1. BACKGROUND OF STUDY
In the Malaysian economic development process, export-oriented
industrialization policies and an increase in the educational attainment
of women since the 1970s, have contributed significantly to an emerging
pattern of dual career families. However, female labor force
participation rates have stagnated at a constant rate of 46-47 per cent
in the last three decades. Latest official statistics show that the
labor force participation rate (LFPR) for women was 46.4 per cent in
2010 (a slight fall from 47.8% in 1990). This is considered low in sharp
contrast to the neighbouring South East Asian countries of Thailand,
Brunei Darussalam and Singapore where the corresponding figures are 66%,
60% and 56%, respectively.
Statistics also reveal that more than 40 per cent of the women in
Malaysia have worked before and a closer look reveals the existence of
an inverted U shape for female labor force participation (FLFP) rates
showing a decline in participation rates after the age of 30 years.
Female labor force participation in Malaysia does not reveal evidence
that women are leaving the labor market in large numbers to become
homemakers. The issue here is that women in their 30s, who have a
minimum of 11 years of schooling and married, are leaving the labor
market to become homemakers to be replaced by foreign labor and the
outsourcing industry.
Malaysian women are still under-represented in the job market with
the female labor force participation rate remaining at approximately 47
per cent throughout much of the past three decades". (UNESCAP,
2007). One of the possible reforms stated in the UNDP report was to have
less rigid job arrangements to encourage more women into the workforce,
thus boosting national productivity and economic growth. The main focus
of this paper is to examine whether flexibility at the workplace may
have an effect on women's lifestyles and their ability to balance
work and family responsibilities. This is investigated in the context of
whether demographic and socio economic factors have an effect on
women's preference for flexible working arrangements at the work
place. It finally concludes with discussions on whether child care
facilities and other family friendly policies might have an effect on
women's lifestyles and work life balance.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Why some women work and some don't?
The neo-classical theory of household choice and resource
allocation is useful to explain the factors which influence the female
labor force participation of women. As the aim of all households are to
maximise total utility by optimal allocation of resources, some factors
will have a greater influence on women's decision to participate in
paid work outside the home. Women work due to economic and social
reasons. In the 1990s, Ariffin (1994) clearly spelt out that it was
women from poor households in Malaysia who resort to wage labor to
supplement family income and in the course were inadvertently affected
by wage differentials and gender discrimination. While poor
female-headed households who have very little access to alternative
child care support systems have a high opportunity cost, working outside
actually aggravated their dual-role burden.
Not all women leave their jobs after childbirth (Kaplan &
Granrose, 1993). Many debates and discussions on what causes women to
exit the labor market point to family responsibilities either directly
to dependent care or indirectly due to employer policies (Voydanoff,
1988). However, the fact remains that inflexibility at work place and
inability to balance work life and home career are important factors why
married women leave the labor force (Kaur, 2004, Ariffin, 2009).
2.2 Flexible Working Arrangements (FWAs)
The workplace of the future is one that will be driven by new
energy and with vision and workplace flexibility and worker-friendly
management strategies are becoming more important now. Flexible working
arrangements (FWAs) are alternatives to the traditional
"9-to-5" workday, the standard workweek, or the traditional
workplace. FWAs are work practices (explained by the employer in
employment policies and contracts) that allows the employees a certain
degree of freedom in deciding how the work will be done and how
they'll coordinate their schedules with those of other employees.
There is no single definition of FWA but it encompasses working
arrangements which are nonstandard and can be divided into two
categories. Firstly, scheduling of hours worked, such as alternative
work schedules which consist of flexi time and compressed workweeks and
arrangements regarding shift and break schedules. Secondly, flexibility
in the amount of hours worked, such as part-time work and job sharing;
and thirdly flexibility in the place of work, such as working at home,
tele-working or at a satellite location.
FWAs are low cost employee benefits that improve productivity and
motivate a changing work force. Most of the reasons why female employees
want FWAs center on family responsibilities and work-life balance
(Liechty & Anderson (2007). Olmsted and Smith (1994) highlighted how
some companies can attract and motivate talented employees will be able
to succeed compared to other companies. Recent trend studies show that
the new concept part-time work influences the ability of mothers with
young children to balance work and family responsibilities (Almer &
Single, 2003). Mothers will be less likely to leave the labor market if
more part-time jobs are available. This concept of part-time jobs and
family friendly policies such as FWAs will enable more women to
contribute to both work and home. With more flexible work and part-time
work, literature suggests that possible benefits for these young mothers
will be better monitoring of the children and more equality time with
the children.
The question of whether workers "choose" and prefer FWA
to standard employment has been widely explored in the western countries
(Almer & Single,2003; Cole,2006) but less is specifically known
about whether FWAs are a solution to work-family demands in Malaysia.
The existing literature enables a few conclusions to be drawn.
* Industrialization in Malaysia has to a large extent increased
women's participation in the labor force and to a certain extent
exploited women who end up in the lower rung of the production process.
* Women are moving from the private sphere to the public sphere but
some women are unable to balance work and home and are withdrawing from
the labor market.
* In countries like Malaysia, the present labor market issues of
concern include a big and growing foreign labor market and outsourcing
does not encourage re-entrants into the labor force. As women try to
juggle both the reproductive and non-reproductive roles, many working
women have created a high demand for foreign domestic workers over the
last two decades to take over the non-economic roles. Doesn't this
mean that Malaysian women are actually interested to work in paid labor?
* Finally and most importantly, studies in Malaysia and other parts
of the world have shown that FWAs are beneficial to both employers and
employees. While the Ministry of Human Resources is encouraging the
private sector to implement flexible working arrangements and part-time
work, many employers are actually not cooperating.
Based on the above description, a few questions to be explored in
this study are: how can flexible working arrangements help working women
achieve work life balance? If more organizations implement some form of
FWAs, will it help more women to participate in paid labor? Will family
friendly policies such as FWA have an effect on women's lifestyles
and work life balance?
3. METHODOLOGY
The survey was conducted among women who were in paid work in
selected organizations. Firstly, a list of companies in the services
sector which have FWAs was prepared based on information provided by the
Malaysian Employers Federation. This was further finalised from focus
group discussion. The organizations were sub-grouped further and the
organizations which were identified were from the Finance, Logistics,
Petroleum Shared Services and professional sub-sectors.
Using the purposing sampling technique, a total of six
organizations which have FWAs were identified in the Klang Valley. Using
the comparative method approach (Lijphart, 1971) the corresponding six
organizations which have fixed working arrangements or non FWAs were
identified at random. To reduce selection bias, random sampling was done
within each organization where the women employees were selected at
random by the human resource manager. For this survey, 500
questionnaires were distributed, 250 to FWA organizations and 250 to non
FWA organizations. The response rate was slightly lower for the non FWA
compared to the response rate from FWA. The total sample size was 359,
which consisted of 56 per cent from non-FWA and 44 per cent from FWA.
The area of research was the services sector and was limited to
organizations located in the Klang Valley, which is the central business
region of the country and the capital of Malaysia are located. This
conurbation has a total population of over 7.5 million and is the
heartland of Malaysia's industry and commerce. The Klang Valley is
home to a large number of migrants from other states within Malaysia and
foreign workers largely from neighboring Asian countries.
The questionnaire consisted of 4 parts: Part A consisted of 5 items
on the demographic profile of the respondents. Part B consisted of 2
items on the income level; Part C consisted of 3 items on family
responsibilities and Part D consisted of 3 questions to assess the
decision making of women's exit from the labor market. Data was
analysed using the SPSS 16 software. Logistic regression analysis was
used to examine which factors had any significant influence on
women's decision making behaviour. Descriptive statistics and cross
tabulations were used to support the findings. Qualitative interviews
were also conducted to get a better insight on women's lifestyles
and work-life balance. From the sample of 359 respondents, 20
respondents were identified for a one-to-one interview which lasted for
a minimum of half an hour to 45 minutes.
4. FINDINGS
As a group, the women who participated in this study maintained a
middle class lifestyle, majority were highly educated with a university
degree, and most of them had at least two children. The demographics of
the respondents, such as age, educational level and marital status were
important determinants which influenced the type of working arrangements
employees would prefer. Most (46%) of the respondents were in the age
group of 20-29 years, while nearly 40 per cent were women who were in
the 30-39 years age group. The age group portrayed in this sample size
conforms to the trend of the female labor force participation in
Malaysia.
In terms of marital status, 60 per cent of the respondents were
married women and out of this sample, 83 per cent of them have children.
All the respondents had a minimum eleven years of schooling and more
notable is that nearly half (49%) of the women in the study had a
university degree. More than 50 per cent of the respondents were at the
executives or officers level while 18 per cent were at the
management/professional level. This speaks well for women and shows that
women are interested to work and shoulder responsibilities at the work
place, given the chance. Majority of the respondents were in the
executive level; however 39 per cent of them earned below RM 2000.
However, it is encouraging to note that about 26 per cent of them earned
more than RM4000 (1USD is equivalent to RM3).
In terms of family responsibilities, 83 per cent of the married
women had children. In fact 50 per cent of them had at least two
children. Micro level studies in Malaysia on working women exiting the
job market have shown that taking care of children is the main reason
some women do not want to continue working (Subramaniam et.al., 2010).
While 42 per cent of the respondents have at least one child below 5
years old, a big 46 per cent of the respondents have to take care of the
elderly parents. A majority of 86 per cent of the respondents were
interested in FWA at their workplace.
5. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
A logistic regression analysis was done to examine whether
demographic factors, socio-economic factors, family responsibilities and
working arrangements had an influence on the uptake of FWA among women
employees in the selected organizations. It was noted that women who are
more educated, holding management posts and earning a higher income are
more interested in FWA at the workplace. Besides, women employees in FWA
organizations were more interested in FWA compared to women working in
non-FWA organizations. This could be attributed to the reason that they
were quite happy with their job and working arrangements really did not
make a difference. There was also a positive relationship between women
who had young children and their interest in FWA. However, in this study
family responsibilities such as taking care of young children and
elderly parents did not seem to have a significant relationship on the
women employees' uptake of FWA at the work place.
Interviews were carried out randomly to to examine the objectives
of whether working arrangements have an effect on lifestyles and
work-life balance. The qualitative study supported the quantitative
study and further identified that there are a range of issues which can
lead to the well being of working women. Generally, most of the
respondents want to work and be economically independent but they also
want to achieve a good work-life balance. While some respondents are
more successful in juggling work and home, some are still trying to cope
with whatever they are doing, hoping to achieve work-life balance one
day.
Broadly speaking, the present analysis shows that work-life balance
is achieved with a more encouraging tone from those respondents who
practice FWA. Those who are working in FWA organizations are able to
manage work and household chores and caring responsibilities better.
Findings also reveal that respondents in FWA organizations are able to
spend more time for family. Juggling household chores without any help
is really a major problem for working women and if they are in non FWA
organizations, commuting and traffic jam aggravate their problem and add
to further stress. There is diversity in their opinions, but still many
commonalities emerged among the respondents' views on the costs and
benefits of FWA. While many of the respondents experienced work-life
balance barriers, some common threads and themes revealed that FWA will
be a good option towards achieving work life balance.
The results show that working arrangements actually did not have
any effect on the lifestyles of the women in terms of time spent on
socializing, time spent with friends and time for recreation. These
activities were more influenced by their marital status. Most of the
married women were generally not interested to socialize. However,
working arrangements did have an effect on whether these working women
have more or less time for personal needs. Majority of the women in non
FWA organizations complained of less time for themselves but it was not
so critical among women in the FWA organizations.
6. CONCLUSION
Findings from this study indicate that most women who are older,
more educated and earn a higher income are more interested in FWA at the
workplace. Women who have young children and are in their 30's are
also the ones who are more interested in FWA Although the results show
that women with family responsibilities are more interested in FWA, but
it was not statistically significant. About 86 % of the respondents were
interested in FWAs and more than 70% of them had not used it any form of
FWAs before. Most of them were interested in flexi time and working from
the home compared to tele-working and part-time work. Women in FWA had
more time for themselves and a better work-life balance compared to
their counter parts in the non FWA organizations.
Although findings of this study have several notable contributions
which are relevant for the current debate to tap the potential of our
own human resource, several issues remain. Firstly, the sample size
could be increased to represent the whole of Malaysia. Secondly, the
scope of this could be enlarged to include the rural sector as this
study only concentrates on the urban sector in Malaysia. Finally,
studies could be done to examine the condition in the manufacturing
sector.
The Fisher-Clark's theory of structural change suggests that
as the economy grows, it moves from the primary sector to the secondary
sector and finally to the tertiary sector. Malaysia seems to be
following the Fisher-Clark model moving from primary sector to the
secondary sector and we are in the post-industrial stage where most
people are employed in the tertiary or services sector. As
Malaysia's vision is to move from an upper middle-income economy to
a high income economy by 2020 under the New Economic Model (NEM), the
main thrust is placed on the development of human capital. To become a
high-income economy, the required human capital must be creative and
innovative and this speaks well for Malaysian women who are educated
with minimum eleven years of schooling and have a nature of being
creative and innovative, to be a possible source of labor supply. If the
issue is organizational reform in terms of working arrangements, it is
time that Malaysian employers look into this issue.
7. IMPLICATIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
The first policy recommendation here would involve working
arrangements which are more family friendly to help women reconcile paid
work with social obligations and allow women to have a .better work-life
balance. Flexible working time, working from the home and permanent
part-time work may provide married women with young children who require
the greatest parental time, to balance work and caring responsibilities.
Secondly, an enabling environment has to be provided by the government
in a more institutionalized way to ensure that the child care system is
more reliable to encourage women to leave their children in trustworthy
hands. To this end, the state should play a more important role in
implementing, regulating and monitoring child care and after school care
centres which provide quality care for the children.
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AUTHORS' PROFILES:
Geetha Subramaniam is a Senior Lecturer (Economics) at the Faculty
of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
and is pursuing her doctorate in the area of Development and Economics
at the Department of Development Studies, Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand. Email: geethamaniam@gmail.com
Dr. Balasundram Maniam is a Professor of Finance and chair of the
General Business and Finance Department. He obtained his B.Sc. in
Computer Science and MBA from Arkansas State University and his Ph.D. in
Finance from University of Mississippi. He has published in over 120
peer-reviewed journals and presented in over 200 international and
national conferences.
Dr. Ershad Ali is Director of the Centre for Research in
International Education, Auckland Institute of Studies, New Zealand. He
received Master of Science degree from the University of Dhaka,
Bangladesh; Master of Engineering Science from the University of
Melbourne, Australia; and Ph.D. in Economics from Massey University, New
Zealand. His research interests include internationalization of
education, international trade, development economics and technology
transfer