Impact of Mobile Communication Technology on the Work Life Balance of Working Women - a Review of Discourses

1. INTRODUCTIONWork life balance was defined by Clark (2000) as "satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home, with minimum role conflict". It is a perception of enriching integrity in personal time, family care, and work domain with minimum role conflict. It is a key factor for an individual's psychological and social well-being. It is necessary to avoid significant role conflict to maintain self-esteem, and overall sense of harmony in life. (Clark, 2000; Ungerson and Yeandle, 2005; Clarke, 2004; Marks and MacDermid, 1996)The role of women has significantly changed in last 50 years in developed and developing countries. Modern day women are working outside and at the same time taking the primary responsibilities of home and child care (Brewster and Padavic, 2000; Keene and Quadagno, 2004). They have to balance between multiple roles of their lives to achieve a meaningful life. It becomes a bigger challenge in developing countries like India where traditionally women are regarded as the care givers for the family and mother to the children, expected to take care of the household activities. Socio-culturally they are considered as "the inferior gender". (Sundaresan, 2014; Bharat, 2003) With the increasing availability of education, the traditional scenario changed and dual earner and nuclear families became prominent, especially in the urban scenario and information technology sector. Even with economic independence, they continued to be the primary care giver and adopted themselves in a dual role. As a result more and more Indian women are facing the challenge of balancing the family life and work life (Komarraju,1997; Rajadhyaksha and Bhatnagar, 2000; Reddy et al., 2010). Advent of mobile technology brought a new change for the employed woman in terms of work life balance. Fast and prompt communication, instant availability to both work and family life, resolved the border between family life and work life (lee, 2009; Pauleen 2015). Mobile technology changed the way of working in private sector. Modes of communication improved dramatically with the advancement of computer and mobile technology (Chamakiotis 2014). Employers are easily keeping in touch with employees who are away from office for work related issues which helps to increase the work productivity. This is especially important for a continuously active work force such as information technology. Previous studies have shown that software professionals are working under greater time pressure and more stress (Teagarden, Meyer and Jones, 2008; Scholarios and Marks, 2004). Moreover, the connection between mobile space and time is very complicated and not constant. These changes have affected individuals and social groups in different ways (Wajcman, Bittman and Brown, 2008). Accessibility and availability basically depends upon social practice which is created by individual (Bittman 2009, Green 2002). As a result men and women may not have been affected in the same way by the use of mobile technology. Their role in family life and social life are not always similar and women are more involved with family care (Wajcman, Bittman and Brown, 2008). This article reflects on the impact of mobile technology on the work life balance of Indian working women with special emphasis on the Information technology sector.2. BACKGROUND2.1 Work life BalancePost World War II developed countries noticed a flux in the role distribution of two genders. The reality of working women created new problems for family and work life dynamics, concept of role conflict was born. Sociologists were drawn to this issue early. In between 1960s to 1990s most of the literature focused on role conflicts and work life satisfaction. Women and their multiple roles in life were studied from different aspects including psychological distress, enhancing experience from different roles and overall behavioural pattern (Kahn, 1964; Hall, 1972; Marks, 1977; Moen and Kantor, 1979; Barnett and Baruch, 1985). …