Role of Perceived Social Support in Facilitating Work Life Balance among Female Professionals

The current research intends is to explore the predictive liaison concerning perceived social support and work-family balance in working females. After reviewing the literature, it remained hypothesized that, 1) Work-family balance would be significantly predicted by perceived social support in working females.; 2) There would be significant differences in the scores of work family balance and perceived social support in married and unmarried working females; and 3) There would be significant differences in the scores of work-family balance and perceived social support in working females living in nuclear and joint family systems. The sample comprised of 288 participants, which includes doctors, teachers, and registered nurses, with age ranges between 21-40 years. The sample was recruited from various hospitals and educational institutions of Hazara division, Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa, Pakistan, by using a purposive sampling technique. Participants were assessed by using the Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale (MSPSS,(Zimet et al., 1990) and Work-Family Balance Scale (WFBS, (Zhang et al., 2012)followed by the administration of demographic information form. SPSS; V-25 is used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics were used for the demographic information, whereas, regression analysis and t-test were used to make inferences regarding investigation of hypotheses. Results showed significant predictive association between perceived social support and work-family balance [r=.130 ; R2=.017, F= (4.93); p<.05; work-family enrichment .143, p<.05 & work-family conflict .106, p>.05). The results of the current study concludes that perceived social support helps in strengthening work family balance, enhancing the work-family enrichment and reducing work-family conflict among female employees.