Quality of Work Life with Special Reference to Female Teachers in Universities of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

newline ix newlineABSTRACT newlineQuality of Work Life(QWL) is a contemporary concept towards the well-being of the employees which improves efficiency and enhances performance on the road of success. Women today are integral part of the workforce and academics for women is one of the preferred areas. Women have been struggling over the years to have a perfect professional life with personal life. Therefore, this research enables to highlight the areas of concern affecting QWL of females in higher education, so that the administration designs women-centric policies around these areas which actually promotes a healthy QWL, after all women are the integral part of the society. newlineIn the study an analysis of the overall QWL of female university teachers of Himachal Pradesh have been done using SPSS. The results found that maximum respondents were in the medium level category of QWL and there is a huge scope for improving QWL through designing women-centric policies. To explore the association between QWL and socio-economic factors of the female teachers, Chi-square, t-test and ANOVA was used, which emphasized that there is a significant relationship between Quality of Work Life and the type of university the females are working in i.e. a private university or a public university, age of the female teachers, marital status of the female teachers, number of kids the teachers have, Designation held by the female teachers, the length of service females have with their current organization, total teaching experience of the female teachers, the level at which the teachers are teaching, the type of family and the educational qualification. Also, it was found that there is no significant relationship between Quality of Work Life and the caste of teachers, the residential area they lived in, number of family members living together, the total family income, land owned and accommodation type. Further with the help of Pearson Correlation and Regression analysis, it was found that all the sub-domains (Home-work interface, Working Condition Satisfaction, Stress at work, General well-being, Job-career satisfaction, Control-at-work) had a positive relationship with the QWL and the highest variations were made by control at work, followed by job-career satisfaction, home-work interface, general well-being, working condition satisfaction and stress at work made the least impact on QWL. Finally, to observe the variations in private and public universities w.r.t socio-economic factors and the sub-domains Univariate ANOVA was newlinex newlineexecuted and it was found that within public universities, the socio-economic factors that showed significant variations in the Quality of Work Life of the respondents were residence, marital status, educational qualification, designation, department, level of teaching, family type and family income. Further in the private universities the socio-economic factors that made a substantial difference in Quality of Work Life were age, designation, total teaching experience, department, family type and number of family members. It was found that the sub-domain that was found to be the best in both public and private universities is general well-being and the sub-domain which needs concern is home-work interface in both public and private sector. newlineTherefore, based on the findings many suggestions are made to improve the conditions of the women in higher education. newlineKeywords: Quality of Work Life, Home-work interface, Working Condition Satisfaction, Stress at work, General well-being, Job-career satisfaction, Control-at-work.