Work Engagement, Psychological Empowerment, and Work-Family Conflict among School Teachers in Nigeria

1. THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT AND WORK ENGAGEMENT TO WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT: A STUDY OF SCHOOL TEACHERS IN SOUTHEAST NIGERIA byIke E. Onyishi1, Fabian O. Ugwu21 University of Nigeria, Nsukka (NIGERIA) 2 Benue State University, Makurdi (NIGERIA) ernest.onyishi@unn.edu.ng,fabian.ugwu@gmail.com

2. Abstract The impact of work and family demands on employees, family members and organizations has generated a lot of interest among social and organizational researchers in recent time, especially in Western countries. The increasing rate of men and women in paid employment in developing countries such as Nigeria, has as well brought to the limelight the challenges employees face as a result of these family and work demands that sometimes result in work-family conflict (WFC). This new pattern of employment coupled with declining extended family system in Nigeria has brought a lot of pressure on the new urban employed couples. Understanding organizational and personal variables that facilitate or reduce these conflicts are therefore important. The study therefore examined the contributions of work engagement, and psychological empowerment to WFC. In order to test our propositions, a sample involving 321 married school teachers in southeast Nigeria were surveyed using structured questionnaires. Results showed that work engagement was positively related to employee experience of WFC. Psychological empowerment was negatively related to experience of WFC. The implications of these findings for teacher motivation, training and development were discussed.

3. INTRODUCTION • The issue of balancing work and family life has attracted the interest of family and organizational researchers in recent times especially in developed Western countries where many people are engaged in paid employment. • In developing countries, it has as well become obvious that researchers should also look in the same direction. The major reasons for this is the increase in number of people who join paid employment in most urban cities of the developing countries. As individuals get employed in organizations including factories and other human services organizations such as education sector, they are most often expected to also continue to take up family responsibilities as they fulfill their job roles. • Studies have demonstrated that stressors emanating from work tend to influence family life and stressors that emanate from family also tend to influence work attitudes

4. Introduction cont… • Although the link between work and family has been well documented in literature, most of the studies on work-family interface have been done in the Western countries (Bakker & Bal, 2010; Bakker & Xanthopoulou, 2009) and few studies carried out in non-Western countries were done in Asia (e.g. Lu, et al., 2010). • Limited studies have been carried out in African countries even when a large number of people are embracing paid employment instead of the traditional subsistence farming. Among the first set of paid employees in Nigeria and other African countries were teachers who were employed to teach in missionary schools during the colonial periods. • The number of teachers has increased over the years as a result of demand for Western education, but there is still limited research in understanding motivation of teachers and challenges they face in coping with their jobs especially as they cope with family demands along with their new work. • The decline in practice of extended family system, with many people living in urban cities in a nuclear family form, has brought pressure on urban working-class couples in terms of raising children with little or no support from other extended family members and as well cope with the demands of work. In addition, family life whether in form of nuclear or extended family form is highly valued in most African countries including Nigeria and understanding the factors that could reduce or increase work-family conflict among Nigerians may as well be important.

5. Introduction cont… • Among the several causes of work-family conflict, work demand seems to be at the centre stage. Work demands induce work-family conflict (Higgins, Duxbury & Irving, 1992) and, by the same token, family responsibilities lead to family-work conflict (Wiersma & Van den Berg, 1991). • One source of demands is time devoted to work. For example, (Gutek, Searle, & Klepa, (1991) found that hours spent with family predicted family-work conflict and hours spent at work predicted work-family conflict. Frone, Russell and Cooper (1992). tested a complex causal model that found, among other things, that job stressors (work pressure and role ambiguity) contributed to greater work-family conflict. • More so, extant well-being research show that employees who face a high degree of job stressors react with more negative affect in the short run (Gryzwacz, Almeida, Neupert & Ettner, 2004) and an impairment of well-being in the long run (De Lange, Taris, Kompier, Houtman, & Bongers, 2003). It is proposed that work engagement will significantly and positively predict work-family conflict.

6. Empowerment in the workplace has been viewed as an important mechanism for improving organizational effectiveness (Kanter, 1977; Pfeffer, & Viega, 1999). • Borrowing from the psychological capital perspective (Avey, Luthans & Jensen, 2009), it is envisaged that psychological empowerment would serve as resource for the individuals to cope effectively with conflict arising from work and family domains. Avey, Luthans and Jensen (2009) conceived psychological capital to comprise of four components including efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience. Avey, Luthans and Jensen (2009) found in their study that psychological capital is related to participants’ perception of stress such that those with high perception of psychological capital had lower perception of job stress. • Since the components of psychological capital seem to have resemblance with components of psychological empowerment and empowerment could be seen as psychological capital, it is therefore reasoned that highly empowered employees would also have low perception of work-family conflict

7. Method • Sample and Procedure • The participants were 321 teachers selected from primary andsecondary schools in southeast Nigeria. The sample included 197 women and 124 men. All the participants were married. The participants age ranged between 26 years and 58 years with mean age of 40.59 years. The minimum educational qualification of the participants is National Certificate of Education (NCE). The participants were volunteers. • Instrument • Work Engagement Scale The short version of the Utrecht work engagement scale (UWES-9)was used to measure employee engagement. The scale has a reliability coefficient of .83. Sample items include: “At my work, I feel bursting with energy” • Psychological Empowerment Scale Psychological empowerment was measured with Psychological Empowerment Scale. The internal consistence reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) of .85 was obtained. • Work-Family Conflict An 18-item work-family conflict scale was used to assess participants’ work-family conflict. A sample item for the work-to-family conflict is “My work keeps me from my family activities more than I would like.” For the family-to-work conflict, a sample item is “The time I spend on family responsibilities often interferes with my work responsibilities”

8. Results • The results of the correlational analyses showed that gender is positively related to work-family conflict (r = .12, p < .05). This shows that women participants reported higher work-family conflict than men. Work engagement was positively correlated with work-family conflict (r = .16, p < .01). Psychological empowerment had significant negative correlation with work-family conflict (r = -.22, p < .001). • In the first model of the hierarchical regression analyses, control variables, gender and age were entered in the regression equation. As a block the control variable contributed 3% variance in work-family conflict. Thus both gender (β = .13, p < .05), and age (β = -.11, p < .05) were predictors of work-family conflict. • The results show that engagement predicted work-family conflict (β = .15, p < .01). Work engagement contributed additional 2% variance in work-family conflict above the contributions of gender and age. • Psychological empowerment was also found to be strong predictor of work-family conflict (β = -.25, p < .001). The psychological empowerment variable contributed an additional 6% variance in work-family conflict when the effects of gender, age and work engagement were statistically controlled.

9. Discussion • The results of this study provide support to the proposition that work engagement has negative impact on work-family conflict. This is consistent with the stress model of WFC (Frone, Russell & Cooper, 1992) that views WFC as a consequence of work demands and pressures that result in work stress • The results of this study also support the proposition that psychological empowerment has impact on work-family conflict of school teachers. This result is consistent with Thomas and Velthouse (1990) assertion that psychological empowerment enables individuals to have a belief that they could influence job outcomes. As seen in this study, this belief could as well help individuals to take action that would help them cope with conflicts arising from family and work demands. • Helping teachers develop feelings of empowerment may be necessary in developing in them intrinsic motivation necessary for coping with work-family conflict. In this sense, psychological empowerment is developed as a resource that would not only enable teachers to become productive but as well help them to withstand both work and family demands that sometimes interfere. • Although work engagement has been viewed as a positive work behavior that could enable organizations meet their targets and overcome the negative impact of increasing competition in the global business environment, the understanding that engagement could have negative impact on the individual employees requires a closer look at engagement as a tool for improving efficiency and effectiveness in organizations. Helping organizational members to psychologically detach from work after work to face family responsibilities may be one of the strategies of helping employees to balance work and family lives. Thus, employees could become work engaged during work and become disengaged after work

10. Conclusion Teachers, especially married teachers work under pressure. Sometimes, these pressures come from either from family demands that tend to interfere with work roles or work demands that interfere with family roles. Balancing work and family lives is therefore important to many people including teachers. As teachers get engaged in their work the tendency to experience work-family conflict tend to be high. However, empowering teachers psychologically could reduce the conflicts that arise from family and work demands.