How Work Affects Family Life Essay

now, the term family is difficult to define. All families be unique, and they can campaign anywhere from single parent families to extended families. Most importantly though, it is in the family where the next generation is being built. Parents must provide security and mount for their children, and they inquire to be prepared for the challenges of balancing deed and family in todays society. In traditional families, in that location was a mother, a father and their resulting children. The father would just just about often be the earner of the family, and the mother would stay at home and take complaint of the children. Things choose changed considerably in the twenty-first century. Now there are more dual-income families, single-parent families, and there are legion(predicate) more women in the labour force. This poses a great change to family life, and many parents are working a double day. They have their regular full season jobs where they earn an income, and then t hey have to come home to more work much(prenominal) as cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping.Like all systems and interactions, conflict arises between work and family issues. This issue causes conflict for every member of the family, and they study to disc everywhere ways to settlement this conflict. According to the feminist theory, gender is basic to all social structures and organizations. (Eshleman & Wilson, 200123). Obviously, it is also basic to the conflicts of work and family life. Today, both men and women must go to work to support their families, solely it is usually the woman who has to come home and do the cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping, while her husband plays with the kids or watches television in the living room. This is decidedly a concern that requires to be addressed, and although there have been any(prenominal) improvements in this area, much more can lighten be dvirtuoso. much improvements have also been made by employers, unions and the govern ment to benefit families who have full clock time jobs. Although, they have made steps towards alter this dilemma, there are still many issues that need to be dealt with.The social conflict theory states that conflict is natural and inevitable in all human interaction (Eshleman & Wilson, 200115). It is not seen as a negative theory, it just calls for state to be aware that conflict go out arise, and that they need to come up with solutions to these struggles. This is no different in the family. Todays families have to deal with tension on the macro take and the micro level. Work and employment affect both themacro and micro elements of the family. More and more varieties of families are coming about, such as dual-income families, single-parent families, and families who take care of their children as well as their parents. These flock face tribulations everyday of their lives while trying to juggle work and their family. Mostly in dual-income families, and single-parent fami lies, people are performing a double day. According to Eshleman and Wilson (2001), the double day, or second shift, refers to the gang of paid and unpaid work near people do.The family member earning the income often feels sample and encounters difficulties trying to construe their responsibilities as family members and as employees (Coates, 19911). This affects their performance at work and at home. They are caught in the middle between having to work to support the family, and wanting to create a good environment for their family to grow in. Society tells these parents that they are bad parents if they dont go to the school play and bad employees if they do go and take time off from work (Denholtz, 200091). The children or time-worn people in the head of the households care also suffer from the work/family conflict. Children are often raised by other people other than their own parents, such as nannies, teachers, other relatives or day care workers.Many children must learn to grow up a carve up quicker than they would normally have to if their parents were perpetually around which could be good in some cases, provided not so good in others. all member of the family must have a role, and know that role. Partners must discuss who will do the dishes that night, and who will take the children to baseball practice. Children must also swear out out with household chores, and take some responsibility for themselves. If all members of the family can come to a specific agreement, and implement a good plan to cope with everyone, work and family can be man daysd. All that is needed are the right attitudes and resources. Several couples in Crysdales study of working class people in downtown Toronto said that they manage trouble at work by leaving it at the door when they come home (1991103).There was not always an issue between family life and work. Typically, the single women who would work were young, single females with no other obligations. Married women would stay home with their children, do all thehousework and quarter sure supper was on the table for their husbands when they came home from work. The predicament between work and family arose when women began participating more in the labour force during and after world warfare I. Their involvement in the labour force has steadily increased since the beginning of the twentieth century, while mens participation has decreased. According to Eshleman and Wilson (2001), 16.2 percent of women over the age of fifteen were employed in 1911, and approximately 60 percent of women are employed today. So in under a century the egress of women working has almost quadrupled. There are many different reasons explaining why more and more women are joining the work force. It basically first started during World War II, because there was a great need for workers in factories, stores, etc., and the men were off fighting in the war.Therefore, the women had to join the labour force, and after the war, when they could leave their jobs, many women chose to stay instead of becoming a housewife once again. In the 1960s, there was a womens liberation movement, and this time period was the most significant change in womens roles. Wives and mothers wanted to be free from the constraints placed on them in the home, so many of them decided to go to work. Prior to this, in the first place single women were working for pay, but since then the gap between single and married women has decreased. Also, there has been an increase in the number of blended families, common-law relationships, and single-parent families which forces most members of these families to find paid work in order to financially support their family. Most single parents must go to work to provide for the family because they have no admirer from the mother or father of their children. Altogether, many different circumstances have led to the increased problems between work and family life. As we can see, as women gai ned a more significant role in the labour force, and as different types of families arose such as single-parent families, the conflicts also increased.When Eshleman and Wilson are explaining the feminist theory they want the question, What about women? Their answers to this question areBased on the ideas that the experiences of women are different from those of men, are unequal (less privileged) to those of men, and are activelyoppressed (restrained, subordinated, used and abused) by men. (p. 23)This interpretation working perfectly into the dilemma between men and womens roles in the family and in the work force. We must always consider women and gender when making assumptions about the family and work because they are inseparable issues. Even with the intense changes that have taken place in the family structure and the workforce, there is still the general idea that a womans first and foremost responsibility is in the home, til now when she is engaged in work outside of the h ome. Women workers experience much more stress and difficulty in balancing work and home than men do, because they tend to bear a disproportionate share of household tasks and family responsibilities (Coates, 19918).Coates (1991) listed some important statistics from a survey by the Conference of Canada in his article. He concluded that women inform spending an average of 16.5 hours per week on home maintenance compared to 9.8 hours by men. Three-quarters of the women reported that they had the majority of responsibility for making child arrangements compared to 4.1 percent of men, and women were almost four times as likely to stay home with their children when they were ghastly.Basically, the work and family issue has been viewed only as a woman issue, which creates problems between husband-wife families. This is a micro example of the social conflict theory. Work creates conflict within the family between the husband and the wife, in deciding who will perform what tasks within t he family. More recently, men have been accepting larger responsibilities within the family either through choice, or necessity in their role as a single parent in the paid workforce. The gaps between men and womens responsibilities in the home are decreasing, but there is much more to be done about this matter.Child care is the largest concern parents have when it comes to their family and their work. There are many options available for parents when it comes to childcare, such as daycare, nannies, relatives, babysitters, and schools, although it is not that easy. Some families cannot afford daycare or nannies some do not have families they can rely on for childcare and some parents work schedules do not accommodate babysitters hours. The age ofthe child is another(prenominal) factor that has to be considered when planning on childcare. If the child is an infant, one of the parents usually has to be with them all day, and not all employers offer maternity or paternity leave.When th e child is a toddler, they have not yet reached the age that would allow them to be in school from nine oclock until three oclock, so they still need someone in their care for the entire day. When the child reaches the school years, there are still a few hours before and after school that needs to be taken into account. later the child has reached an age in which he/she is able to take care of themselves, transportation between school, home and extracurricular activities comes into account. All of these factors contribute to the hardships parents face when trying to balance work and family life.Aside from the family, corporations and employers need to address the problems of stress placed on their employees while trying to manage between work and home. This incorporates the macro level of the social conflict theory. Fernandez states thatThere is a high correlation not only between missed work and caring for a sick child, but also caring for a sick child and leaving work early, comi ng in late, dealing with family issues during working hours, and on-and-off-the-job-stress.As the families continue to grow and change, the companies need to implement a vast range of improvements in order to reduce the great demands of parenting and work. This will not only help the parents out with their family, but it will create a less stressful environment for all of the employees, and therefore, it will improve the company. Many companies have already taken certain steps in doing this, but there is still much more that can be done. One suggestion is job-sharing, which is a form of part-time working wherein two people choose to share the salary, benefits and responsibilities of one full-time job (McRae, 198916). This benefits parents who want to maintain paid work and also want to be at home with their children. Homeworking is another example, and it is when a person takes on paid work from the home.This has become increasingly easier tomanage with new technologies such as the Internet. Shift work would also help to balance out the time between work and the family. The shifts could correspond with the hours that the children are in bed, or are at school, which allows the worker to spend more time with their family. More steps need to be taken in this area, such as on-site day care, paid leave to attend to a sick child or family issue, and included day-care costs. We have reached a point in society when it is time to come to a compromise between work and family life, and tractability needs to be offered whenever it is needed.In all, families have changed a great deal in the last century, and we need to keep up with these changes and offer new suggestions towards improving family life. Work places a great demand on all families, including dual-income families, single-parent families, blended families, and extended families. Parents are struggling everyday with the conflict between work and family life. It works in a viscous circle, because families need mo ney to support their families, but at the same time they need a lot of extra time to spend with their families. The burden is placed more on women than it is on men, because taking care of the household is still seen as the womans job, even if she is engaged in paid work.Men need to start doing their equal share around the house to make it easier on the demands of the woman. More steps need to be taken in child care facilities, because that is the main problem working parents face today. Companies must implement new plans in order to meet the needs of their workers. Altogether, it has been an ongoing battle for parents who are trying to balance between work and family life, and as the family continues to grow and change so must the laws behind negotiable work hours, day care, and permissible absence for family issues.