Work-Life Balance: Women with at Least One Sick or Disabled Child

Abstract

Although gender equity was advocated, women with at least one child had difficulty reconciling work and family. If women with healthy children experience conflict between their two spheres of life, what about women living with disabled or sick children? This article highlights the challenges, the different individual strategies adopted and socially responsible management practices that can facilitate the reconciliation of work and private life to break the glass ceiling of women with at least one sick or disabled child. The results of an exploratory qualitative study of 15 women with at least one disabled or sick child show that the challenges of medical emergencies, working hours, working hours, daily stress, permanent insecurity linked to the state of health, the education of its children, the care of his children, the sharing of family responsibility between spouses, care for close relatives, the possibility of changing working hours, overload at work, young children, unfavourable culture does not facilitate conciliation. These women use the individual strategy of social support, redefinition of roles and temporal organization to reconcile their professional and private lives. And finally, the results show that his individual strategies are not enough to reconcile work and family. To do this, companies must put in place socially responsible practices and management that can further enable them to facilitate conciliation and be efficient at work.