Exploring Gender Issues and Challenges Faced by Women Bank Employees in Work and Family of Sylhet City, Bangladesh

The study was conducted to evaluate the gender related issues and challenges of women bank employees both in work and with family in Sylhet city in Bangladesh. Data were collected through structured questionnaire from 120 respondent’s sampled using simple random sampling. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics through SPSS software and ranked the challenges using Garrett ranking method. In case of work, problems regarding management of overtime periods were ranked as first where average Garrett score was 64.87 and the majority (36.7%) of the respondents strongly agreed while (10.8%) strongly disagreed with this problem. The lowest average Garrett score was 77.88 for sexual harassment and majority (49.2%) strongly disagreed while (2.5%) strongly agreed with this problem. On contrary, the highest problem in family was long working hours which had an average Garrett score of 57.26 and majority (50.0%) strongly agreed along with (5.8%) of respondents disagreed with this problem. The lowest problem was pressure from family to leave the job which occupied 75.50 average Garrett score and (49.2%) of respondents strongly disagreed whereas (3.3%) strongly agreed with this problem. Besides, they faced other problems like lack of leave facilities, lack of hygienic toilet facilities, problems in balancing family and job and problems of child rearing. It can be concluded that the challenges they faced in working place were less than they encountered in family. It is recommended that several coping strategies must be implemented by authority and government such as developing day care facilities in every branch of banks which might ensure better childcare and reduce the tension of working mothers, adequate maternity leaves in different private banks, area based job posting and limit long working hours by enacting protective laws in order to ensure their proper development.