On the question of work-life balance in Africa: The case of women administrators in public universities in Ghana

Organizations in their quest to enhance work-life balance have been admonished to institute many human resource interventions including flexible and alternate work schedules. Meanwhile, promoting policies and interventions that facilitate work-life balance require a deeper introspection of effectively diagnosing and assessing the sources of stressors that tend to obstruct this optimal balance. The overarching question underpinning this study is: how does the context of women professionals serve as a ‘catalyst’ or ‘obstruction’ to competing work-life balance? Taking inspiration from the work-life border theory, the study designs a comprehensive framework to assess the sources of work-life conflict among women administrators from three selected public universities of Ghana. Adopting a case study design within qualitative research approach, a total of the 74 respondents are selected, 22 are sampled from each of the three institutions (making a total of 66 from the three institutions), while eight (8) are selected from national institutions and associations. Elite interviews and focus group discussions are the main instruments of primary data collection. Among its key findings, the study underscores how the socio-contextual forces, economic and physiological factors could help serve as a catalyst or obstruction to work-life balance. Beyond these forces which occur on the part of the individual employee, organizational forces and demands of the particular job could help compound or lessen the plight of women administrators in their quest to maintain work-life balance. It is important for organizations and their human resource management outfits to take into account the human resource management information systems very well in all their personnel policies especially how they react with different people.