ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT, JOB COMMITMENT AND WORK- FAMILY CONFLICT AMONG WORKING MOTHERS IN UNIVERSITIES IN LAGOS STATE
ABSTRACT
Women in many cultural settings are responsible for taking care of the children, the husband and the home. Women were predominately housewives and men were breadwinners before the entrance of women into the labor market. Times have changed and women today are Chief Executives Officers and are represented in all walks of life. This has not excluded them from their roles as mothers, wives and caregivers. The working mother is presently faced with conflict arising from her work and family life. These challenges are more predominant in a cultural setting like Nigeria, where there is a divide between the roles of a man and the woman. The organizational support, which is the form of encouragement from the employer, job commitment which is seen as the obligation of the employer and the employee and work-family conflict which is considered struggle between work and family responsibilities were consider as the main variables of this study.
The study employed the survey design. The population of the study is working mothers in universities in Lagos State. Lagos State University and Caleb University were purposively selected. A sample size of 266 working mothers was calculated with the use of Taro Yamane’s formula. Validated questionnaire and interview guide were used in collecting data. Reliability test of the questionnaire yielded a Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.616 for organizational support, 0.664 for job commitment and 0.795 for work-family conflict. Of the copies of the questionnaire administered, 214 were retrieved. Key informant interviews were conducted with senior official of both universities who are supervisors of working mothers. The data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential. The descriptive analysis used percentage count for the bio-data while inferential analysis tested the correlation between the variables.
The findings revealed that there is significant relationship between organizational support and work-family conflict among working mothers(r = 0.358, p<0.05). Again, there is significant relationship between job commitment and work-family conflict among working mothers (r = 0.450, p<0.005) showed a significant and positive relationship. The analysis revealed that 63.5% majority of the respondents in Lagos State University (LASU) and 64.8% in Caleb University do not understand that organizational policies are directed at them as working mothers to encourage them. In addition work-family conflict affected working mothers in Caleb University more than their counterparts in LASU as 54.8% of them spent 7 to 8 hours at work daily while in Caleb University, 63.7% spent 9 to 10 hours at work daily.
The study concluded that work family conflict affects working mothers in the private universities more than their counterparts in the public universities. The study recommends that all organizations should make their policies documented and assessable. The government should come up with a policy on six (6) months maternity leave for all nursing mothers in both private and public sector.
Keywords: Organizational Support, job commitment, work-family conflict, working mothers, balanced life.