Balancing work, family and personal life: Perspectives of female staff at the College of Distance Education, University of Cape Coast, Ghana

Abstract

The study examined how female staff of the College of Distance Education (CoDE), University of Cape Coast (UCC) balance work, family and personal life roles, amidst their busy work schedules. A 21-item well-structured questionnaire was developed to collect primary data. Using the convenient sampling technique, 32 female staff was selected for the sample. Statistical tools such as percentages, mean, standard deviation as well as regression analysis were used to examine the relationship between organizational, family and personal life roles of the respondents. The findings of the study revealed that female staff of CoDE is not able to balance work, family and personal due to situational roles and their busy work schedules. The study also show that the university does not support female staff with policies and programmes that would assist them in this regard. The urgent need for the university to enact institutional policies and to show commitment in establishing a work- family friendly environment was recommended. This is important since the female staff at CoDE work 15 h on the average daily, which far exceed their contractual working period of 8 h.