Work-Family Conflicts among Female Staff of Higher Institutions in Nigeria

The responsibilities of a typical African woman in family upkeep are enormous, ranging from house chores, cooking to child-care and so on. Striking a balance and maintaining harmony between work and family have always been a great challenge for women in general. This paper examines factors that conflict between official responsibilities and family demand among female staff of higher institution of learning in Nigeria. Structured questionnaires were administered to selected female staff of higher institutions across the country. Hierarchical sampling technique was used to select female staff from a university, a polytechnic, and a college of education in six states of the country (one state per geopolitical zone in the country). Simple percentage and bar charts were used to present the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. The mean responses for each factor were ranked and the first four ranked factors are discussed. All Cronbach’s alpha coefficients exceed 0.800 thresholds, validating all factors considered. Long working hours, inadequate working facilities and inadequate pay are major factors that cause conflicts between work and family among the respondents. Stress, mental fatigue and psychological burnout/disorder are the major effects observed while resuming and closing work at convenience is the major mechanism being used by women in tertiary institutions. Other highly ranked mechanisms are: using house keeper/help, using childcare centre closer to workplace, and help from colleagues in carrying out official assignments.

separated, the negative impact of role conflict will have its effects on the society in general in the form of lower standards of performance, lower quality of goods and services and a growing feeling of interpersonal conflict being the obvious results. There is, therefore, a growing recognition by policy makers of the importance of supporting women in juggling work and family life (Evandrou, Karen & Ursula, 2002).
Employees in many organizations around the world experience diversities in work-family conflict because of the changing dynamics of work environment and the competitive nature of business today. Findings from Beutell (2010) and Rathi & Barath (2013) showed that conflict in an organization arises when the two spheres of family and work interfere with each other.
Roles played by individuals in family and working life can cause conflicts (Erdamar & Demire 2014). Among Nigerian female bankers, Apodiari and Lasisi (2016) found a strong relationship between work-family role conflict and low job performance. Khursheed, Mustafa, Arshad & Gill (2019) studied impingement of demands at work on family and found a negative relationship between long working hours and lack of spousal support with workfamily conflict.
In Nigeria, female participation in paid jobs has increased drastically in the recent years, largely due to educational improvement (Ajiboye, 2008), an indication that family structure is moving from conventional singleincome family to a double-income family. The new family structure calls for multiple roles to be played within the family-work context resulting in role-conflicts caused by limited time among couples.
The impact and significance of work-life conflict among women in higher institution in Nigeria will be addressed in this study. Analyzing the daily activity of a typical female staff of higher institution in Nigeria, it is evident that work and family activities are interwoven and usually interfere based on time, strain and behaviour. The adverse effect is far reaching both on the institution and individuals. Every institution strives for excellence in terms of standard and quality research, but if the human element involved does not have a stable mind due to family interference, this can to lead to transferred aggression, bad attitude at work and ultimately low productivity. This will, ultimately, affect the institutional target and also form individual angle, and it could translate to illmannered children, recurrent health issues and broken homes as a result of not being around to take care of pressing home needs.
Most researchers (Ajala, 2017;Hammer et al, 2005;Netemer, Boles & Brockwood, 2006;Ugwu, 2017; among many others) on conflicts between family and work focused on relationships between Family-Work Conflict (FWC) and Work-Family Conflict (WFC). While the latter assesses the effect of official responsibilities on family, the former evaluates the effect of domestic responsibilities on work. This research is aimed at identifying various factors that determine WFC, effect of WFC, and coping mechanisms often used by various groups among female staff of higher institution of learning in Nigeria. Attempts will also be made to identify factors that affect each group most.

Research Methodology Data Collection:
In Nigeria, the three major institutions of higher learning are: the University, the Polytechnic, and the College of Education. The universities are majorly charged with advancing the country's socio-economic development and competitiveness by providing quality education and research at highest possible level. The polytechnics are established to provide skilled manpower that will be technically and managerially independent in order to provide the much needed hub for advancement of the country's technological and industrial aspirations while the colleges of education are charged with providing quality teachers at basic school (primary and secondary) levels. Hence, the research utilized hierarchical sampling technique by randomly selecting a university, a polytechnic and a college of education in each of the six geo-political zones of the country. Female respondents were then randomly selected in each school of choice by ensuring that the selection cut across the three designations (academic, senior administrative and junior administrative staff) at each school. 1000 questionnaires were administered and 896, representing 89.6%, were successfully filled and retuned. Research Instrument: A structured questionnaire was then administered to all selected female staff of the institutions. The questionnaires were grouped into four sections. Section A elicited socio-demographic details of respondents. These included age, marital status, educational qualification etc. Section B had 19 factors (B1 to B19) that assessed the determining factors for Work-Family-Conflict. Section C also had 19 factors that sought to appraise the effect of WFC and section D comprised 18 factors that respondents were likely to utilize in coping with WFC as earlier used by Fatoki and Kobiowu (2015). Sections B and C comprised factors that were measured on a 5-point Likert scale with ranged from 1  Strongly Disagree to 5 Strongly Agree Data Analysis Method: Cronbach's Alpha is used to assess instrument validity. Simple percentage is used to present socio-demographic details while each factor under each section is ranked for each level of sociodemographic characteristic of respondents and the first four ranked factors are discussed for each level.

Data Validity
The Cronbach's Alpha values for the three sections of the questionnaire are presented in table 1. All the three coefficients are above 0.800 and are found to be adequate.

Socio-demographic details of respondents
Over 80% of respondents are above 30 years (table 2) and over 85% of them had been married (Widow/Widower and divorced) or married. The implication of this on the research output is that higher percentages of responses are received from those that had experienced conflict (if any) between family and work. Only 18% of respondents had no child at the time of the survey. This indicates that over 80% of responses obtained were from women who had at least a child and this gives credence to questions on how child-bearing might interface with WFC. Also, more than 75% of sampled women had spent more than 6 years on the job, ascertaining the relevance of experience of respondents to the research questions.
Responses are equally spread across the six geo-political zones and the three classes of higher institutions.

Determining factors for Work-Family-Conflict
From the results obtained, (presented in table 3), "Inadequate working facilities", "My pay is not worth the service I rendered", and "Resumption of work early and closing lately" are ranked first, second, and third respectively by the respondents among all determining factors. The least ranked factor is issue of gender discrimination at work. The results show that women in tertiary institutions experience conflicts between work and family mainly because of inadequacy of working facilities and the economy related factors. Other ranked factors are family and domestic responsibilities, stress and demands of job among others. This supports findings from Ajala (2017).

Effect of Work-Family-Conflict
Results of effect of WFC as shown in table 4 reveal that "Challenges at the work makes me stressed and nervy at home" is ranked first, followed by "Mental fatigue at work makes discharging home responsibilities difficult" and "It results in psychological burnout and disorder". Other noted highly ranked effects are: effectiveness on work duties, parenting and mothering, lack of time with family, and inability to meet deadline. Major observation on the highly ranked effect of WFC is that women in tertiary institutions often sacrifice immensely in balancing their official responsibilities with demands at home. It is, however, noted that childbearing and raising children are the least effects. It causes inability to meet deadline promptly 3.183 8

Perceived Coping Mechanism of Work-Family-Conflict
In balancing the effect of WFC, result (table 5) shows that resuming and closing at work at convenience is the number one coping mechanism being used by women in tertiary institutions. Other highly ranked mechanisms are: using house keeper/help, using childcare centre closer to workplace, and help from colleagues in carrying out official assignments.

Group Results
In order to observe variations among different categories of the socio-demographic details, table 6 presents first four ranked factors on WFC determining factors, effect and coping mechanisms for each group. WFC determining factors: For respondents above 40 years, major determining factors for conflict are the pay they receive and inadequacy of the working facilities. For the younger ones (below 40 years), complaints about the country's economic situation and the need to resume early and close lately are the major determining factors. The two factors are also the major ones for widows/widowers, divorced, SSCE (Senior Secondary School Examination) holders, ND/NCE (National Diploma/National Certificate of Education) holders, and junior administrative staff.
Married women are also mostly concerned about the pay they receive and their working facilities. For Masters and PhD holders, WFC is determined by domestic responsibilities and large student population. Apart from the working facilities and resumption time, WFC for Academic staff is mainly determined by students' population and stress from working with students while it is "lack adequate government policies" for women as caregiver for senior administrative staff.
Distinguished determining factors for those with more children are large number of students and inadequate government policies for, women while family domestic responsibilities are the major ones for those that have spent longer years on the job.
All the leading determining factors are also observed across different geo-political zones and schools. However, excessive meetings and administrative assignments are more common to those from the South-Western part of the country. Gender discrimination, overloaded family program and domestic responsibilities are highly ranked among those from the North-Western part. Number of official responsibilities distinguished women from Colleges of Education from their counterparts from other schools.

Effect of Work-Family-Conflict
As noted in table 5, major perceived effect of WFC are: stress and nerviness caused by challenges at work, psychological burnout and disorder, difficulty in discharging home responsibility due to mental fatigues at workplace, and reduction in productivity at home and work. Younger women see "inability to meet deadline" and "effect on proper parenting and mothering" as the most ranked effect of WFC while the older ones perceived "work duties' effectiveness while performing home responsibilities" and "negative impact research activities" as major effects. A major distinguishable effect noted for married women is "work duties' effectiveness while performing home responsibilities" PhD holders see "work demands" and "negative impact on research activities" as major effects while it is "work duties' effectiveness while performing home responsibilities" for those with lower qualifications. "Mental fatigue" is a distinguishing effect on academic staff and it is emotional exhaustion for senior Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735(Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.11, No.27, 2020 administrative staff. Those with more children perceive "effect on proper parenting and mothering" as the major effect of WFC while those with fewer children and those with more working experience "inability to spend enough time with family". From different geo-political zones, "effects on doing house chores" are the distinguishing effects on those from South-East and South-South; "work demands" for those from South-West and South-South; "increase in emotional exhaustion" for those from South-South and North East; "poor health of women" for those from North West; work duties' effectiveness while performing home responsibilities" for those from South West and North East; and effect on proper parenting and mothering" for North Central. Across schools, major distinguishing factor for those from the university "inability to meet deadline promptly"; "increase in emotional exhaustion" for those in polytechnic and "effect on proper parenting and mothering" for those in College of Education.

Perceived Coping Mechanism of Work-Family-Conflict
Most ranked coping mechanisms of WFC by all the respondents are: "resuming and closing at convenience", "using house helpers/keepers", and "access to internet at home". However, little variations exist among respondents with different socio-demographic status. Younger women use "casual leave" and "support from junior colleagues" to cope with WFC while the older ones use "closer childcare centre". "Sharing of household chores among children" is the distinguishing mechanism use by academic staff while junior administrative staff use "casual leave" more often. Those with higher qualifications (MSc and PhD) use "leave" more often while those with lower qualifications use "support from spouse" and women with more children use "closer childcare centre" more. In the research by Muasya (2016), it was discovered that female university staff using house help/keeper are more satisfied with the services they receive as they stay longer with them.
South Easterners use "access to internet at home more"; South South use "support from colleagues"; South West use "sharing of household chores among children"; North West use "flexibility of work schedule" more.
Women from Universities use "support from colleagues" more as coping mechanism, and those from Polytechnics and Colleges of Educations use almost the same factor

Conclusion
Peace and harmony at home and work are essential in effective and efficient discharge of responsibilities. The research examined different factors that could cause conflicts between work and family, its effect and coping mechanisms among female staff in Nigerian's higher institutions of learning. The result showed "long workinghours" as a leading factor that militates between work and family among the respondents. Other significant factors are inadequacies in pay and working facilities in the institutions. Different management team in various higher institutions are therefore encouraged to make working environment more conducive for female staff, and considerations should be given to female staff especially those at child-bearing and child-rearing ages by making their working hours more flexible and dynamic.
According to responses received the major effects of conflicts between work and family include stress, mental and physical fatigue, psychological disorder, and lower productivity both at work and at home. In order to maximize productivity at work, the management of higher educational institutions in Nigeria are advised to ameliorate the identified major determining factors for work-family conflict. This, in turn, will reduce stress and fatigue. Productivity will, as well, increase and the output will significantly improve.
Resuming and closing work at convenience, especially when the workload is overwhelming is the leading coping mechanism that women in higher institutions utilize to reduce conflicts between work and family. They also use house keeper/help and childcare centre closer to workplace. The managements of the institutions are therefore advised to ensure the establishment of childcare centres within institutions.