Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Work-family Conflicts Among Female Academics in the UK and Nigeria
Mansur Kayode Opakunle
ABSTRACT:
Work-family conflicts can be experienced by female academics both in developing and developed countries. Work-family conflicts (WFC) have been responsible for low job satisfaction, productivity, and commitment among women academics (Milledzi, Amponsah & Asamani, 2018). The above arguments recommend the need for comparative research. Most studies have examined European experiences (Krilić, Istenič & Hočevar, 2019) while studies in Africa have been limited. This research looked into the challenges female academics in Nigeria and the UK face in their WFC. The paper highlights the peculiar challenges posed by university context and their sociocultural environments. This paper discusses only part of the whole study; the findings from an online survey of 80 female academics across two institutions in each country. The survey was distributed via organisational gatekeepers to women employed as university lecturers in a range of disciplines. Overwhelmingly, participants were managing family responsibilities, at the beginning, middle and closing stages of their career, caring for both children and dependent or co-habiting relatives. Findings show that in the UK, the marketisation of higher education affects workload pressure and influences significantly women’s WFC. In Nigeria, a highly patriarchal society, WFC is further exacerbated by cultural expectations of women to take sole responsibility for household duties, paying for assistance if necessary. The paper concludes that WFC is a major determinant of job commitment among female academics in both countries. However, the conflicts are determined by the differing institutional, cultural, and socioeconomic situations of the two countries.
keywords: Academic women, job commitment, Nigeria, UK, Work-family conflict