IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hur/ijarbs/v6y2016i12p256-271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Work Challenges and Coping Strategies of Professional and Managerial Dual-Career Couples in Malaysia

Author

Listed:
  • Rafiduraida Abdul Rahman
  • Wan Salmuni Wan Mustaffa
  • Suraini Mohd Rhouse
  • Hariyaty Ab Wahid

Abstract

This paper investigates the challenges of work and coping strategies of professional and managerial dual-career couples in Malaysia using gender role ideology and role salience theoretical framework. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were used to collect data from 23 dual-career couples. The findings identified a number of work challenges faced by the couples such as heavy workloads, long working hours, working away from home, coping with supervisors and the working environment. Evidently, some helpful support and strategies have also been found to help these couples to cope with the challenges such as having a domestic helper, receiving support from family, colleagues and supervisors, and having a flexible working arrangement. Moreover, some useful strategies are also found to be useful to the couples, such as psychological approaches, separating work from family and having good organization and prioritizing skills. The experiences described by the participants reflect their gender role attitude and salience of family and work roles. This paper fills the gap in Malaysian literatures which focus more on women instead of investigation that includes both husband and wife. This study also adds more research on dual-career couples in a non-Western context which are generally lacking. Furthermore, it extends the joint use of gender role ideology and role salience perspectives in examining the context of couples by exhibiting its utility in understanding the Malaysian couples’ experiences.

Suggested Citation

  • Rafiduraida Abdul Rahman & Wan Salmuni Wan Mustaffa & Suraini Mohd Rhouse & Hariyaty Ab Wahid, 2016. "Work Challenges and Coping Strategies of Professional and Managerial Dual-Career Couples in Malaysia," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 6(12), pages 256-271, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:hur:ijarbs:v:6:y:2016:i:12:p:256-271
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hrmars.com/hrmars_papers/Work_Challenges_and_Coping_Strategies_of_Professional_and_Managerial_Dual-Career_Couples_in_Malaysia.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://hrmars.com/hrmars_papers/Work_Challenges_and_Coping_Strategies_of_Professional_and_Managerial_Dual-Career_Couples_in_Malaysia.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greenhaus, Jeffrey H. & Powell, Gary N., 2003. "When work and family collide: Deciding between competing role demands," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 291-303, March.
    2. Nicole Bosch & Anja Deelen & Rob Euwals, 2010. "Is Part‐time Employment Here to Stay? Working Hours of Dutch Women over Successive Generations," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(1), pages 35-54, March.
    3. Kalthom Abdullah & Noraini Noor & Saodah Wok, 2008. "The Perceptions of Women’s Roles and Progress: A Study of Malay Women," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 89(3), pages 439-455, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. María Candela Rodríguez & Guillermo Enrique Dabos, 2016. "Gestión individual del equilibrio entre el trabajo y la vida personal: revisión e integración de la literatura," Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, vol. 25(1), pages 219-242, December.
    2. Alison Booth & Jan Ours, 2013. "Part-time jobs: what women want?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 263-283, January.
    3. Edwin van Gameren, 2013. "The Role of Economic Incentives and Attitudes in Participation and Childcare Decisions," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 296-313, September.
    4. Ivett Szalma & Michael Ochsner & Judit Takács, 2020. "Linking Labour Division within Families, Work–Life Conflict and Family Policy," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 1-7.
    5. Feron, Eva & Schils, Trudie & ter Weel, Bas, 2015. "Does the Teacher Beat the Test? The Additional Value of Teacher Assessment in Predicting Student Ability," IZA Discussion Papers 8768, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Mari, Gabriele & Luijkx, Ruud, 2020. "Gender, Parenthood, and Hiring Intentions in Sex-Typical Jobs: A Survey Experiment," SocArXiv kwdyp, Center for Open Science.
    7. Simon Rabaté & Externe auteur: Sara Rellstab, 2021. "The Child Penalty in the Netherlands and its Determinants," CPB Discussion Paper 424, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    8. repec:jle:journl:128 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Künn-Nelen, A.C. & de Grip, A. & Fouarge, D., 2013. "The relation between maternal work hours and cognitive outcomes of young school-aged children," Research Memorandum 019, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    10. Eva Feron & Trudie Schils & Bas ter Weel, 2016. "Does the Teacher Beat the Test? The Value of the Teacher’s Assessment in Predicting Student Ability," De Economist, Springer, vol. 164(4), pages 391-418, December.
    11. Daniel Possenriede & Wolter Hassink & Janneke Plantenga, 2014. "Does temporal and locational flexibility of work increase the labour supply of part-timers?," Working Papers 14-11, Utrecht School of Economics.
    12. Picchio, Matteo & van Ours, Jan C., 2016. "Gender and the effect of working hours on firm-sponsored training," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 192-211.
    13. Wim Van Lancker, 2011. "ItÂ’’s all about the money? Temporary employment, gender, poverty and the role of regulations from a broad European perspective," Working Papers 1102, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    14. Rajagopalasingam V. & Fernando R. L. S. & Ramanayake U. B., 2021. "Impacts of Perceived Role Demands on Work-Life Balance and Moderating Effects of Work Ethics: Evidence from Public Sector Professionals in Sri Lanka," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(8), pages 115-115, July.
    15. Olga Gómez-Ortiz & Andrea Roldán-Barrios, 2021. "Work–Family Guilt in Spanish Parents: Analysis of the Measurement, Antecedents and Outcomes from a Gender Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-17, August.
    16. Boyar, Scott L. & Maertz, Carl Jr. & Pearson, Allison W., 2005. "The effects of work-family conflict and family-work conflict on nonattendance behaviors," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(7), pages 919-925, July.
    17. Annemarie Künn-Nelen & Andries Grip & Didier Fouarge, 2015. "The Relation Between Maternal Work Hours and the Cognitive Development of Young School-Aged Children," De Economist, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 203-232, June.
    18. Barkema, Harry G. & Bindl, Uta & Tanveer, Lamees, 2024. "How entrepreneurs achieve purpose beyond profit: the case of women entrepreneurs in Nigeria," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119716, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Daniel Possenriede & Wolter H.J. Hassink & Janneke Plantenga, 2016. "Does temporal and locational flexibility of work increase the supply of working hours? Evidence from the Netherlands," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-34, December.
    20. Simon Rabaté & Sara Rellstab, 2022. "What Determines the Child Penalty in the Netherlands? The Role of Policy and Norms," De Economist, Springer, vol. 170(2), pages 195-229, May.
    21. Susan A. Brown, 2008. "Household technology adoption, use, and impacts: Past, present, and future," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 397-402, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hur:ijarbs:v:6:y:2016:i:12:p:256-271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Hassan Danial Aslam (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://hrmars.com/index.php/pages/detail/IJARBSS .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.