Social Support for Working Mothers Experiencing Work-Family Conflict: A Descriptive Analysis
1OKONKWO EJIKE A., 2EZE ADAOBI C. AND 3CHIGBO CHINWE M.
1Department of Psychology, Faculty of the Social Sciences, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu
2Department of Sociology/Psychology/Religion, Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu
3School of Postgraduate Studies, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu
E-mail: aejyke@yahoo.com,adazlas@yahoo.com,chinwechigbo@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
In Enugu, South-eastern Nigeria as in most parts of the sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional gender-role socialization ceaselessly saddles mothers with greater percentage of family responsibilities such as domestic chores despite their inroads into paid employment leaving them at a cross road between work and family demands. Combination of these dual roles results in work-family conflict, hence the need to give this segment of women who combine work and family responsibilities social support. Thus, this study relying on descriptive data explored the significance and percentage of social support given to these women by their spouses, children, siblings, mothers, relatives and house helps. The study comprised a cross-sectional survey of 581working mothers (304 secondary school teachers, 81bankers, 118 nurses and 78 other health workers such as medical doctors, pharmacists and laboratory scientists) between 26 and 59 years and mean age of 37.27 drawn from 24 state government secondary schools, 3 Fidelity Bank branches, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital and National Orthopedic Hospital within Enugu State in the South-eastern part of Nigeria using Multi-stage sampling. Chi-Square as a statistical test revealed a significant social support for these mothers, X2(5) = 135.94, p <. 01with the highest percentage of social support from house helps (29.91%), followed by spouses (23.52%), children (19.63%), relatives (16.89%), siblings (7.76%) and the least social support from mothers of these working mothers (2.28%). These findings have demonstrated the importance of the unrecognized contributions of house helps to Nigerian workforce, and implications of spouses, children and other relatives´ social support for resolving work-family conflict among working mothers.