INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LATEST TECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING,
MANAGEMENT & APPLIED SCIENCE (IJLTEMAS)
ISSN 2278-2540 | DOI: 10.51583/IJLTEMAS | Volume XIII, Issue XII, December 2024
www.ijltemas.in Page 96
Family Support–A Critical Factor to Reduce Work Stress and
Facilitate Work Life Balance for Female Employees of Banking
Sectors in Bangladesh
Mehnaz Akhter, *Sultan Mahmud
Community Bank Bangladesh PLC., Bangladesh
DOI : https://doi.org/10.51583/IJLTEMAS.2024.131209
Received: 20 December 2024; Accepted: 25 December 2024; Published: 08 January 2025
Abstract: Due to economic circumstances and social demands the role of working women has changed in developing countries,
like Bangladesh. For this reason, women have tremendous pressure to develop a career as strong as their male counterparts while
sustaining active participation in personal life. The ever-increasing pressure in the workplace makes it completely difficult for
women to get quality time for their family. This creates negative impact on women’s physical, emotional and social well-being.
Thus, attaining work life balance is essential for working women to have a good quality of professional and personal life. This
study attempts to explore the role of family support to balance the work life and reduce the job stress for female employees in
Bangladesh. The study also focuses on the impact of family support to maintain work life balance and reduce job stress. The
finding of the study reveals that family support is the most important issue for working women to continue a healthy professional
as well as personal life especially in case of married women. It is also visible that family support has an opposite relationship with
job stress.
Key Words: Bangladesh, Female Employees, Family Support, Stress, Work Life Balance.
I. Introduction
Now a day’s Bangladesh as a country is developing in every aspect. There is no exception in advancement of women
participation in different job sectors like hotels and restaurants, transportation, real estate services, telecommunications, insurance
and specially in banking sectors. The participation of women in job market has amplified to 35.6% in 2016 from 4% in 1974.The
participation of rural women significantly increased 37.6% than the participation of women in cities 30.8%. According to
International Labor Organization (ILO), the total number of women in workplace was 18.1 million in 2017. (Hasan & Islam,
2020)
But in compared to male employees the participation of female is very low in banking sector. According to a Bangladesh Bank
report on gender equality in banks and non-bank financial institutions for January-June, 2019, the percentage of woman
employee’s contrary to male staff in banks was 17.8% at the end of June, 2019 as 25,771 women were working in the banking
sector while the number of male employees was 1,44,104 at that time, In December 2018, the participation of female employees
was 17.45% with 24,991 females beside 1,43,201 male employees. Among the state-owned, private, specialized and foreign
banks, the specialized commercial banks had least number of female employees as women constituted 14.01% of the personnel in
such banks.
The percentage of woman employees against male was 16.97% in six state owned banks — Sonali, Janata, Agrani, Rupali,
BASIC and Bangladesh Development banks — as the banks had 7,262 female employees compared to 42,788 male employees.
At the end of December, 2018, the ratio was 16.24%. The foreign banks had 31.96 % female employees as they had 938 female
and 2,935 male employees at the end of June this year. Forty private commercial banks, which offer 61 % of the country’s
banking jobs, had 18.33 % female employees as they had 16,076 female and 87,711 male employees. The BB study also showed
that women’s presence at the banks’ top-level jobs was only 8.49 %, meaning that male staff held 81.51 % of the top-level posts
in the banks. Besides, the ratio of women in the banks’ boards was only 13.34 % in the country. The percentage of female
employees in the banks’ mid-level and entry-level jobs was only 15.30 % and 15.48% respectively. (Mitra, 2022)
There are a number of factors that prevail behind the low involvement of female employees. Lack of infrastructural facility, lack
of transport, toilet, child care facility, safety and overall, the unsupportive attitude of family members obstruct them to take active
part in banking sector. (Hasan & Islam, 2020)
In developing countries like Bangladesh, it is very difficult for a male to support their family with the income of one person. Most
female wants to come forward to render support to their partners. But the biggest challenge for female employees is to balance the
demands of family and workplace because of these factors: work pressure, stress, single family, work-family conflict, child care,
elder family members and lack of social and mental support. The concept of work life balance can make the situation easier.
Objective of the Study
The main objectives of the study are:
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To identify the role of family support to balance the work life and reduce the job stress for female employees.
To reveal the relationship among family support, job stress and work life balance.
To represent the challenges female employees, face to balance the work life.
II. Literature Review
Female employees in banking sector have to work minimum8 hours per day and 5 days in a week added with increasing workload
every day. They also have to manage household work after returning home. Balancing between these two complex
responsibilities is a great challenge. Work life balance helps them to frame up different strategies and policies by using self, time
and stress management.
Concept of Work Life Balance
Work life balance is process which helps female employees of an organization to balance their personal and professional lives.
Work life balance encourages employees to split their time on the basis of priorities and maintain a balance by devoting time to
family, health, vacations, along with making a career, business travel etc. Working women may face different demands from
work and personal life which are conflicting in nature. Work-life balance refers to keeping the balance between responsibilities at
work and at home. Work life balance concept allows an employee to maintain a fine balance in the time he or she gives to work
as well as to personal matters. By having a good balance, people can have a quality of work life. (Tanvi & Fatema, 2020)
This helps to increase productivity at workplace as the employee is relaxed about his personal commitments. It also permits the
employee to provide quality time with family to spend holidays, leisure time, work on his/her health etc. Hence work life balance
is extremely important for employees and increases their motivation to work for the company. (Balaji, 2020)
According to Powell and Greenhaus (2006), women may have difficulties managing their own work/life balance, especially in
work settings where they do not receive much formal support from their employer. If they want to strike any balance between
work and their lives outside work, they must set this as a goal and find their own ways of achieving it. Women must have a desire
to take control of their own work/life balance and take initiative, representing their own individual effort aimed at securing this
work/life balance. (Balamurugan & Sreeleka, 2022)
According to M. Selvakumar, N. Manicka, V. Sathya Lakshmi, Work-life balance is used to describe the equilibrium between
responsibilities at work and responsibilities outside paid work; having a work-life balance means that this equilibrium is in the
right position for the individual concerned. Work life and personal life are interconnected and interdependent. Work life and
personal life are the two sides of the same coin. (Mitra, 2022)
K. Santhana Lakshmi &S. Sujatha Gopinath, (March 2013) identifies Work Life Balance as the competence to schedule the hours
of an individual Professional and Personal life so as to lead a healthy and peaceful life. (Sathyalakshmi, 2021) It highlights the
values, attitudes and beliefs of women regarding their age to work in organizing and balancing their work and personal life.
III. Methodology
Description of Sample
The study was conducted among the working women from different commercial banking sectors in Dhaka city. A sample of 110
working women was selected, majority of whom are married.
Data Collection
Both primary and secondary data were collected by the author to prepare this research paper. For collecting primary data, a well-
defined questionnaire was prepared. The questionnaire was disseminated randomly and respondents were requested to complete
in proper time. Statistical tools are used to analyze the data. Secondary data were collected through different related articles,
newspapers and journals.
Scope
The scope of the study was limited to the working women of Dhaka city from several private banking sector, regarding the
challenges that they face in balancing professional life and personal life. The sample were collected from different branches of
four private commercial banks in Dhaka. They are: Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd., Community Bank Bangladesh Ltd., Brac Bank Ltd.
and EXIM Bank Ltd.
IV. Findings and Analysis
The sample size of the survey is 110. Their profiles are given below with different dimensions:
Statistics
N
Valid
110
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Missing
0
For the need of survey, all the respondents are female employees of banking sector. Here we have taken 110 females as sample
where 16.5% participants are unmarried, single or divorced and other 83.5% are married in status.
Table-1
Marital Status
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Va
lid
Unmarried
15
16.5
16.5
16.5
Married
95
83.5
83.5
100.0
Total
110
100.0
100.0
Chart-1
As represented in table-2, 8.18% of the respondents are below or equal to age group 30, 31.82% are within 30 to 34 age
categories, 29.09% in 35 to 40 age and 21.82% are in 40 to 44 age categories, who works as mid-level employees and the
employees of above age category 45 are relatively few in numbers and works mostly in top-level management.
Table-2
Age
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
≤ 30
9
8.18
8.18
8.18
30-34
35
31.82
31.82
40
35-40
32
29.09
29.09
69.09
40-44
24
21.82
21.82
90.91
45≥
10
9.09
9.09
100
Total
110
100.0
100.0
Chart-2
Factors Affecting Work Life Balance of Female Employees in Banking Sectors
To understand the stress level female employees in banking sectors and the crucial role of family support, a specific questionnaire
is created. The options of the questions are placed on the basis of Likert scale (1-5). ‘1’ as the ‘Strongly Disagree’ and ‘5’ as the
‘Strongly Agree’. ‘3’ is considered as ‘Neutral’.
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Table-3
Factors
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
Long Working hours affects work life balance.
110
4.07
1.179
0.112
Working on Holidays
110
4.02
1.014
0.097
Can’t spend enough quality time with spouse and family
110
3.25
1.294
0.123
Relationship with spouse and family is suffering due to
work pressure
110
3.55
1.268
0.121
Less control over work life
110
3.61
1.242
0.118
Family Support is crucial to reduce work stress
110
3.54
1.276
0.122
Easy to balance work life and stress
110
2.48
1.290
0.123
The questionnaire was prepared in a way to identify the support of family to reduce stress level of female workers and balance
their work life. The responses are represented by measuring Mean, Standard Deviation and Standard Error.
Long Working hours affects work life balance:
It is well-known to all that the work stress in banking sector is huge enough than other working sectors. For these reasons female
employees have to spend long working hours. In maximum private banks the working hours start on 9.30 am and ends at 6.00pm.
In spite of that, few banks practice evening banking which is stressful for women.
Long working hour is the main reason of family conflict and disturbance. Maximum women have to take the help of day care
centers or keep house maid to take care of their children. Still then they have to maintain strict time balance to conduct entire
house hold work. Most of the female respondents agreed that it is impossible for them to do a job in the bank without their family
support.
Table- 4in this paper represents that female workers are agreed with the statement that they have to spend long working hours in
the banks and few of them are able to take the matter positively only with the support of their family.
Table-4
Long working hours
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Strongly Agree
50
45.4
45.4
45.4
Agree
41
37.3
37.3
82.7
Neutral
3
2.7
2.7
85.4
Disagree
9
8.2
8.2
93.6
Strongly Disagree
7
6.4
6.4
100.0
Total
110
100
100.0
Chart-3
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Working on Holidays
Normally every private bank offers two holidays in a week. But due to the purpose of marketing and completing pending works
some employees has to continue their work on Saturdays. Working on holiday varies from bank to bank depending on their
numbers of customer. Most respondents from Dutch –Bangla and Brac bank are agreed that it is really demotivating to work on
holidays as they get only few times to spend with family. Here, we can see from the table that 81.8% of the respondents clearly
agreed about this issue.
Table-5
Working on Holidays
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Strongly Agree
38
34.5
34.5
34.5
Agree
52
47.3
47.3
81.8
Neutral
7
6.4
6.4
88.2
Disagree
10
9.1
9.1
97.3
Strongly Disagree
3
2.7
2.7
100.0
Total
110
100
100.0
Chart-4
Can’t spend enough quality time with spouse and family:
From the table, we can see that 18.2% are strongly agreed and 33.6% are agreed that they cannot spend enough quality time with
their family and spouse, while 25.5% female are disagreed and10% are strongly disagreed with this statement. This group of
respondents who are clearly disagreed stated there are two days of holiday and if a proper work life balance is maintained they
can utilize the quality time properly. As female employees get consideration from banks to work on holidays. But most of them
don’t support the logic.
Table-6
Can’t spend enough quality time with spouse and family
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Strongly Agree
20
18.2
18.2
18.2
Agree
37
33.6
33.6
51.8
Neutral
14
12.7
12.7
64.5
Disagree
28
25.5
25.5
90
Strongly Disagree
11
10
10
100.0
Total
110
100
100.0
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Chart-5
Relationship with spouse and family is suffering due to work pressure:
According to the survey, 20.9% disagreed and 6.4% strongly disagreed that their relationship with family and spouse are suffering
for pressure, where as 61.8% of respondents totally agreed with the statement. Here, we can see that 10.9% of the respondents are
neutral in this issue.
Table-7
Relationship with spouse and family is suffering due to work pressure
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Strongly Agree
30
27.3
27.3
27.3
Agree
38
34.5
34.5
61.8
Neutral
12
10.9
10.9
72.7
Disagree
23
20.9
20.9
93.6
Strongly Disagree
7
6.4
6.4
100.0
Total
110
100
100.0
Chart-6
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Less control over work life:
This survey shows that 69% of the respondents supported the statement that they have less control over the work life, so it
becomes very difficult to maintain work life balance properly. Within them 24.5% respondents strongly agreed and 44.5% agreed
with this issue. Besides 18.2% disagreed and 7.3% strongly disagreed with the statement.
Table-8
Less control over work life
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Strongly Agree
27
24.5
24.5
24.5
Agree
49
44.5
44.5
69
Neutral
6
5.5
5.5
74.5
Disagree
20
18.2
18.2
92.7
Strongly Disagree
8
7.3
7.3
100.0
Total
110
100
100.0
Chart-7
Family Support is crucial to reduce work stress:
Most of the respondents are agreed with statement as 23.6% of them strongly agreed and 42.7% agreed with this statement.
According to them without family and spouse support maintaining a work life would be very difficult. Specially female with
small children and elder members found it completely impossible to do a job in bank without family support
Table-9
Family Support to reduce work stress
Frequency
Percent
Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Strongly Agree
26
23.6
23.6
23.6
Agree
47
42.7
42.7
66.3
Neutral
6
5.5
5.5
71.8
Disagree
22
20
20
91.8
Strongly Disagree
9
8.2
8.2
100.0
Total
110
100
100.0
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Chart-8
Easy to balance work life and stress:
In case of this statement, a totally opposite result is viewed as 41.8% of the respondents are disagreed and 23.6% are strongly
disagreed with the statement. According to the response it is not easy to balance professional and personal life in a compatible
way and specially in case of female bankers it is more difficult. A strong work life balance must be maintained to sustain the
compatibility.
Table-10
Easy to balance work life and stress
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Strongly Agree
10
9.1
9.1
9.1
Agree
21
19.1
19.1
28.2
Neutral
7
6.4
6.4
34.6
Disagree
46
41.8
41.8
76.4
Strongly Disagree
26
23.6
23.6
100.0
Total
110
100
100.0
Chart-9
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V. Conclusion and Recommendation
It is an evitable fact that maintaining professional and personal life is very critical in case of female employees. Without the
support of the family female employee can’t maintain work life balance. Absence of support of family members, a female banker
can’t perform effectively. Lack of support may also result absenteeism, anxiety, frustration and work stress.
In the context of Bangladesh, it is not easy to maintain work life balance. Bangladesh is still a male dominated country with the
mentality that household works, take care of children and elder family members are the responsibility of female alone. In such a
situation it becomes very difficult to conduct work life balance. From the survey and information collected from the primary
interview, few recommendations can be given to make situation a little bit easier.
1. There should be specific strategies for female employees to facilitate work life balance.
2. Most of the bank managements are still have little idea about the concept of work life balance. They should have proper
knowledge on this issue and facilitate the practice for both male and female employees.
3. Facility of day care center in workplace.
4. Positive support from superiors and colleagues at work place.
5. Facility to work from home
6. Having full time maid to take care of children and elder family members.
7. Support from family members.
In present situation Bangladesh Bank also came forward to secure and support the rights of female employees. It instructed the
state-owned banks and private commercial banks to facilitate the female employees with 6-months long full paid maternity leave.
(Hasan & Islam, 2020). Besides, according to instruction of Central Bank’s, female employees of FIs are not bound to stay after
the regular office hours, even if they have to stay for some urgent work, the employer (FI) has to arrange for transportation for
them.
References
1. Hasan, Md.F. and Islam, M.R. (2020) Job stress factors and their impact on employee performance: A study of the
banking sector in Bangladesh’s Southern Area, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science.
Available at: https://rsisinternational.org/journals/ijriss/articles/job-stress-factors-and-their-impact-on-employee-
performance-a-study-of-the-banking-sector-in-bangladeshs-southern-area/ (Accessed: 3 December 2024).
2. Mitra, J.P. (2022) Women still encounter glass ceiling in banking sector, New Age. Available at:
https://www.newagebd.net/article/227306/women-still-encounter-glass-ceiling-in-banking-sector (Accessed: 20
December 2024).
3. Tanvi, Md. and Fatema, K. (2020) (PDF) work-life balance: Is it still a new concept in private commercial banking
sector of Bangladesh?, International Journal of Research Studies in Management . Available at:
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Journal of Engineering Technologies and Management Research. Available at:
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10 December 2024).
5. Mayya, S. (2022) Work-life balance and gender differences: A study of college and university teachers from Karnataka,
SAGE Open. Available at: https://www.academia.edu:443/63167525/Work_Life_Balance_and_
Gender_Differences_A_Study_of_College_and_University_Teachers_From_Karnataka (Accessed: 3
December 2024).
6. Sathyalakshmi, V. (2021) (PDF) work-life balance and its impact on upward career mobility of women employees in the
banking sector, Asian Journal of Managerial Science. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333438403_Work-Life_Balance_and_Its_Impact_on_Upward_
Career_Mobility_of_Women_Employees_in_the_Banking_Sector (Accessed: 13 December 2024).
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APPENDIX
Questionnaire
The questionnaire was prepared to identify the support of family to reduce stress level of female workers in banking sectors of
commercial Banks in Bangladesh and balance their work life. Please provide your valuable response and help in our survey.
a. Name:
b. Name of Bank & Branch:
c. Position:
d. Phone No.:
e. E-mail Address
f. Age Scale:
(i) Below 30
(ii) 30-34
(iii) 35-40
(iv) 40-44
(v) Above 45
g. Marital Status:
(i) Married
(ii) Unmarried
h. No. of Children, for married women: (if any)
i. Family Status:
(i) Single
(ii) Joint
Please select the relevant columns showing the scales from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”:
Sl.
No.
Questions
Strongly
Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly
Agree
1
2
3
4
5
1.
Long Working hours affects work life balance.
2.
Working on Holidays
3.
Can’t spend enough quality time with spouse and
family
4.
Relationship with spouse and family is suffering due
to work pressure
5.
Less control over work life
6.
Family Support is crucial to reduce work stress
7.
Easy to balance work life and stress
Comment (if any):
