INTRODUCTION:

With the world changing itself from closed economy to an open economy with every one interfacing with each other there is growing need for change in the working pattern in organisation. This is called the effect of globalisation. Work pattern also involves each work place to attain competitive advantage over other organisation, through the redesigning of work and working habits. In other words, working style and habits need to change in lure with the growing needs of the people whom we serve. This entails work to be more and more competitive. This work is combined with spending more time in the work place than at home. This disrupts the amount of time spent by the individual at work and home causing an imbalance. This is referred as the work / life balance issue.

Work family imbalance occurs when the demands of work are in disharmony with the demands of family. Work family conflict can be time based, strain based and behaviour based. Time based conflict arises when the amount of time devoted to work role interferes with performing family related responsibilities or vice versa. Strain based conflict occurs when strain from one role makes it difficult to perform in another role. Behaviour based conflict occurs when the behaviour in one role is not compatible with the behaviour that is necessary for other role.

Work-life balance has been defined differently by different scholars. Greenhaus (2001) defined work–life balance as satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home with a minimum of role conflict. Felsteadet al. (2002) defines work-life balance as the relationship between the institutional and cultural times and spaces of work and non-work in societies where income is predominantly generated and distributed through labour markets. This labour market includes both men and women.

The role of women is such an important issue that ignoring their roles no family and society can be progressed and prospered in a balanced and meaningful way. Considering their roles they are called half of body. But, with the passage of time the nature and types of roles of women are changing in different society and culture. Undoubtedly a key economic development in the last 50 years has been the substantial and well-documented increase in women’s labour force participation (Blyton and Dastmalchian, 2006; McCall, 2005, Straub, 2007) and mothers are now the primary or co-breadwinners in many families of the world.

The Economist commented on this trend claiming, “Women’s economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our times” (Anna, B., 2010). Economic pressures over the last decade have significantly increased the need for dual-earner families to the point that the majority of families now require two breadwinners to meet rises in the cost of living (Ford et al., 2007; White and Rogers, 2000). Now, the Women are entering into the labour force in large numbers, where majority of them come from middle-class with children into the paid work force, has either directly or indirectly affected virtually everyone in society as people’s mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and friends stepped out of the home into paid employment (Perry-Jenkins, et.al., 2000).

Thus, the growing number of women in the labour force intensifies the realization that more individuals have to simultaneously manage two domains of life: family and work (Grant-Vallone and Ensher, 2001; Karimi, 2006).Indeed, across nations and occupations, it is still mainly women who are responsible for child and elderly care, household chores and other family-related issues and who, typically regardless of hours worked in paid employment, work a “second shift” at home (Asher, 2011; Broadbridge, 2008; Burnett et al., 2011; Hochschild, 2003).

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

As stated earlier work /life conflict is universal phenomena. Work and life conflict arises as more and more women are becoming co-breadwinners of the home. This work and life balance issues does not confine itself to the corporate world. Women working in teaching profession also have stated to face the work and life balance issues.

Several studies are been done to focus the need of work and life balance among teachers. There is also another school of thought which clearly states teaching profession has the most balanced work and life concerns, but the fact lies that with the changing needs of the people even the educational organisation are changing with their work patterns. Gone are the days when a teacher’s only job is to teach now the focus of the teacher is the overall development of the child.

In a study conducted among teaching faculties in Andhra Pradesh Engineering colleges it was found that faculty also undergo severe stress as they try to balance their domestic life and professional life. Continued work under pressure would result in poor performance in the institution as well as domestic life. (V. Madhusudhan Goud and K. Nagaraju,2013).A study on Nigerian higher education shows that expansion in operation especially creating additional departments and faculties without a correspondence increase in staff put pressure on the staff with increased responsibilities and making work/life balance very challenging to achieve.(Abdulraheem, Issa, 2014)

Several studies have shown that female teachers are very busy in their work (e.g.: Acker, 1992; Biklen, 1995 Thomas and O'Brien, 1984). Previous research also showed that teaching is a stressful occupation for mothers (Acker, 1992; Claesson and Brice, 1989) and that a significant friction characterizes the relationship between work and family (Blasé and Pajak, 1986; Spencer, 1986). A study conducted by Cinamon and Rich (2005) found that levels of work-family conflict and family-work conflict in teachers depended on their teaching experience and the degree of school in which they taught. As a matter of fact, the organizational structure and the educational needs in primary schools are very different compared to secondary education (Rich and Almozlino, 1999). Accordingly, as a consequence of these differences, there are different levels of work-family conflict, which are presumably more significant in primary schools. Job experience is another factor to be taken into consideration. In fact, the more experience a teacher has, the more likely that he or she has completed the necessary competence and adaptive behaviours that allow them to cope with work demands without undue interference on family responsibilities. In this regard, past literature has also shown that work-family conflict increases especially when there are small children at home (Lewis and Cooper, 1998).

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

The above literature shows that several studies are conducted on work/ life conflict among women. Conversely very few studies are conducted on women in teaching profession in schools. Therefore the need arises to highlight the growing importance of work life balance issues among school teachers

METHOD OF THE STUDY:

The method of study is mainly descriptive and quantitative in nature. Among the various methods that are available to perform a quantitative research, the present study involves the usage of percentage analysis. Descriptive Research method is a type of research method which is used when one wants to get information on the current status of a person or an object. It is used to describe what is in existence with respect to conditions or variables that are found in a given situation.

Research Design:

The study focuses on teachers from 3 different private schools in Kharagpur of Midnapore district. For the study random sampling technique is applied in which 40 teachers were taken for study from the total sample. Five point rating scale questions ranging from very satisfied to very dissatisfied were posed to the sample which related to their satisfaction on the balancing of their work/life issues.

Data Analysis:

From the demographic profile of the respondents it is evident that most of them are female who have joined the profession of teaching due to the convenience of devoting more time to family. This same reason is being visible among the male who have joined this profession. Therefore more men are now joining the profession of teaching.

Table 1- Demographic Profile

1.	Gender	Female	Male	Total
		25	15	40
2	Qualification	PG	UG
		30	10	40
3	Dependents	one	>one
		27	13	40

Most of the teachers have done their post-graduation along with their B.Ed. degree. The teachers who have done only their under-graduation has completed their B.Ed. The demographic profile also depicts that the most of the respondents have dependents who were basically children who were going to schools. Only few of the respondents stated that elders were also a part of the dependents apart from children.

From the above table which clearly states that Work and life issues are also seen among the school teachers. The table depicts that quality time is given at home by only a percentage of 62.5 of the respondents. 37.5 percentages feel that they are unable to devote quality time at home. The reason cited is basically related too much of work load at school. 87.5 per cent respondents feel that increasing workload is the main factor responsible for an increase in the work life imbalance issues. Most of the respondents are forced to take their work to home as they need to submit their work on time. The time duration for which they work is also less, they work only till 2’O clock in the afternoon. Therefore they are forced to take up their job at home. Most of the male teachers are asked to stay back in school until the completion of the task. They are also given extra work apart from school teaching. Competition among schools is also responsible for the extra work load at school. Each school is becoming competitive to attract the students. In due course it puts more pressure on the teachers to be more stringent and conscious on the development of each student. The inculcation of smart classes also has led to the teachers to develop their existing skills and to upgrade their skills to teach students in the most innovative way as possible. The table also depicts that organisational support towards the family needs is 75 percent showing a positiveness of the organisation towards the issue of work and life. But a fraction of the respondents feel that organisation does not support their family needs. This is mostly visible among the male teachers. They do not get holidays as often as female get. Some respondents have also cited that their coordinator asks them to come even on Sundays to complete the pending works. Most of the respondents get exhausted by the time they reach their home. The strength of the class also is one of the factors which tire the respondents. The class strength requires the teacher to focus on each student and report their growth to the management on regular basis. Finally most of the respondents agree that if their work and life issues are taken care by the management their performance would improve.

CONCLUSION:

The myth that school teaching is the most balanced job is not the fact. Work and Life imbalance is also evitable in academics. This is issue is faced by almost all walks of life profession. Though the severity is comparatively less in academics but the existence is visible and soon engulf the whole horizon of academics.

REFERENCES:

1. Greenhaus, F., (2001). “It’s been a Hardy Day’s Night: The Concentration and Intensification of Work in Late Twentieth Century Britain”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Volume: 39, pp. 53-80.

2. Felstead, A., Jewson; N.,.Phizauklea, A. and Walter, S.(2002) Opportunities to work at home in the context of work-life balance. Human Resource Management Journal. 12. p. 54 -76.

3. Blyton, P. and Dastmalchian, A. (2006), “Work-life integration and the changing context of work”, in Blyton, P., Blunsdon, B., Reed, K. and Dastmalchian, A. (Eds), Work-Life Integration: International Perspectives on the Balancing of Multiple Roles, Palgrave, Basingstoke.

4. McCall, L. (2005), “Gender, race and the restructuring of work: organizational and institutional perspectives”, in Ackroyd, S., Batt, R., Thompson, P. and Tolbert, P.S. (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

5. Straub, C., (2007), A comparative analysis of the use of work-life balance practices in Europe Do practices enhance females’ career advancement?, Women in Management Review Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 289-304

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8. White, L. and Rogers, S.J. (2000), ‘‘Economic circumstances and family outcomes: a review of the 1990s’’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 62, pp. 1035-51.

9. Perry-Jenkins, M., Repetti, R. L., andCrouter, A. C. (2000). Work and family in the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 981-998

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16. V. MadhusudhanGoud and K. Nagaraju“Work Life Balance of Teaching Faculty with Reference to Andhra Pradesh Engineering Colleges“ Global Journal of Management and Business Studies. ISSN 2248-9878 Volume 3, Number 8 (2013), pp. 891-896 © Research India Publications http://www.ripublication.com/gjmbs.htm

17. Abdulraheem, Issa“The Changing Nature of Work-Life Balance in Nigerian Higher Institutions”IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM) e-ISSN: 2278-487X, p-ISSN: 2319-7668. Volume 16, Issue 4. Ver. II (Apr. 2014), PP 61-66 www.iosrjournals.org

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24. Cinamon, R. C., and Rich, Y. (2005). Work-family conflict among female teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 365-378.

25. Rich, Y., and Almozlino, M. (1999). Educational goal preferences among novice and veteran teachers of science and humanities. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15, 613-629.

26. Lewis, S. N., and Cooper, C. L. (1998). Stress in dual earner families. In B. A. Gutek, A. Stomberg, and L. Larwood (Eds.), Women and work, Vol. 3 (pp. 139-168). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Received on 28.12.2017 Modified on 11.01.2018

Asian Journal of Management. 2018; 9(1):565-568.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2018.00089.6

Sl.No.	Parameter	Total	Frequency	Percentage
1	Quality time at home	40	25	62.5
2	Work load increase factor for imbalance of work and life	40	35	87.5
3	Organisational support to family needs	40	30	75
4	Competition among schools requires more commitment at work for betterment of students for competitive advantage	40	35	87.5
5	Work life balance policies help in improving performance	40	38	95