Dual-Career Couples: Implications for Work-Life Balance and Human Resources Management
Abstract
The phenomenon where husbands and wives are engaged in secular work (dual-career couples) appears to be very common now in Nigeria. This study examined the work-life balance (WLB) of dual-career couples (DCCs) across selected government organisations in Edo State, Nigeria. The survey method was used in the study and consequently two hundred and twenty-two (222) respondents who have spouses that also work, either in the same or in different organisations, were sampled using Taro Yamani sampling technique from a population of 500 couples build up using Snowball method. Four administrators in the focused organisations were also included as participants. The questionnaire for measuring WLB developed by Robinson was adopted, adapted and used to collect quantitative data from the respondents. This was supported by one-on-one in-depth interview. The data collected were analyzed using frequency tables, percentage, mean scores, mean scores ranking, correlation and relative importance index. Among other things, study findings showed that women are not only highly educated now but they also occupy senior positions in the workplace and this has given rise to presence of large numbers of DCCs. DCCs experience work-life balance problems but this is more acute for the DCCs who work in different organisations. Other findings are: while majority of DCCs who work in the same organisations live in the same households the reverse is the case for DCCs who work in different organisations. The organisations are yet to imbibe the philosophy or work-life balance.
Keywords
WorklifeWork-life balanceDual career coupleHuman resource management
References
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