Work-Family Enrichment in Nepalese Education: A Positive Light

Globalization, technological advances, demographic changes, dual-career couples, and changes in the individuals’ outlook and desires are the factors that have made work-life balance a concern for academia and practitioners (Baral & Bhargava, 2010; Mishra, 2015). In Nepal, the demographic changes are seen in the form of women joining the workforce. 22.5 percent of working-age women are employed. The proportion of those who are employed increased with the level of education irrespective of gender (Nepal Labour Force Survey, 2017). The Nepal Labor Survey report further reported that females were almost evenly distributed across the formal non-agriculture sector, informal agriculture sector, and informal non-agriculture with 32.

3 percent, 31.8 percent, and 32.9 percent shares respectively. More and more women joining the workforce have led to a change in the concept of gender roles.

Many of the behavioral researchers have shown interest in research on work and family issues in recent years. Importantly, the interest for this research has come from the context of women’s participation in the workforce and complexities that have arisen due to no changes in household responsibilities in developing societies.

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Nepal is a patriarchal and highly stratified society whereby power relations are not equal and the roles, behaviors, and expectations for men and women are socially prescribed (ILO, 2015). Therefore, it is important to understand how has dual-earning with existing patriarchal and unequal roles has impacted Nepalese in the work-family balance domain. Work-family balance has important implications for individuals, organizations, and society, and consequently, a growing body of research has explored the intersection of work and family domains (McNall, Masuda, Shanock, & Nicklin, 2011).

In the past, empirical studies on the work-family balance majorly focused only on the negative relations between work and family life. Present studies on work-family interaction have supported both negative (e.g. stress, burnout, high turnover, etc.) and positive (e.g., health, performance, satisfaction, etc.) outcomes(Baral & Bhargava, 2010). The empirical focus on conflict (minimizing the negative role that works play on life) rather than enrichment (maximizing the positive role that works play on life) may strictly limit a broader understanding of how the work role may actually enrich the broader life domain (Grawitch, Barber, & Justice, 2010). The Work-family interaction studies ( e.g. Adhikary, 2018; Gnawali, 2017) in Nepal too focused on the conflict or interference side of it. Therefore, there was a need of looking at the work-family balance from a positive light in a developing economy.

Some researchers have made an effort to investigate the positive impact of the work-family interface by examining the benefits of multiple role memberships (Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 2003), including enrichment, positive spillover, enhancement, and facilitation. Even though there are various labels given to the positive aspect of work-family balance, this study adopts Greenhaus and Powell’s (2006) definition of “work-family enrichment”. The definition states that the degree to which experiences in one role enhances the quality of life in the other role (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). The definition comprehensively conceptualizes the positive side of the work-family balance at the individual analysis. Similarly, some researchers (e.g. Carlson, Kacmar, Wayne, & Grzywacz, 2006; Hanson, Hammer, & Colton, 2006) have mentioned in their studies that other researchers have also noted how constructs as positive spillover and facilitation can be categorized under work-family enrichment. Therefore, enrichment seems to be an inclusive construct (McNall, Masuda, & Nicklin, 2009). Greenhaus and Powell (2006) have identified dispositional and environmental factors as predictors of work-family enrichment. People with high Core Self-Evaluation (CSE) obtain jobs that are objectively more challenging, but also view their jobs as having more positive characteristics (T. A. Judge, Bono, Erez, & Locke, 2005). Therefore, it is possible that people with high CSE find jobs more enriching compared to lower CSE people. It can be considered as an individual factor that affects work-family enrichment positively. Similarly, Perceived Organizational

Support (POS) has been found to be positively related to work-family enrichment (McNall, Masuda, Shanock, & Nicklin, 2011).
Similarly, the balance between work and family roles among school teachers has seldom been examined (Fung, Ahmad, & Omar, 2014). Most studies around married employees that too among teachers are about work-family conflict. Further, only a few studies (e.g Baral & Bhargava, 2010; Fung et al., 2014; Kumar, Channa, & Maharvi, 2018) have examined the mediating role of work-family enrichment between predictors and outcome variables. Additionally, married couples experience more work-family enrichment than unmarried individuals (Jain & Nair, 2015). Similarly, many studies (e.g. Baral & Bhargava, 2011; Fung et al., 2014; McNall, Nicklin, & Masuda, 2010) have found a positive relationship between Work-family enrichment and Affective commitment, Job satisfaction, and Family satisfaction.

Understanding this need, the study tries to examine the role of personal and organizational factors on work-family enrichment and the impact of work-family enrichment on organizational and family outcomes among married school teachers in Nepal.