ABSTRACT
The study was designed to examine family stress, health and job performance of married working women in Dekina Education Zone of Kogi state. The study adopted descriptive survey. The population of the study comprised of 201 married working women. This consists of 201 female secondary school teachers in the 16 public secondary schools in Dekina Education Zone. A structured questionnaire titled “Family Stress, Health and Job Performance of Working Married Woman Questionnaire (FSHJPWMWQ)” was developed by the researcher which guided the study. 70 items were trail-tested on a sample of 20 married working women in Ida Education Zone of Kogi State. The data obtained were computed using Crobach Alpha method. This gave an overall score of 0.92. The five research questions were analyzed using mean and Standard Deviation. An overview of the overall results showed that types of stress that married working women suffer include; financial stress such as shortage of or limited income, emotional stress, home pressure, workplace and health stress. Family stressors are caused by a number of factors such as; working long hours in the office, having a heavy workload at home, taking office work home and others. Equally, consequences of stress on the health of married working women include; emotional distress, socially withdrawn, burnout, depression and others. Consequences of stress on the job performance of married working women include; poor concentration in the office, difficulty in solving office problems, socially withdrawn in the workplace and others. Stress reduction strategies to help women cope with stressful situations includes; setting limits appropriately, working ahead of time to minimize threatening situation, saying no to requests that would create excessive stress and others. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher among others recommends that Government should through ministry of education in synergy with public health workers and counselors, organize training for both the general public and stressors on types of stress; causes, consequences and stress reduction strategies to help stressors cope with stressful situations or conditions. Equally, counselors should be involved and empowered with both physical and psychological strategies such as biofeedback, including thoughts and actions to deal with married working women stressful situations to improve their health condition and enhance their job performance. Based on the findings of the study, limitations of the study were identified and suggestions for further studies were made.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Family system is as old as human life on the earth. Family according to Panasenko (2013) refers to a group of persons, united by ties of marriage, blood, adoption, consisting of single households, interacting and intercommunicating with each other in their respective social roles in creating a common culture. Family is composed of two adults of different sex (husband and wife or father and mother) and one or more children. Jacobs and Gerson (2004) saw family institution as a social group characterized by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship and one or more children, owned or adopted by the adults. In the context of this study, family comprises of a husband and wife or wives tied together by marriage. They live together either as biological or social aspects for the purpose of raising children, caring or training them to fit into the society and replace them tomorrow.
Family has the biological aspect and the social aspect. Its biological aspect is due to the blood link and hereditary characteristics, and the social aspect stems from the family having its own pattern of behaviour that regulates relationship existing between its members, such relations are the ones which the society concerned has approved as right (Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), 2006). NERDC further stressed that family is made up of two types; nuclear and extended family.
The nuclear family consists of two adults and their offsprings. Boss (2002) defined nuclear family as a family consisting of two parents and their children, but not including aunts, uncles, grandparents and others. In this study, nuclear family comprises of parents with their children. It is a social unit that consists of a mother, a father, and their children. On the other hand, extended family comprises of parents, children, and relatives. It is a family as a unit embracing parents and children together with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and sometimes more distant relatives (Panasenko, 2013).
One of the primary functions of the family involves providing a framework for the production and reproduction of persons biologically or socially. As a social institution, family is present in all cultures and therefore is universal. It is usually the bedrock of society, and also the most important social institution. It is the legitimate institution through which every society replaces its dying members. By this singular function, it ensures that the society does not go into extinction. Family institution is charged with the main responsibility of reproducing and training the future generation of society members in order to give society continuity (Brown and Iyengar, 2008).
In the family, men and women perform different functions. According to DeFrain and Asay (2007), functions of a man in the family include; being a leader, provider, protector and a teacher. A man provides means of supporting the family financially. He also contributes to the emotional, spiritual, mental and physical wellbeing of his family as well as protects his family against any threat. For Hawley and DeHann (2006), men who are active and responsible as fathers, provide numerous functions to their wives and children. They create greater opportunities for their children to learn positive social life that are beneficial to their own psychological and emotional wellbeing as they grow. Hawley and DeHann (2006) stressed that women’s role in the family development are characterized by a traditional gender division of labour which has by and large provided women with types of work that accorded them low economic value. Gender is a social construct that distinguished the role of male and female. Gender is not sex, but refers to the different roles men and women played in the society and the relative power they command (Ainley, Hillman and Hidi, 2002). According to the authors, whereas sex refers to the biological aspects of women and men (chromosomes, hormones), “gender” refers to those that are shaped by social forces or to the meaning that a society gives to biological differences. As stated by Gyllensten (2005), in many societies, women exclusively undertake the activities of infant care, shopping, farming and cooking whether single, married or working married.
Married working women are men partners in marriage in the paid labour force. O'Farrell (2009) sees married working women as married women who involve themselves in labour in order to earn wages. According to Obi (2003), women constitute more than one-third percent of the world's labor force, and majority of them are married women. For the purpose of this study, married working women, refers to men partners in marriage who engage in various occupations in order to earn wages to support their families.
As countries become industrialized, more women obtain jobs in different areas. According to O’Farrell (2009), married working women are making steady progress in entering nontraditional fields such as engineering and construction work, professions such as medicine and law, and elected and appointed political positions. Married working women hold paid jobs of greater diversity than before. According to United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) (1999), married working women have entered the new high-technology industries. UNICEF further cited example that presently, 31 percent of all computer programmers, and 28 percent of all computer systems analysts and scientists worldwide were women and majority of them are married women. Married working women engage in various workplaces in paid labour and they perform various functions such as typesetting of documents, file arrangement, sending memos across, photocopy and others together with their responsibilities in the house such as, activities of infant care, nursing, water and wood fetching among others. In the bid to create an equilibrium or a balance between the two responsibilities in the workplace and home in order to maintain their marriage so that it will not disintegrate, tension and conflict may arise which can induce stress in the life of the women.
Stress is unavoidable in human existence. According to Alzono (2000) stress is referred to as a bodily state rather than an event in the environment otherwise known as stressor or stress trigger. Stress is what one feels when one has to handle more than a problem. Stress according to Oboegbulem (2007), refers to a feeling which occurs when an individual’s working or living condition make demands beyond the individuals capacity to handle physically or emotionally. Stress is a mental, emotional, or physical strain caused by anxiety or overwork. Blonna (2005) describes stress as a state of discomfort, tension or emotional pain which arises when an individual is faced with situation which presents a demand that is important for the individual to meet but for.....
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