What do women do now? During the 1970s or 80s, may be teaching and nursing were largely female professions. Things have changed; women dominate several more occupations now a day, like lawyers, physicians, bankers, journalists, economists, psychologists, consultants, college/university professors and many more. Even the share of IT professional and scientists is growing to some extent. Clearly, women have dramatically increased their representation in executive, professional and technical occupations as well.
Recent changes in the role of a working woman in Bangladesh and many other similar countries may deserve some attention. Greater educational and employment opportunities for women, influence of western mass media and particularly the growth of individualism combined with economic hardship have brought the discussion of ‘challenges for working women’ to the forefront.
In our country as well, traditionally, a woman’s sphere of activities has been her home. But with women’s increasing independence and autonomy due to their involvement in the job market raise issues relating to the traditional balance of norms and values. So how do we see women in our society addressing these serious concerns or how to bring a balance between work and family life?
For many women, combining work and family in an ever more competitive business world means an inevitable rise in both stress and guilt. For women, more time spent on the job inevitably means compromising time with family, creating a high level of stress and no small amount of guilt. In the present situation of urban Dhaka, a single income is no longer sufficient to run the family.
Wives’ wages have also become essential. In this newly acquired role, the working wives face challenges differing from those of housewives, because in most cases the working wives’ multiple role involvement disturbs other people’s expectations and their great range of demands.
However, under inherited gender norms married working women find themselves torn and tired, and suffer from guilt when working outside, guilt that they may be neglecting their children and home. There is no doubt that wives often enter work, marriage or parenthood with fixed role expectations of themselves and others, but later fail to fulfill those expectations. This brings about a conflict between what they expect and experience. Role conflict links with many consequences.
Role conflict may also lead to substandard performance and a host of other behavioural outcomes. It is also negatively related to organisational commitment, job involvement, job satisfaction and participation in decision-making. In addition members of the family make the situation more stressful.
The bottom line is that it is very difficult for the Bangladeshi women in general to constantly communicate with their spouses. Because these women believe that Bangladeshi males are not or do not want to be aware of the growing changes in the society. They also think their husbands have a hard time to view home and family work as “our work”. Such view poses to threat marital stability. That is why it is still rare for wives to have an equal role in domestic chores and decision-making.
On the other hand we find, when these situations arise, particularly as they have families, often women are found to suffer from a dilemma of whether to maintain the job or the family or to switch from full-time work to part-time, or at times even withdraw from the workforce. Women with choices, who are economically quite solvent, may opt for part time work, or for full time homemaking. These women generally plan to return to the workplace at some point, but very often make a conscious choice to stay home with their children. So ultimately for these women, this may be the very definition of having it all, being educated, having good family incomes and the flexibility to choose a lifestyle that makes sense. But it could also reflect their sense of the available options given their family choices. Options to both have a reasonable family life, and a rewarding career may not seem available, at least for a time. This lack of good options is the larger problem.
For all the real progress women have made in education, in their choice of career, and in their pay, a relatively small percentage ever make it to the top. Women make up a significant percentage of the overall labour force, but hold only insignificant percentage of top earning positions, and extremely negligible percent of power titles (if not quota filling), such as CEO or COO.
A critical element in making it to the top is being in the pipeline to do so – here women hold only few of the key line jobs that make up the pipeline in most corporations. Aside from being in the pipeline, women in our country also have to believe they can make it. Studies suggest, and my own experience confirms, that it is hard for women or for other minorities to believe they can progress if they cannot look up and see faces like their own at the top. We also find a lack of confidence in women to reach at the top. So when highly educated women perceive a dearth of viable options and leave the workforce, the pipeline narrows even further. This creates the possibility of a vicious cycle – a cycle in which a woman’s desire to make it to the top is sapped by the very paucity of other women who have done so.
So how do women balance careers with their responsibilities as mothers and wives? Often it takes energy, patience, hard work and creativity. It is often a curse for women whose job would require her to travel quite often. Even when a woman is given an opportunity to pursue a fabulous job in a different country outside Bangladesh, she would think twice and place family priorities on top of career priorities while taking the decision.
On top of all the responsibilities, women often have to deal with the judgment of others. Therein lies the dilemma: can a woman work hard enough to succeed in her career without coming across as a negligent mother or a wife? But possibly no one would ever look at working husbands or fathers suspiciously relating to frequent travel. So considering all these factors, it is often the toughest decision for a working woman to decide on bringing a balance between her career and family. Millions of women around the world, however, somehow manage to do it all, often at the cost of their own personal time.
Perhaps this is nothing to worry about, since it reflects choices made by women clearly in advantageous positions. But the concern is over the best and brightest women, those future leaders, to leave – not just because it’s not what PepsiCo global CEO, Indian-born Indra Nooyi, has done or other successful women leaders in other parts of the world but because of the ever increasing need for a highly skilled workforce.
It is in everyone’s interest to redouble our efforts to help women and families deal with the delicate balance between work and childcare – and increasingly between work and family life.
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