Testing these across the three forms of conflict-time, strain, behavior-based they found that the family- specific variables were only rough-and-ready in predicting time-based FWC conflict. As a group, the work-specific variables had much stronger effects and role conflict, role overload and hours spent on paid work were especially powerful in explaining both time-based and strain-based forms of WFC conflict. Family conflicts were to be strong risk factor for the onslaught of elevated need for necessary need for recovery from work and fatigue.2.4.0 CAUSES OF WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT2.4.1 Hours of workTime is an important aspect that has been associated with work-family. As time is a limited resource (Frone et al., 1997b) argues that working more hours means that the employee is at work for more hours and may have more work duties and ha s less time for other activities. Hence, work hours have been consistently, linked to difficulties in balancing work and personal lives (Mohen andYu, 2000 Guerts et al., 1999 Batt and Valcour, 2003 Tausing and Fenwick, 2001).Time pressure can be measured by the number of hours worked. Arora et als,.1990 study (cited by Kim Ling, 2001) examined the effect of the time pressure on WFC of women entrepreneur and the majority of the women entrepreneurs agreed that their long hours deprived them of the time they would have liked t spend with their families.Long hours of work may also relate to parents feelings of time inadequacy with children. However, regardless of hours spent or the kinds of activities engaged in with children, because of the intense conflict or spillover between worker and parent roles. Employment makes parent less able to be spontaneously available and make them miss certain events that are scheduled during work times (Milkie Peltola, 1999). Moreover, children may al so notice when parents bring conflict work conflicts home, and may feel that parents pre-occupation ith work makes them less psychologically accessible (Galinsky, 1999).Reynolds and Aletraris (2005) conducted a interrogation on work hours and work-family issues by examining whether WFC is associated with a desire for more or less hours of work and whether the relationship is moderated by age of children is the home. Their survey revealed that family-to-work conflict doesnot makes people to change their work hours. Work-to-family conflict however, is associated with a desire to fewer hours of work. They also find out that work-to-family conflict is more likely to make women want fewer hours when there is a young child at home.Moreover, Barnett (2004) in a study of work hours as predictor of stress outcomes, it was mentioned that long hours of work is associated withHigh experienced job demand,High emotional exhaustion,High marital tension andHigh work-family conflictIn a research p ublished in the Journal of Occupational Health psychological science (vol.5,No,1,2002), Gerzywacz and Nadine Marks found that employees who work more than 45 hours a week report more work-to-family conflict. However, participants who work less than 20 hours per week were less likely to report that their work benefited their family life.On the contrary Ganster and Bates (2003) conducted a study on the effect of the number of hours worked on WFC and general well-being. They found that work hours had no significant associations with job stress and WFC.Similarly the findings of Haar (2001) indicate that the number of hours worked, as a conflict source, may not be the current work demands of organizations, families are now more forgiving of the time burden associated with working long hours.2.4.2 Dual-earner familyThe dual-career phenomenon has become increasingly prevalent worldwide. For couples juggling multiple demands, this lifestyle often generates stressors and strains at home and at work, which can have negative consequences for organizations (Elloy Smith, 2004).On one hand, in dual-earner families husband are more likely to care for children when their wives are at work during non regular shifts (Presser, 1988). On the other hand women who earn more are likely to pick out domestic help, since their time is more valuable (Goldscheider and waite, 1991).(Elloy and smith 2004) study, based on data from an Australian sample of 62 Lawyers and accountants, analyzed the antecedents of WFC among dual-earner couples. The results confirm that overload, role conflict significantly effect WFC. Similarly Flosehan and Gillbert, 1979 study (cited in Kim Ling, 2001) on dual career couples found a positive relationship between the number of hours worked and job spouse conflict as well as job-parent conflict.Moreover, Voydanoff (1994) interviewed married dual-earner parents of children age 10-17 from the 1992-1997 National Survey Children of Families and Households to exa mine relationships between work and community resources and family demands. In this study, marital quality was conceptualized in three dimensions activities with spouse, marital disagreements and marital happiness. The problem is therefore, one of overworked couples rather than overworked individuals.2.4.3 Work overload major et al., (2002) suggest that overload occurs when the perceived magnitude of work overwhelms an individuals perceived ability to cope. An empirical evidence suggests that the growing sense of overwork in the United States is relates to the increases in the working hours of couples (Clarkberg and Mohen, 2001 Jacobs and Gerson, 2000). Since, women perform a larger share of household labour than men (Coltrane, 2000), family responsibilities should be more likely to create a desire for fewer hours among women than men.On one hand, Godbey (1977) argued that Americans had not increased the amount of time devoted to work, but that the pace of their lives had quickened, with the results that many felt overworked. On the other hand, Hochschild (1977) argued that for many workers, work had become home and home had become work with the result that worker were putting in increasingly long hours in the workplace as a way to avoid family time.Lu, Gilmour Kao and Huang (2006) have conducted a cross-cultural study of work/family demands, work/family conflict and well-being outcomes and to contrast employees from individualistic (UK) and a collectivist (Taiwan) society. Their findings show that work demands such as hours of work and work load were positively related to WFC, whereas family demands were positively related to family work conflict. Both WFC and FWC were negatively related to well being (job satisfaction and life satisfaction) for employees in the two countries. More important findings was that for British, there was a stronger positive relation between workload and WFC,