A study has looked at the implications for women in Portugal who want to combine their work with bringing up children. It looked at the daily effort of maintaining a work–life balance among a group of female shift workers in the food retail sector. The research was carried out via interviews with the workers and highlights the problems experienced by the women. It also looked at strategies adopted by women involved in shift work to manage their personal and family lives.
A study has been carried out in Portugal on the challenges faced by women shift workers trying to balance family and working life. The study, Shift work defined in the feminine: What challenges to work–life balance? (in Portuguese, 1.04 MB PDF), was the basis for a dissertation for master’s degree in psychology.
The main objective of the research was to understand and highlight the impact of certain working schedules. It looked at working patterns characterised by rotation and unpredictability and their effect on work–family balance for women.
The research adopted a qualitative methodology, based on interviews with a sample of 12 female workers aged between 23 and 46 years. All were subject to fixed or rotating shift patterns, and all had at least one child. The interviews were conducted at a company in the food retail sector in 2011.
The problems caused by shift work vary depending on the individuals concerned, and their professional, personal and family characteristics. This study, however, highlights the problems of reconciling work and family life as one of most reported drawbacks.
Women who work rotating shift patterns, and who would like to change to fixed shift work or a regular working time schedule, give family issues as the main reason.
The study also suggests that the negative impact of rotating shift work on family life is greater for employees with younger children. This is expressed by a feeling of guilt about not being able to be with their children while they are still small. This feeling is especially strong among mothers of children under the age of nine.
Nine of the workers interviewed felt that they did not have enough time for personal and social activities, saying that the amount of leisure time they had was not sufficient for their well-being. They said they often neglected activities for personal enjoyment because they had to concentrate on childcare duties.
Two of the remaining three women worked fixed shift patterns. This was seen as helpful in their attempt to reconcile the time spent working with the needs of their family.
The last of the 12 workers interviewed had one daughter older than nine who required less care time. The absence of a partner or husband, according to this respondent, increased her time availability.
Half of the women in the sample were the sole providers of childcare in their families. Four said childcare was shared between them and the father. Two said the father was the primary care provider. Four of the women were single parents.
Seven women said they spent, on average, between two to four hours a day providing childcare. Five spent more than four hours a day looking after their children.
Five of the 12 said domestic tasks were shared between them and their partners. The other seven said they took sole responsibility for housework.
The study identified ‘facilitator’ factors which helped with work–life balance. The most prominent facilitator was grandparents’ help with the care of children. In almost all cases the workers relied on relatives to be available to provide care when work schedules dictated.
Most women in the sample admitted that a balance could be struck between working time and non-working time.
However, the reconciliation of their work–life balance was described as ‘a daily struggle to match the schedules of their children, spouses and parents with their own schedules’. The women described it as an ongoing battle to overcome their problems by adopting a set of ‘facilitator factors and strategies’. Strategies included requesting a change of working hours, assigning lower importance to domestic tasks, and making use of grandparents for childcare.
In Portugal, over the past three decades, important changes have had major repercussions on the socioprofessional composition of the Portuguese population. There has been an emphasis on the increasing participation of women in the workforce and on the organisation of family life.
This study highlights the constant demands on female workers to readjust their personal and family life to respond to the demands of paid work.
The unpredictability of rotating shift patterns makes it difficult for employees to reconcile working and non-working time. Given the gender imbalance in the sharing of care work, unpredictable work patterns have a strong effect on women workers.
The feeling of guilt about their children and lack of personal time are seen by these women as the price they pay for having to work.
Janine Nunes and Heloísa Perista, CESIS