Women and work

Remy Rikken of the Philippine Commission on Women reminded all of us last March that there is no woman who is not working!  Many make the distinction between working mothers and non-working mothers. Then they describe the females at home as “plain housewives”. But there are a thousand and one tasks at home. In fact at home, women are often multitasking.  The popularity of cow dung as fuel in India is due to the fact that it burns slowly. So the woman can set up what she is cooking and go about other tasks, Marvin Harris pointed out.

Aside from the traditional division of labor, there are other reasons why women are always busy working. They love their families, especially  children. When I was doing my research on working women, I found out that many women were doing  unpaid farm work. They were willing to work without pay as long as they got food for their children. The mother of one of our brilliant students took on the job of keeping our restrooms clean for income for her children who were schooling. I got a hint of the situation of overburdened mothers when a woman in a workshop expressed her wish for a time when she could bathe slowly, not in a rush!

So I was immediately attracted to the research report of Lynette Samson-Quintillan, “Balancing Paid Work and Personal Life: Coping Mechanisms of Men and Women in the Academe,” published in the Philippine Journal of Labor and Industrial Relations. What made this more interesting for me was that it was about UP Diliman.

She starts with “the journey towards humanized workplaces” in the global and Philippine setting. For the Philippines ,the “evolution of humanized workplaces in the Philippines” is the result of  “combined efforts of civil society (including labor organizations, women groups, and members of the clergy), the government and public policy makers, and foreign influences such as initiatives by some colonizers and advocacies vouched by ILO conventions.”

Besides, the researcher takes a gender perspective. The study notes similarities and differences without a judgment of which coping mechanisms are better.

In trying to create  balance between work concerns and personal life, the UP Diliman community resorted to the following coping mechanisms: “Thinking positively and/or solving the problem immediately; seeking support from others; exercising and doing artistic/creative or recreational activities; planning ahead, keeping a calendar of activities, and making a “to do” list daily; socializing; engaging in spiritual activities; spending time alone to think about what decision or action to make; borrowing money; taking advantage of various benefits and privileges; going online; participating in volunteer or advocacy groups.”

The differences were: “men were more concerned about providing the resources to overcome financial problems.  Women were more inclined to find time for spiritual and religious activities, to go online, and pay for help.”

The researcher also observed that more women were concerned about these issues in their work: “lack of access to professional growth; overwhelming workload that causes burnout and stress; demanding supervisors and/or annoying co-workers and students.”

In their personal lives, they were “more troubled by lack of resources to care for self and loved ones; high cost of living; and spending little time with significant others,” and the researcher asserts: “These concerns underline traditional gender roles, with women as primary caregivers at home.”

Many female respondents sacrifice going to work whenever a loved one is sick. The men spent more time at work than on their personal lives.

Most men put priority on their family and personal relationships while women considered this “second to God/spirituality. Work and career was ranked below the previous two. So the researcher comments that this is reflective of Filipino culture, “that puts premium on religion and family”.

The respondents displayed maturity and positive attitudes. Although they noted the need for improvement in HR policies, they judged UP as a “family-friendly institution”; and declared the conviction that: “The union of UP has a crucial role in securing better benefits and privileges to balance work and personal life.”

I hope UP takes the recommendations of this researcher seriously. She proposed a UP “Work-Life Resource Center”. This would “capacitate workers in achieving PWPL (Paid Work-Personal Life) balance with the support of the UP Administration” through “engaging in action and policy research programs, including development and implementation of gender sensitive and culture sensitive work-life resource program and holding regular consultations with employees through their union to assess the university’s HRD policies and determine which needs to be discarded, modified and developed.” She suggested establishing this in other parts of the UP system.

The researcher also proposed that UP be  at the center of establishing a National Work-Life Institute “in coordination with the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Labor and Employment”. She says the institute “would advocate for HRM policies meant to ensure improved work-life conditions for every productive citizen in the country, including an allowance for stay-at-home parents that could be distributed at the barangay level. The welfare of retired workers should also be a part of this advocacy.”

I was encouraged to take part in the realization of these proposals.