Work-Life Conflicts of Female Employees: Employment Relations in Labour-Intensive Organizations ()
1. Introduction
This article presents a study of the employment relations practicing among the interplay between work and non-work life of operational level female workers attached to labour-intensive production organizations. Employment relation involves those in work, those who employ them, and those who have an impact on their workplace relationships; the workplace is based, together with the cultures, philosophies, styles, and norms of those working (Bingham, 2016). When married women work for pay, it is mostly because their spouses are working in marginal jobs, and the family needs the extra income to survive. Attention to studying the interplay between work and non-work life of employees has significantly increased during the past couple of decades (Orkibi & Brandt, 2015; Fisher et al., 2014; Grzywacz & Carlson, 2007). At the same time, the association between work-family enrichment and work-family balance has received less empirical attention (Carlson et al., 2009). The current state of the debate around work-life balance disregards the major work-life challenge experienced by the working class (Warren, 2015).
As a corporate policy, an organization’s corporate culture recognizes the family responsibilities and obligations of its employees. The organisation’s culture shapes employees’ perceptions and behaviour, as well as the principles that apply to members of an organization (Jigjiddorj et al., 2021). The culture of an organization acknowledges and respects the family responsibilities and obligations of its employees and encourages management and employees to work together to meet their personal and work needs (Dhas & Karthikeyan, 2018). However, the degree to which the employer fulfills the employee expectations in association with their family, social, and personal development is questionable. To address this gap, the research study explores the work-life interface through the view of the working class using the question: “How does employment relations influence the interplay between work and non-work lives of the working class?” The broader scope of this question is simplified to an employee-related scale of job satisfaction which determines the status between job retention and job turnover intentions. This study refers to two border theories to explore how individuals interact between work and non-work domains. The inter-role conflict theory refers to exploring how participation in one role inhibits effective performance in another role (Westring & Ryan, 2010) and compensation theory refers to exploring how employees try to atone for the absence of pleasure in one field by trying to identify more pleasure in the other field (Lambert 1990, cited in Bello & Tanko, 2020).
This article makes four contributions to the present literature focusing on working-class female employees usually working in labour-intensive organizations. First, it explores the work-life conflicts encountered by the working class of female employees at the interplay between their work-life and non-work life based on the inter role conflict theory which defines the work-life conflict against work-life enrichment. Second, it enhances knowledge about establishing hypotheses to develop an association between the work-life conflicts and the consequence of job dissatisfaction as model variables to be tested. Third, it demonstrates how the model fit is ensured using standard statistical practices before testing an association between the model variables. Forth, the statistically validated results of an empirical study add decision supportive information in future studies.
This study reviews work-life conflicts in labour-intensive organizations to examine their impact on job dissatisfaction. A sample population of sewing machine operators (usually females) from an export-oriented Apparel Industry organization was taken for the study. In labour-intensive apparel industry, the cost component of labour force is comparatively high and quality assurance is essential. The management takes the advantage of economies of scale by introducing task-based incentive schemes to female employees including additional day-time hours and weekends. The incentives in addition to the fixed remuneration make employees happy. The incentive-based production volume increased by the variable cost upon the same fixed cost provides financial benefits to the employer through economies of scale. However, according to Dheerasinghe (2009), the average labor turnover worked out per factory is about 60% per annum; taking the labor migration within the industry into account, the net number of persons leaving the industry each year is estimated as 25%. This reveals that though the work-life pattern of the apparel industry makes attractive monetary rewards, the job satisfaction of female employees has been not assured by such benefits.
2. Work-Life Conflicts
2.1. Interplay between Work-Life and Non-Work Life
Work-life balance is defined as an employee’s perception with multiple domains of personal time, family care, and work are maintained and integrated with a minimum of role conflict (Clark, 2000, Ungerson and Yele, 2005, cited in Delina & Raya, 2013). Work-life balance is not merely defined by time divided between work-life and non-work-life including roles and responsibilities and thereby, the need for work-life balance is aroused by the multiple roles of employees in this fast-paced environment (Wong et al., 2017). According to Sen and Hooja (2018), it is not that work and non-work life is always at the opposite ends of an individual’s life, in fact in most cases, there is no distinct dividing line between work and non-work times. According to Fernando and Sareena (2017), the concept of work-life balance is mostly associated with working women who are compelled to perform domestic chores compared to working men. In past years, the term “work-life balance” has replaced what used to be known as “work-family balance” or “work non-work balance” (Hudson Global Resources, 2005; Bradley et al., 2010). However, Bradley et al. (2010) have used the term “work-life balance” rather than “work-family balance”, or “work non-work balance” as they believed it was more encompassing, and more accurately describes the reality of most people’s lives. The researcher uses the simply defined term work-life balance.
2.2. Inter-Role Conflict Theory
Work-life enrichment describes how positive experiences in work and non-work (home) lives interact to produce gains in satisfaction, health, and performance (Brough et al., 2014). The authors discuss the antecedents of work-life enrichment, including social support, a supportive workplace culture, and family-friendly human resource policies, and the consequences of work-life enrichment, including increased job satisfaction, commitment, work engagement, work performance individual health, and family satisfaction. Carlson et al. (2006 cited in Westring & Ryan, 2010) state that the experiences of inter-role enrichment (when participation in one role enhances performance or well-being in another role) are associated with greater family satisfaction, work satisfaction, and decreased chronic health conditions. However, Gatrell et al. (2013) identify the definition of work-life balance to be always “problematic”, rather than enriching, among employed parents.
Greenhaus and Beutell (1985, cited in Love et al., 2010), assert that inter-role conflict theory that consists of work-to-family conflict (WFC), which occurs when work responsibilities interfere with family responsibilities, and family-to-work conflict (FWC), which occurs when family responsibilities interfere with work responsibilities. Experiences of inter-role conflicts are correlated with increased depression, alcoholism, health complaints, burnout, turnover intentions and decreased job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and quality of family life (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985 cited in Westring & Ryan, 2010). The WFC impacts the employee outcomes such as absenteeism, professional strain, or turnover intentions (Samtharam & Baskaran, 2021). According to Ralston and Flanagan (1985), females are seen as more susceptible to this inter-role conflict because maintaining the home is still perceived as primarily a woman’s role. In Asian countries, domestic chores are still dominated by women. As such, females tend to have higher inter-role conflict than males. By reviewing the literature, Westring and Ryan (2010) disclose conflict and enrichment also occur between important life roles and such conflict and enrichment play an important role in individuals’ performance, satisfaction, and well-being.
This research study focuses on the interplay between work and family roles causing conflicts that enables management to develop strategies to eliminate such behavious. Stephens et al. (2001) conclude that several demographic and background characteristics of women, their family members, and their employees were associated with different patterns of inter-role conflict. Adhering to WFC of inter-role conflict theory apart from the routine job role practices of the workplace, shared values, norms, beliefs describing corporate culture and attitudes, employment relations, and motivation developed by leadership qualities are discussed in this study as such attributes constitute the behaviour of an organization. However, employees may try to atone for the absence of pleasure caused by work fatigue, irritation, tight working schedules, etc., in work-life by the pleasure in association with family life, the non-work life. This study discusses the barriers and limitations caused by work-life for attending the family matters as perceived by the female labour force related to inter-role conflict theory.
As defined by Bradley et al. (2010) the term work-life balance is used instead of “work non-work balance” and accordingly, the term work-life conflict is used instead of “work non-work conflict”. The characteristics which constitute work-life conflict are identified and they are focused on a common variable that is governed by those characteristics. A research study carried out by Yadav and Dabhade (2013, cited in Adikaram, 2016) concludes that there exists a significant relationship between work-life balance and job satisfaction of working women. A research study carried out by Arunashantha (2019) concludes that there is a positive relationship between work-life balance and job satisfaction and recommends arranging a flexible working environment for the employees to spend more time with family members. Thus, the attributes of work-life conflicts are focused on the governing variable of job dissatisfaction.
2.3. Work-Life Conflicts Leading to Job Dissatisfaction
Thompson et al. (2003) define job satisfaction as an overall feeling about one’s job or career in terms of specific facets of the job or career. An increase in working hours increases the workload, which negatively affects the job satisfaction of the employees, and jobs related responsibilities became a hindrance in performing household responsibilities; this tussle resulted in job dissatisfaction (Nadeem & Abbas, 2009). The authors further disclose that employees who have a higher level of job stress negatively influence job satisfaction. Employees having multiple roles of childcare and job responsibilities reduces job satisfaction and increases family-to-work interference (Evandrou and Glaser; 2004 cited in Nadeem & Abbas, 2009). A research study by Duxbury, Higgins, (2001 cited in Nadeem & Abbas, 2009) reveals that an increase in work overload leads to work-to-family interference, which leads to less organizational commitment and decreases job satisfaction.
Work-life balance that describes the interplay between work-life and non-work life of working people is mostly associated with working women who perform domestic chores compared to working men. The interplay between two lives expects producing work-life enrichments. However, when employees’ participation in the work role inhibits smooth performance in the family role and vice versa, creating work-life conflicts. Job dissatisfaction is one of the outcomes of work-life conflicts.
3. Hypotheses, Model Variables, and Data
Since the objective of the study is to examine the impact of work-life conflict on job dissatisfaction, this section discusses the hypotheses of the research which intends to test whether the relationship that has been theorized does exist or not.
3.1. Hypothesis 1
Organizational culture is a common perception held by an organisation’s members and everyone in the organization would have to share this perception (Luthans, 2008). The shared patterns of behaviours and cognitive constructs shape how people perceive, think, and act in their social world (Heini, 2010 cited in Xiao, 2021). Dhas and Karthikeyan (2018) define work-family culture as the extent to which an organization’s culture acknowledges and respects the family responsibilities and obligations of its employees and encourages management and employees to work together to meet their personal and work needs. Thompson et al. (1999), define work-family culture as “the shared assumptions, beliefs, and values regarding the extent to which an organization supports values and the integration of employees’ work and family lives”. According to Kusumawarti (2017), the employee interprets work-family culture as to how the company leadership concerns the employees’ problems, whether it is a problem outside of work or just in the work environment. In the extent to which an organization supports values and the integration of employees’ work and family lives, Kanchana and Hamsaveni (2020) assert that today’s working women have many competing responsibilities such as managing the job, childcare, housework, volunteering, role as a spouse, and taking care of elderly parents which creates a stressful nature.
Frone (2003) discloses by reviewing past literature that job turnover intention may be an outcome of family conflicts caused by overloaded work obligations. In developing countries, it is hardly any employee leaves employment triggering a state of job dissatisfaction because finding another employment is not easy. However, job dissatisfaction developed in the employees’ minds may lead to creating conflicting interests. Gozuukaraa and Colakoglub (2016) have concluded that work-to-family conflict is closely related to decreased satisfaction of employees and organizations may formulate structures and strategies to minimize such conflicts between their employees’ work and family lives, and thereby foster their satisfaction with the job.
H1. There is a positive relationship between work-life conflicts created by unhealthy employment relations and job dissatisfaction.
3.2. Hypothesis 2
Khan’s (2015) study reveals that aggressive supervision is one of the key causes of employees’ frustration which also leads to reluctance, frequent absenteeism, demotivation, and lack of confidence which ultimately results in increasing the rate of turnover. Rajapakshe’s (2018) study on factors affecting labor turnover in the Sri Lankan apparel industry revealed that achieving set production targets leads employees to trauma, mainly due to the aggressive behavior of the line supervisors. The findings of Ahmad et al. (2011, cited in Islam et al., 2020) highlight the fact that an unsupportive working environment for household requirements creates conflicts which, in turn, cause negative workplace outcomes. A study carried out by Poon (2004, cited in Benrazavi & Silong, 2013) shows that a lack of collaboration among supervisors and the working teams leads to job dissatisfaction among demotivated workers. A research study by Baral and Bhargava (2010) concluded supervisor support and work-family culture were positively related to job satisfaction and affective commitment by examining social support for developing a family-friendly organizational culture (work-family culture).
H2. There is a positive relationship between work-life conflicts created by unfriendly supervisory behaviour and job dissatisfaction.
3.3. Hypothesis 3
The study on work-life balance by Arunashantha (2019) reveals that constraints on career paths, limited opportunity for career advancement, and lack of appraisal of individual performance are some of the key restraining factors that lead to dissatisfaction in work-life. The study of the manufacturing industry by Bhuian and Al-Jabri (2012) that the lack of career growth and insufficient compensation have led employees to demotivation and leave the organization in the short run. Fapohunda (2014) emphasizes work-life balance as a dual among reaching career goals while managing individual well-being through health, pleasure, leisure, family, and spiritual attainments.
H3. There is a positive relationship between work-life conflicts created by lacking career prospects and job dissatisfaction.
3.4. Hypothesis 4
Hancock et al. (2015) demonstrate that the earnings and savings of the employees in the apparel industry are significantly low, considering the extended work performed by them and compared to their other counterparts working in other types of factories. A study on economic inequality and socioeconomic class on people’s well-being carried out by Filippi et al. (2017) shows that both economic inequality, socioeconomic class, and their interaction, harm inferred work-life balance. The findings of a study carried out by Morrison et al. (2022) suggest that income changes over time positively predict work-family conflict changes over time as making more money could demand employees devote greater resources to their work roles. A study by Bell et al. (2012) conclude that high levels of perceived job pressure stress and job threat stress would predict increased levels of work-life conflict, and decreased levels of work-life balance. According to Saratian et al. (2019) Employees should refresh at the end of the week or month to reduce fatigue at work so they can finish the job well and perfectly.
H4. There is a positive relationship between work-life conflicts created by enduring income difficulties with work fatigue and job dissatisfaction.
3.5. Hypothesis 5
Sindhuja and Subramaniam (2020) define work-life balance as the association between work and other personnel commitments such as family matters, community engagement, leisure time, and individual growth. Grady et al. (2008, cited in Alhazemi & Ali, 2016), find that family, community, recreation, and personal time are the closely associated elements of work-life balance and by failing employees become dissatisfied. According to Grandey et al. (2005, cited in Islam et al., 2020) in case of work-to-family conflicts, individuals whose family roles are threatened blame their work role because they feel it as a threat which may lessen their level of satisfaction with their job. Greenhaus et al. (2003) propose three components of work-family balance: 1) time balance—an equal amount of time devoted to work and family roles; 2) involvement balance—equal level of psychological involvement in work and family roles; and 3) satisfaction balance—an equal level of satisfaction with work and family roles. The imbalance situation of each component of work-family balance can represent work-life conflicts.
H5. There is a positive relationship between work-life conflicts created by evading important family events and job dissatisfaction.
3.6. Hypothesis 6
A study carried out by Menike (2015) on the rural-urban disparity in Sri Lanka, concludes that the job satisfaction of the employees depends on the conditions such as job security, attractive salaries, recognition by the society, a friendly environment, etc. Hancock et al. (2015) conclude that the employees in the Sri Lankan apparel sector are more likely to experience verbal abuse and experience relatively low public humiliation as a result of their employment while their counterpart employees in other types of industries may have little bearing on public perceptions. Rajapakshe (2018), concludes that employee turnover in the apparel industry is determined by living and social conditions, personal characteristics, and human resource management activities.
H2. There is a positive relationship between work-life conflicts created by the social disparity of the working class and job dissatisfaction.
3.7. Model Variables
This study used cross-sectional data. The intended impact on job satisfaction by work-life conflict is considered to establish the model of “whether the job dissatisfaction is significantly associated with work-life conflict” as shown in Figure 1. The independent variable is one, which affects the dependent variable positively or negatively. The independent variables extracted from the 06 hypotheses of this study are the functions that constitute work-life conflict namely: 1) unhealthy employment relations; 2) unfriendly supervisory behaviour; 3) lack of
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Figure 1. Model linking independent variables and the dependent variable. Source: Author’s construct.
career prospects; 4) enduring income difficulties of fatigued employees; 5) evading family events; and 6) social disparity of working class.
Thus, the six (06) independent variables of the study are associated with the dependent variable of job dissatisfaction of employees positively or negatively. The model describes the objective of the study of examining whether there exists a significant positive association between job dissatisfaction and at least one or more independent variables which constitute work-life conflicts. The model links independent variables and the dependent variable
3.8. Data Collection
The primary data for this study was captured through a self-administrative questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed through consultation of the Human Resource Manager and ex-employees and it contained 37 items of which: 9 items represented the demographic data of respondents; 28 items represented the observed variables of which 25 items represented the six (06) independent variables. Three (03) items represented the dependent variable. Each variable is scored on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly agree; 2 = agree; 3 = moderate; 4 = disagree; 5 = strongly disagree) defining categorical data. A pilot study was conducted before floating the questionnaire to study the validity of the measures. A sample consisting of 350 female sawing machine operators was randomly selected from 2500 employees of an export-oriented Apparel Industry organization in Sri Lanka (say ABC). A self-administrative questionnaire to address the hypotheses of this study was developed by the researcher to obtain responses from the sample respondents. 350 questionnaires were floated among the organization selected (ABC) and 315 questionnaires were returned. The response rate was 90%. 5 questionnaires were rejected as they do not provide sufficient information to conduct the analysis. A sample size of 310 (12.6% of the population) female sawing machine operators is used for the final analysis. The data collected from the respondents were analysed using the statistical software program SPSS-25. The descriptive analysis was conducted to provide an idea of how the respondents answered the questionnaire.
4. Methodology
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), a multivariate interdependence technique that identifies how indicators used empirically are configured in factors that are not directly observed (Johnson and Wichern, 2007 cited in Rossoni et al., 2016; Watkins, 2018) was used to check the validity of the twenty-five statements representing independent variables of the model and any irrelevant question is removed from the statistical instrument. Pre-requirements for an EFA are ensured by standard statistical tests of Cronbach’s alfa, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO), Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity, and diagonal values of anti-image correlation matrix using SPSS 26. As shown in Table 1 with citations: 1) Cronbach’s alfa calculates the internal consistency coefficients of the items (questions represented by each independent variable) of a model as a measure of reliability; 2) the KMO test measures the suitability of data (questions represented by each independent variable) for factor analysis by testing sampling adequacy for each item representing independent variable of the model; 3) Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity confirms the significance of the correlation between variables (questions represented by each independent variables); and 4) the diagonal values of the anti-image correlation matrix, being the KMO measures of sampling adequacy summarises information about partial correlation coefficients. Table 1 further indicates with citations, for the factor analysis, the adequacy of the sample size would be should be 300 or larger; at least five times the number of observed variables; more acceptable would have a 10:1 ratio.
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Table 1. Standard tests for factor analysis.
EFA is facilitated by Hair et al. (2010) Varimax rotation by minimizing the number of variables that have high loadings on each factor. To assess the degree of association between the dependent variable and the independent variables validated by the EFA, multivariate (or bivariate) analysis for variance explained is applied. Pearson 5Chi-square test, a bivariate nonparametric test is used to test the hypothesis of no association (null hypothesis) between work-life conflicts and job dissatisfaction (Rana & Singhal, 2015; Turhan, 2020).
5. Results
The respondents’ marital status was fairly distributed among the sample population showing a close proportionate of 55:45 between single and married. Employees’ retention rate has increased up to the first four years of the organization and thereafter, the retention rate has declined by increasing the turnover rate. Further, only 4% of the sample population has continued with ABC for more than 4 years, being their first apparel experience showing employee turnover intention would reach a critical stage with four years of service. Of the sample population, 78% have attended work beyond the normal working hours and weekends on regular basis. This reveals that their time availability for attending non-work activities has been restricted by their work-life. Table 2 shows the results of standard statistical tests as pre-requirements for the EFA.
As illustrated in Table 1 Cronbach’s alfa, by taking a value larger than its threshold limit, confirms the internal consistency of the 25 items represented by each independent variable of the model as a measure of reliability. Similarly, KMO values confirmed the sampling adequacy for each item representing the independent variable of the model; Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity confirms the significance of the correlation between the items represented by each independent variable; diagonal values of the anti-image correlation matrix summarise KMO measures of sampling adequacy.
As indicated in Table 1, the sample population meets the requirement of the sample size of n > 300 and also exceeds the 10:1 ratio with 28 observed variables (n > 280) by selecting a sample size of 310. Thus, the 25 items representing six (06) independent variables are suitable for EFA. The EFA was applied to the 25 items representing six (06) independent variables without limiting factors and the results are illustrated in Table 3.
The analysis resulted in eight homogeneous sub-scales with eigenvalues greater than one (01). However, the correlations are considered weak when the
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Table 2. Internal consistency and factorability.
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Table 3. Explanatory factor analysis of items of independent variables.
correlation coefficients are less than 0.3 (Asuero et al., 2006; Mukaka, 2012; Agunbiade & Ogunyink, 2013; Schober, 2018) and the factor loadings are less than 0.3 (<0.3) were not considered. The items ST20 and ST21 represent very high correlations under factor 6. The other four items (ST22, ST23, ST24, and ST2) are distributed among factors 6 and 7 capturing inconsistent correlations, and said four items are thus removed from the construct (e.g. Mokhlis et al., 2011). Hair et al. (2010) disclose that in the social sciences, the value of cumulative percentage of total variance extracted by successive factors as 60% is considered satisfactory. The cumulative percentage of total variances captured by five factors of this study accounts for 67.51% (>60%) which is higher than the threshold value. After removing ST22, ST23, ST24, and ST25, the rest of the 21 items have been validated by the EFA. The statistical mean values of the items validated by the factor analysis are used to establish every six independent variables.
Table 4 represents the calculated descriptive statistics of the dependent variable and six independent variables of the construct. As illustrated in Table 4, the mean values of all variables are slightly above 3.0 which is the moderate score of the Likert’s scale varying from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). The highest frequency captured by each variable is around 3.0. As a large sample of more than 300 sample size, all model variables confirmed the normality by taking absolute skewness value ≤ 2; and absolute kurtosis value of ≤4 (Mishra et al., 2019; Kim, 2013).
Pearson Chi-square test, a bivariate nonparametric test was applied to examine the association between the dependent variable and each of six (06) independent variables, and the results are illustrated in Table 5.
As illustrated in Table 5, the null hypotheses of no association between the dependent variable and the independent variables 1, 2, 3, and 5 have been rejected by the p-value capturing less than 0.05 (p < 0.05) of this data structure. The coefficient of correlation (r) between the dependent variable and the
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Table 4. Descriptive statistics for the dependent variable and the independent variables.
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Table 5. Degree of association between variables.
independent variables 1, 2, 3, and 5 captures positive values larger than 0.3 (r > 0.3) indicating a strong positive correlation. Thus, the following hypotheses are validated by the construct.
H1. There exists a positive and significant relationship between work-life conflicts created by unhealthy employment relations and job dissatisfaction.
H2. There exists a positive and significant relationship between work-life conflicts created by unfriendly supervisory behaviour and job dissatisfaction.
H3. There exists a positive and significant relationship between work-life conflicts created by lacking career prospects and job dissatisfaction.
H5. There exists a positive and significant relationship between work-life conflicts created by evading family events and job dissatisfaction.
As illustrated in Table 5, the information provided by this study is not adequate to reject the null hypothesis of no association between the dependent variable and the independent variables 4 and 6. The coefficient of correlation (r) between the dependent variable and the independent variables 4 and 6 captures positive and values less than 0.3 (r < 0.3) indicating poor positive correlation. Thus, the following hypotheses are validated by the construct.
H4. There exists a positive, but insignificant relationship between work-life conflicts created by enduring income difficulties of fatigued employees and job dissatisfaction.
H6. There is a positive, but insignificant relationship between work-life conflicts created by social disparity of working class and job dissatisfaction.
The inconsistent correlation coefficients captured by four statements (ST22, ST23, ST24, and ST2) of the factor analysis (Table 3) representing the independent variable 6 of the model (Figure 1) were removed from the construct. The null hypotheses of no association between the dependent variable of job dissatisfaction and the independent variables of work-life conflicts created by: 1) unhealthy employment relations; 2) unfriendly supervisory behaviour; 3) lack of career prospects; and 4) evading family events have been rejected by the p-value capturing less than 0.05 (p < 0.05) of this data structure. The information provided by this study was not adequate to reject the null hypothesis (p > 0.05) of no association between the dependent variable of job dissatisfaction and the independent variables of work-life conflicts created by: 1) enduring income difficulties of fatigued employees; and 2) social disparity of working class.
6. Conclusion
The respondents’ demographic characteristics fairly represented attributes considered for work-life conflicts and job dissatisfaction: 1) marital status was 55:45 between single and married; 2) employees’ retention rate has declined by increasing the turnover rate; 3) only 4% of the sample population has continued with ABC for more than 4 years; 4) 78% have attended work beyond the normal working hours and weekends on regular basis. Table 2 shows the results of standard statistical tests as pre-requirements for the EFA. A sample consisting of 350 female sawing machine operators was randomly selected from 2500 employees and 350 self-administrative questionnaires were floated among them and 315 questionnaires were returned of which five (05) questionnaires were rejected as lacked information (90% response rate). The sample size of 310 (12.6% of the population) was used for the final analysis.
This article makes four contributions to the present literature focusing on working-class female employees usually working in labour-intensive organizations. First, by exploring literature, this study asserts the work-life conflict that occurs when work responsibilities interfere with family responsibilities; contrary, work-life enrichment occurs when positive experiences in work and non-work (home) lives interact to produce gains in satisfaction, health, and performance (Brough et al., 2014; Greenhaus and Beutell 1985, cited in Love et al., 2010). This study concludes work-life conflict is always complicated, rather than enriching. Second, this study enhances knowledge about the association between work-life conflicts and its consequence on job dissatisfaction by establishing six (06) hypotheses explaining work-life conflicts are created by: 1) unhealthy employment relations; 2) unfriendly supervisory behaviour; 3) lacking career-prospects; 4) enduring income difficulties of fatigued employees; 5) evading family events; and 6) social disparity of working class leading to job dissatisfaction.
Third, the study demonstrates the model fit through; 1) the Cronbach’s alfa test by confirming the internal consistency of the 25 items of the questionnaire (observed variables) represented by each independent variable as a measure of reliability; 2) KMO values and diagonal values of anti-image correlation matrix by confirming the sampling adequacy using factorability tests; and 3) Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity by confirming the significance of the correlation between the items represented by each independent variable. The sample population meets the requirement for EFA with the sample size (n = 310) greater than 300 (n > 300) and also exceeds the 10:1 ratio with 28 observed variables (n > 280). The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) validated 21 items out of 25 representing six (06) independent variables of the construct. The study further used Pearson Chi-square test by examining the association between the dependent variable and every six independent variables.
Fourth, the results of this study conclude that there exists a positive and significant relationship between work-life conflicts created by unhealthy employment relations, unfriendly supervisory behaviour, lacking career prospects as independent variables of the model, and job dissatisfaction as the dependent variable, by rejecting respective null-hypotheses statistically. The study further concludes that there exists a positive, but insignificant relationship between work-life conflicts created by enduring income difficulties of fatigued employees, social disparity of working class, as independent variables, and job dissatisfaction as a dependent variable; the information furnished by the sample population was not strong to reject the respective null-hypotheses. As such, the statistically validated results of an empirical study add decision supportive information in future studies.
This study concludes that in labor-intensive organizations, the work-life conflicts of operational level female employees are created by unfriendly supervisory behaviour with a strong positive correlation (r = 0.853) with job dissatisfaction and shows a significant relationship (p < 0.05) between the two entities, as per Table 5. Training of supervisors on how to influence, motivate and get the job done by the subordinates is necessary by abstaining from unemotional behavior. This reveals that the task-driven female employees hardly achieve production targets with conflict-free work-life. As explained by Arunashantha (2019), flexible tasks shall be established by carrying out work studies.
Work-life conflicts created by lack of career prospects shows a significant relationship (p < 0.05) with job dissatisfaction though the correlation is weak (r < 0.3), but positive (r = 0.15) as shown in Table 5. Female sewing machine operators, being the largest working category of the apparel industry, are aware of the least career opportunities. However, being employees, career prospect is one of the expectations as their direct contribution generates the income of the organization.
Table 5 further asserts that work-life conflicts created by unhealthy employment relations and evading family events cause a similar (r = 0.322) and fair correlation (r > 0.3) with job dissatisfaction and shows a significant relationship (p < 0.05) between the two entities. The management has a vital role to improve employment relations by organizing programs of team-building, trust-building, encouraging personal interactions, and setting attainable goals. Further, the management needs to cultivate a healthy corporate culture by maintaining a friendly environment, recognizing individuals’ strengths disregarding job status, sharing common attitudes and interests, and encouraging creativity instead of forcing them on incentive-based volumetric tasks. Repentance on evasion of routine family obligations, and lack of opportunities to interact among family members, relatives, and friends caused by work-life obligations can be minimized by arranging flexible work programs concerning female employees who require substantial time spans for attending to family matters than males. From the economic point of view, flexible working time may adversely impact achieving production tasks. The organizations shall evaluate the optimization between fixed cost and variable cost components of production and the required additional labor force shall be absorbed disregarding additional fixed cost.
By reviewing the findings of Greenhaus et al. (2003) as: 1) individuals who spent more time on family than work, experience a higher quality of life than balanced individuals who invest substantial time in their combined work and family; and 2) balanced individuals experience a higher quality of life than those who spent more time on work than family and the findings this research study, the researcher concludes that the organizations can eliminate work-life conflicts by facilitating the female employees who spend more time on work than family to spend substantial time in their family to become balanced individuals.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the Head of the Human Resource Department of the Apparel Organization (Named as ABC) for assisting and spending their valuable time, facilitating primary data collection, and providing the necessary information to perform this study.
The author gratefully acknowledges the professional support extended by Dr. Palitha Bandara for statistical analysis.
This research received no specific grants from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.