Work-Family Balance Essay
Work-Family Balance Essay Work life and the family imbalance is the most current tragedy that is becoming an issue to every one. It is the most innovative practice used in solving the work-life crisis. There have been issues in most households in the United States on how best they should balance their jobs as and at the same time take care of the small responsibilities in their homes. In United States for instance, most people are so much occupied such that they have to distribute their duties equally among the family members in the family (Halpern & Murphy, 2005). Initially, it was the responsibility of the woman to ensure that everything in the house is in order but due to gender equality, all these is never the same as now even men can give a hand where there is a need. In developing countries like South Africa, women still are under their men and they are expected to do most if not all the household duties in the family. Men are seen as superiors and as much as there are laws protecting women against this, this is just in written but it never works when it comes to practical.
Women in America on contrary insist on gender equality and that is why there are so many women who have raised to power and are aspiring for equal seats like men (Halpern & Murphy, 2005). In most developing countries, this has never been effective hence most women sacrifice their profession and stay home as house wives. In cases where women decide to stick by their profession, it either leads to a divorce due to disagreement among the couples, or just lack of imbalance between work and family leads to conflicts in the family. For the last 25 years, statistics have proved that the rate of employment among women in the United States have increased from 47% to at least 56% (Mooney, knox & Schacht, 2008). This implies that women are now moving to employment sector and this has affected the development upwards in that, in a family where there was only one provider, now the GDP has improved because there are two providers. Parents all over United States are trying so much to see how best they can balance the demand of their job and the needs of their families without failing anywhere. On the same note, policy makers are now on their toss as they deal with numerous problems that keep on arising everyday.
Some of these problems include: less time that is actually spent with the family due to job workload, excess stress at the working place, imbalance of gender at the working places and financial constraints that is imposed by high cost of the child care (Mooney, knox & Schacht, 2008). There are variations on how different countries have taken and adjusted their social, and labor market policies. These have been adjusted to accommodate the change in life especially in women. United States however, have taken a very different direction compared to other countries in the world. This is probably because they were the first people to implement the issue of gender equality in the world. Policy reforms in developing countries aim at reducing the work time but this seems to have an effect directly on the development of the country as a whole. Instead of actually adjusting the working hours of women, the best policy could be to distribute the home chores equally and let everybody in the family be responsible of what goings on and what is to take place. These will not only give women an ample time to be productive in their working place but it will also make them feel part of the society creatures with equality.
The United States should also put in effect a landmark on the annual hours that someone has worked including those who have strong labor ties. By doing this adjustment in time it will be appropriate for women to decide if she will take the full time job or the part time job without necessarily attaching conditions on the time allotment (Coltrane, 2000). Monthly leaves apparently apply to everyone without considering if one is a parent or not. Parents should be given a little bit linger leaves that other people. This is simply because they have extra responsibilities that they need to take care of. The other policy that must be scrapped off is that policy of unpaid days off. Workers need to be paid whether they are on leave or not (Coltrane, 2000). This will motivate the workers and make them feel special. The money may be taken to the child healthcare thus improving the education at a tender stage.
The other policy is that the third should be paid all the benefits of a worker including the overtime money. Workers also should have the right of requesting to change the shift or choosing the shift that she wants. This will assist the worker to adjust his programs appropriately and ensure that apart from being present all the time, he can equally perform some other duties. In conclusion, there seeks to be policies that are meant to reduce employment hours and increase part time jobs that are equally earning. Most countries try out models that been tries in the United States and hope that it will just do much better there. America however have a different approach in laying down their strategies and this is what most of the developing countries ape and indeed there has been a difference in the pattern of family – work imbalance.
