Work-Life Balance and Women Academics in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of UK and Nigeria
The shift from the male-breadwinner model to the dual career couples has led to widespreaddiscussions around work-life balance, particularly for women due to an increased likelihoodof managing caring commitments and domestic work. Despite extensive debates, the role ofculture in influencing the work-life balance experiences of women has received much lessattention. Where culture has been addressed in the work-life balance literature it has beenconfined to national contexts that share similar cultural characteristics.This thesis addresses this gap by exploring the work-life balance experiences of womenacademics in the UK and Nigeria. Utilizing role conflict theory; interviews, diary studies andparticipatory visual drawings show how the bi-directional impact of work and non-workdomains into conflict. The research also addresses the impact of time-based conflict, on theexperiences of women academics. It further utilizes spillover theory to understand thepositive and negative spillover that occurs between the work and non-work domains of thesewomen. Advance HE’s Athena SWAN gender equality charter is used as a tool to evaluate theeffectiveness of the charter in alleviating some of the tension between work and home life inthe UK and whether a similar approach might be useful for women academics in Nigeria.Culture was found to be deeply embedded in the lives of these women particularly withNigeria having a high level of dominance in patriarchy. Women academics in Nigeria hadgreater share of household responsibilities and were more prone to prioritizing caringresponsibilities which led to making choices that slowed down their career progression.Similarly in the UK, women academics with African, Asian and Irish backgrounds were morelikely to hold perceptions of not fulfilling their duties as a woman than those with British backgrounds. Women academics in the UK worked longer and unsocial hours and were lessinclined to take annual leave which was a contributing factor to the decline in their mentaland physical health. Religion was also found to negatively impact working time in Nigeriaand was also a major determinant of paid maternity leave.The findings confirm that women academics experience a high level of work-life conflictparticularly work to life conflict which was more evident than life to work conflict although,this was more prevalent in Nigeria. It further revealed that women academics experiencenegative spillover between their work and non-work domains, in comparison to positivespillover. Women academics in the UK appeared to lack knowledge around the availablework-life balance policies and practices, despite the Athena SWAN Charter.Evidence from the research shows that it is imperative for Higher Education Institutions tounderstand the cultural implications such that in the UK, considerations should be givenwhen forming policies around promotion structures and in Nigeria, where they are laggingimmensely, structures should be embedded to support women facing cultural barriers. Thefindings from this research will also be useful to Advance HE’s gender equality charter byinforming them on issues that need to be addressed in order to effectively promote work-life balance
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