Work and family conflicts among Lebanese women working in the hospitality and tourism industries -

Abstract

With the current social and economic situation, work is now perceived as a must for surviving and preventing necessity in light of the “sluggish economic activity, public deficit, increasing unemployment rate, inflation, and corruption”. Previous research examined extensively work and family conflicts that were defined as having duties or tasks not met because of responsibilities in one or the other domain. Personal characteristics were found to be antecedents to work and family conflicts. Work environmental factors were taken into consideration in previous literature related to women working mostly in healthcare. To the best of our knowledge, little is known about the impact of shifts and time spent at work on work and family conflicts especially in the hospitality and tourism industries in Lebanon. A qualitative approach was used for the purpose of this study in order to explore the bi-directional work and family conflicts among Lebanese working women in the hospitality and tourism industries in light of the demanding shifts and working hours in order to increase our understanding and help us conceive appropriate policies to deal with this problem. Six in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with single and married women having managerial positions in hotels located in Beirut. Content analysis through template analysis approach conducted over verbatim transcripts permitted to retrieve six emergent themes that were: 1) Reasons for experiencing work-family conflict, 2) negative outcomes, 3) positive outcomes, 4) Social support, 5) quality of life and 6) measures to alleviate conflict. Future research is still needed to assess the situation from the spouse’s and the children’s points of views. Nevertheless, flexible work arrangement programs might be suitable solutions to improve the current conditions of working women.