Work-life balance: a case of female information and communication technology professionals at a telecommunications company.
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Date
2021
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Abstract
An organisation’s ability to operate effectively depends on how well it pays attention to its most
important resource, its human resource. In South Africa, great strides have been made to redress past
injustices which resulted in a skewed workforce. Statistics SA (2019) quarterly population reports
estimate that females outnumber males in the South African population, but the workplace indicates
the opposite. This study’s primary objective was to explore the work-life balance experiences of female
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) professionals in a telecommunication work
setting.
The study’s theoretical framework was the Life Course perspective by Giele and Elder (1998), and
Border Theory by Clark (2000). To extract data required for analytical purposes a mixed methodology
which utilises quantitative and qualitative methods was used. Using a purposive sampling technique,
a sample of 50 female ICT professionals was chosen for the quantitative study. This was done using
an online survey of GoogleTM Drive Forms, and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social
Sciences 26. For the qualitative study, 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted using thematic
analysis with the Atlas.ti version 8 analysis software’s aid.
The quantitative data collection phase indicated that employees were aware of policies and
programmes in place, addressing work-life balance at Telkom. Results from the qualitative phase
exploring the respondents’ experiences in terms of occupational interpretations of work, domestic
interpretations of home, and interpretations of work-life synergy, revealed that professional females,
regardless of their cultural background, experienced similar pressures and challenges. The study
contributes to the body of knowledge as there has been a paucity of studies conducted on South African
Information and Communications Technology female professionals. This study resulted in a work-life
balance framework that links the Life Course perspective by Giele and Elder (1998) and Border Theory
by Clark (2000), making a novel contribution to the empirical body of work-life balance.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.