Work-family studies in chinese context

Numerous jobs exist with untraditional schedules and work hours. According to xx, it is more challenging to provide a pleasant job environment when one is unaware of any disadvantages regarding the demands of their program. Therefore, the objective is to remove turnover and keep workers as satisfied with their jobs as possible, which is a process that takes flexibility and creativity (Jamadin et al., 2015). For example, if one’s employees are frequently traveling or working late, an excellent solution to make them satisfied will be incorporating a work environment that is family friendly. Thus, the management should allow the worker’s family to visit the worker’s even during working hours as long as they can maintain the balance. On the other hand, based on Ali et al. (2017), an enormous aspect of work-life balance is mainly contingent on what people do in the workplace themselves. For examples, it is common for some employees to spend more time working and decides to take less time with their families even if the organization they are working for has those benefits which permit them to visit their families.

Work balance is already a problem for every worker both male and women. However, with the increase in globalization and other changes taking place in the workplace such as gender equality, more women get, tying into the workplace. As a result, this brings a new challenge as women are obliged by norms to take care of their families (Ollier-Malaterre and Foucreault, 2017). Thus combining such errands with work responsibilities causes a significant strain on them finding it hard to balance. In the west, the concept of gender equality has taken root and women now share most of the family responsibilities with their male counterparts (Drummond et al., 2017). Nevertheless, in other parts of the world such as Asian, traditional responsibilities of women are still firmly ingrained in the society (Hofmann, and Stokburger-Sauer, 2017). Thus, the focus of the study is based on how Asian women, in the workplace, in particular, China are balancing their work and life.

Over the last two decades, issues related to work-family balance have received unprecedented interest from numerous researchers. This study has been instigated by the fundamental changes taking place in the workforce such as the increased composition of women working in the various organization and the increase in dual-earner couple’s prevalence as well as single-parent families (Xia et al., 2018). The copies change in the workplace indicate that more employees, particularly women are starting to combine family and work roles (Tatli, Ozturk, and Woo, 2017). Many questions have come into light as a result of paid worker role being added to the lives of many women. Numerous people believe that women find it hard to balance their home obligation and work appropriately because of their traditional culture.

Although for a long time many scholars have conducted studies related to work-life balance among women, most of the studies mainly focus on western content, mainly the United States. However, this is quite understandable as the workplaces in the western context were first to experience diversification compared to other parts of the globe (Gregory, Milner, and Windebank, 2013). Nonetheless, several changes have taken place throughout other parts of the world such as Asian, most notably China. It is, therefore, significant to research work-life balance, which is not based on the context of the west but another place in the world such as China (Hasan and Teng, 2017). This is because the result of the west cannot be generalized to other parts such as Asian because they are different regarding work ethics and family values among others. Conversely, there is an increasing recognition that contextual and cultural factors can influence experiences and perception in family and work roles. As such, it is imperative to study work-family issues in the context of nonwestern.

China provides an ideal environment for the study of how their female employee manages work-family conflicts in the context of nonwestern. Mostly, this is because, in the recent past, the nation is experiencing copies changes in its workforce composition such as the west (Yoo, Sudhakar, and Levine, 2017.). However, some traditional cultural values like the different roles of gender are still being practiced in the society. As a result, it poses a significant challenge for the women in the country to combine family roles and work.

The Chinese Setting

China is undergoing various changes in their patterns of employment just like other developing states to help in their economic development. When the country got their independence in 1949, their economy was fundamentally grounded in agriculture and other commodities such as metals (Sutherland, 2018). As the nation undergoes rampant industrialization, its economy is becoming more focused on the service and manufacturing sectors. Therefore, the importance of the agricultural sector to the nation’s GDP is decreasing over time (Sutherland, 2018). Conversely, the service and manufacturing sectors are becoming the primary contributors to their economy. In this regards, new opportunities for employment are created with the increase in the growth of the economy. Consequently, the general trend of female participation in the employment force in China is increasing. The number of women employees have been on the rise even though men outnumber women by far. Accordingly, this indicates that women in China are represented increasingly in the labor market and contribute significantly to the development of the economy in the country.