Challenges And Coping Stratgies About Livelihood Of Female Staff In Tai Solarin University Of Education, Ijebu-Ode, South-West, Nigeria

Women integration into formal sector is constrained by several challenges which include limited access to credit, property, education, technical skill as well as coping with domestic responsibilities. Although some of the problems above are external to the organization where women work, they nonetheless negatively affect women integration and success within organizations and therefore constitute major challenges to their progression at work. Against this background the study examined the challenges and coping strategies that career women have devised in trying to maintain the work/life balance. The general objective of the
study was to examine the challenges faced by women while trying to balance their participation at work as well as their traditional responsibilities at home. Specifically, the study investigated the nature and types of challenges faced by women as they try to build viable careers. Women’s perception of the work they do particularly in relation to their family responsibilities was determined. Also the different strategies that working women have devised to maintain their
livelihoods as well as work/life balance were discovered. The study was anchored on the theoretical strength of the liberal feminist theory and glassceiling
theory as they explain the challenges faced by women at work. One hundred and fifty questionnaires that were selected through the simple random and purposive sampling techniques were administered to female academic and administrative staff of the Tai Solarin University of Education in Nigeria to determine their views and perceptions on the challenges they contend with at work and the strategies that they have devised to cope with these challenges. Results showed that while women self-identities primarily lie in their work, they are strongly influenced to perform the roles of home makers given our societal expectations. For many women the family remains the most important domain. In fact 66.7percent of the respondents admitted that their homes were more important to them than their jobs. Appropriate recommendations were made to improve present situations.