Workplace and Family

Workplace and the Family

Over the years, integrating work and family has changed. These days it can be harder to get employed as more education is often required. Working hours have changed quite a lot over the last couple years as well. Some hours can be more flexible and nowadays people are also working more hours. It has become more common for people to have more than one job because some jobs do not pay very much. Technology has also drastically changed the workforce as some computers have been able to take up jobs that people used to fill. Technology has also kept people in contact, allowing bosses to ask their employees to come in when they may need them to. All of these changes have made impacts on people’s families because it has caused some people to excel and others to not. Families can cope with this by getting together and hanging out to talk about these things.

How does it affect families when mothers work? Children are put in daycare, preschool, or looked after by other people. It can be difficult for mothers to manage both work and family, often resulting in “role overload”- not having the time or energy to meet the demands of their responsibilities in the roles as wife, parent, and worker (Knox 182). While women are expanding their lives to include a career, they must also maintain their traditional roles at home. The combination of housework and career work is the reason why working mothers today often have more stress than working fathers. After working an eight hour day, a mother will come home to take care of her children, husband, and house. Also, since husbands generally work eight more hours a week than their wives do, they tend to miss out on responsibilities, such as feeding their children dinner and breakfast. More often than not, women's work interferes with family while for men family interferes with work. This is because women tend to put family first, and therefore, they feel extra pressure to do well for their family when coming home from work. This feeling only adds to a working mother's stress.

The pressures of trying to meet the demands from the multiple roles that men and women inhabit often lead to role stress (Wood). Having too much to do with too little time to do it is a common perception in the workplace. This problem, often referred to as work or role overload, can be caused by a variety of factors. This happens to women more often than men because they are typically taking care of the children of the family as soon as they are done with work and sometimes even while at work. Another stressful aspect for mothers in dual earning relationships is role conflict, being confronted with incompatible role obligations (Knox 182).

In dual-earner families, the loss of employment by the mother and/or the father puts additional stress on the family structure. The effects of lost income can be felt in all areas of the family. Depending on the length of unemployment, families may be unable to afford daycare, gas for vehicles, and other things. When parents do find employment, the balance of work and family is affected due to the parents needing to work longer hours or multiple jobs to recover the previous unemployment. This can lead to role conflict. Role conflict can