Occupational Wellbeing Among Female Academics; the Influence of Family-Work Interface

Abstract

There has been a plethora of research on work-life and work-family balance in Nigeria and across the globe, however there is still much to learn of the intersection between people’s work and non-work life. This study examines the influence of work-family interface on occupational and general wellbeing of women in academia. A descriptive survey research design was adopted, with a researcherdesigned set of questionnaires of reliability co-efficient of 0.72 obtained through Cronbach alpha methods. A stratified random sampling technique was adopted in selecting 220 participants from two tertiary institutions in Ibadan, Nigeria out of which 181 were used for data analysis. Frequency Count, Standard Deviation, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Rank Order were used for data analysis. Findings revealed that work-family interface significantly correlates with, and influences both occupational and general wellbeing of female lecturers. It was suggested that efforts should be geared towards ensuring that work-family balance policy options (such as job sharing, compressed working hours, selfrostering, telecommuting, flexi time, child-care assistance, and so forth) are made for women academics. Such policies should prioritise work flexibility for female academics.