Abstract
The proportion of women in decision making is very low, and only a small number of women are represented in the managerial positions in Sri Lanka. The emergence and determined survival of women in organizations depends on their own willingness to confront and fight barriers. A major barrier in work is work-life balance as family and society demands more from a woman than a man. The objective of this chapter is to investigate the impact work-life conflicts on upward career mobility of women employees in the banking sector. A sample of 120 women employees was used for gathering data. Primary data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using correlation analysis, regression analysis, and descriptive analysis methods. There is a positive relationship between work-life balance and upward career mobility, and all the dimensions of work-life conflicts, namely, time balance, satisfaction balance, and involvement balance, were positively correlated with upward career mobility. The study provides recommendations and future directions for further studies.
TopBackground Of The Study
Women at work have been an important topic of conversation and organizational strategy certainly in the last two or three decades as the woman employment has been increasing rapidly since last two decades. Women continue to be responsible for a disproportionate share of domestic duties at the same time they are continuing to enter the workforce in increasing numbers, and therefore they need to balance the two roles of work and life (Ernst Kossek and Ozeki, 1998). However, according to (Meyerson and Fletcher, 2000) women at the highest levels of business are still rare. They comprise only 10% of senior managers in Fortune 500 companies; less than 4% of the uppermost ranks of CEO, president, executive vice president, and COO; and less than 3% of top corporate earners. Not only that but also there is strong evidence of the under-representation of women in leadership positions in many countries all over the world such as Australia, China, France, South Africa, United Kingdom and United States (Meyerson and Fletcher, 2000). Even though women represent more than half of the population in Sri Lanka, their labour force participation rate is less than men. Men’s participation in labour force is twice as women’s.
Table 1.
Economically active / inactive population by gender in Sri Lanka - 2016
| Gender | Economically active | Economically inactive |
| No. | % | No. | % |
| Total | 8,310,682 | 100.0 | 7,137,997 | 100.0 |
| Male | 5,303,502 | 63.8 | 1,761,234 | 24.7 |
| Female | 3,007,180 | 36.2 | 5,376,764 | 75.3 |
Source: Labour Force Survey - Annual report 2016
Key Terms in this Chapter
Retention: Ability of organizations to keep employees.
Involvement Balance: Equal psychological effort and presence invested in work and life of the individual.
Upward Career Mobility: The improvement in one’s current or planned work role.
Time Balance: Equal time allocated to both work and off work activities by an individual.
Work-Life Conflict: The problem that individual faces with their work responsibilities due to the interference of off-life activities.
Satisfaction Balance: Equal satisfaction expressed across work and family roles of an individual.