Case

To maintain a balance between personal and professional life is important for professionals including academics. Work-life balance helps in achieving and sustaining a healthy work routine that enhances an academic’s effectiveness and satisfaction. In traditional societies, working women often have responsibilities both at their work place and homes. The present study explored that how female academics balance their personal and professional life and what challenges they face in Lahore, Pakistan. The sample consisted of ten female academics selected from two universities in Lahore, Pakistan. Data was collected by using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis was conducted to analyze the data The findings revealed that women academics faced several problems at their homes as well as their workplace. These problems include lack of departmental support in performing tasks and completing assignments. Also, additional duties are assigned to the women academics, other than their teaching jobs. Women academics were also found to have insufficient time for themselves, leaving an adverse impact on their physical and mental wellbeing. The positive aspect found is that women academics have the courage and potential to cope with these challenges by using different strategies. These strategies include not doing work related tasks at home, sharing problems with family members, and remaining calm and determined.


Introduction
The work-life balance is the achievement of harmony between one's professional and personal life which enables employees to devote adequate amount of time to both their work and their personal life (Marafi, 2013). Work-life balance leads to an integration of professional, personal, and social life of individuals in a manner that provides them a level of selfsatisfaction (Punia & Kamboj, 2013). Moreover, Clark (2000), and Hill et al. (2001) suggest that work-life balance helps the individuals in maintaining a balance in their emotional, behavioral, and personal life by fulfilling time demands of their job/work place. Like professionals in the other fields, work-life balance is also important for the professionals of academics. In addition to it, quality work-life balance helps academics to maintain and improve their standards in order to improve students' behavior and to achieve higher retention rates (Lakshmi & Kumar, 2011). An academic with a work-life balance can be more effective in assisting its students in their development process, constructively (Punia & Kamboj, 2013). Thus, professionals of academics may face problems in their personal life and also, their work performance becomes poor due to the lack of work-life balance in their life. (Greenhaus et al., 2003).
To maintain work-life balance, despite its importance has become an issue for academics professionals throughout the world. Academics in the United States of America find it difficult to keep work-life balance due to their above average working hours, unevenly distributed household responsibilities, and the responsibility of raising their young ones along with it. Besides, they find it even more difficult due to their dissatisfaction with their kid's day care in terms of protection and security and not getting enough support from their partners/spouses in managing their daily life routine (O' Laughlin & Bischoff, 2005). In New Zealand most academics serve overtime for more than ten hours out of their normal full-time hours (Houston et al., 2006). A study in the United Kingdom found that academics find it difficult to maintain work-life balance in their daily routine which has affected their personal lives a lot (Kinman & Jones, 2003).
In the South Asian context, marital status of working women is also a predictor of one's quality of work-life balance. After marriage females have to fulfill miscellaneous responsibilities which causes stress and a feeling of being overburdened (Punia & Kamboj, 2013;Karup et al., 2010). Moreover, research conducted in India also indicates that women employees experienced conflict between their work and family role due to the excess number of working hours per week. Which also includes the overtime required to complete organizational tasks, an inflexible work schedule, and unsupportive administration (Frone et al., 1997). Furthermore, a study conducted in Bangladesh revealed that women are highly dissatisfied UMT Education Review Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 because of their imbalance in personal and professional lives which becomes difficult to manage, equally (Uddin et al., 2013). Thus, research in the Pakistani context reveals that female's dual responsibilities affect their well-being, increase stress, and also affect their physical and mental health (Fatima & Sahibzada, 2012;Shakir & Noorani, 2014).
Beside the other factors, an employee's status (public/private) of serving the institution is also considered as an important factor affecting their quality of work-life balance. Whereas, it is a common perception that public sector jobs provide the stability and the satisfaction to female employees in contrast to job in government aided institutions or private institutions (Ashwini & Anand, 2014). Further, the pressure in terms of a need to publish is also an important type of pressure (Houston et al., 2006;Tytherleigh et al., 2005). Academic staff are also expected to perform multiple roles in their work settings including teaching, research, consultation, and research supervision (O' Lausghlin & Bischoff, 2005;Brown, 2007). Also, balancing local campus based and online teaching and research collaboration is also something academics have to deal with (Brown, 2007;Briggs, 2009). This multiple tasking has an impact on academics. Astin and Astin (1999) argue that lack of work-life balance among the academics leads to their ailment, divorce, over-consumption of caffeine to overcome stress, and sleep deprivation. Apart from, such academics are less likely to be effective in their teaching and research activities (Niven & Cutler, 1995). Although, it's an important issues in the premises of Pakistan but very limited research has been conducted on this (Aycan et al., 2000). Therefore, it is further needed to explore this important issue related to work-life balance because the number of women in the academia has been increasing in the recent past.

Statement of the Problem
The substantial research which is conducted on work-life balance and wellbeing has sampled the professionals other than the academics (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008;Moore, 2007). Taris et al. (2001) argue that although substantial research has been conducted on teachers at the school and college levels still very limited research has been conducted on female university academics. In Pakistani milieu, no substantial research has been conducted to explore the challenges of female academics work-life balance (Aycan et al., 2000). The present study is a qualitative endeavor to explore the factors and challenges which affect the work-life balance of female Department of Education Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 academics in Pakistani Universities. Moreover, it will explore the effects of the work-life balance on the overall wellbeing of female academics.

Literature Review
The evidence of the current research shows that women academics face many work-life balance issues both in the developed countries including United States of America, United Kingdom, New Zeeland, and Australia as well as in the developing countries' including India, Bangladesh, and Pakistani contexts. However, issues related to work-life balance hamper women's academics performance and also affect their mental health. As same thing happens in other parts of the world related to research including sub-continent which indicates the issues in women academics' work-life balance. According to Fatima and Sahibzada (2012) women in the Pakistani context have faced several issues in terms of their work-life balance without their husband's support and any job resources.
The research conducted in Pakistani context also reports negative consequences for working women. Although they are expected to fulfill substantial tasks both at home and their work place. In this case, women fulfill their responsibilities by working for long hours every day in both these domains. Along with it, the stress levels which these women experience while performing their dual responsibilities could have an impact on their overall mental and physical wellbeing (Shakir & Noorani, 2014). Moreover, working women in the Pakistani context who are getting domestic help still they have to do cooking themselves, typically. In addition to it, they take complete responsibility of teaching their children in order to help them in schoolwork. Besides, their gender, their age, and their dependents age have identified as a factor in terms of impacting work-life balance of females (Khalid & Rathore, 2018).
Nevertheless, job stress of academics has also been associated with quitting jobs (Barnes et al., 1998). Many researches have supported the phenomenon that academic disciplines of women have a substantial effect on their work-life balance. For this reason, women academics and scientists tend to marry less so they can have fewer children as compared to their colleagues from the other disciplines (Blackwell & Glover, 2008). In the field of sciences, married women who have children are more likely to change careers in order to meet their family responsibilities (Wyss & Tai, 2010). Thus, women also feel frustrated and receive feelings of guilt over UMT Education Review Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 the difficult choices they make, academically. Which further makes their life-work balance a difficult undertaking for them (Guest & Strurges, 2006).

Methodology
The current study adopted qualitative and interpretative research design (MacDonalds & Friedman, 2002). Qualitative researchers generally deal with the purposely selected small samples that can provide deeper insights which are needed to achieve the desired richness of data (Gay & Airasian, 2000). The present study was conducted in two public sector universities in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. A sample of ten female academics was selected by using a purposive sampling technique. The qualitative research generally relies on a purposive sampling of the participants for data collection. As such participants can provide the pertinent information about the topic of investigation (Gay & Airasian, 2000). Furthermore, in purposive sampling technique, the sample is selected on the basis of specific knowledge of the sample and in line with the purpose of the research (Schreiber & Asner, 2011). The sample of this study was selected purposively based on the participants' academics status, academic disciplines, and their experience of teaching in public sector universities. Moreover, the sample size of female academics had an experience of minimum 10 years in academia as permanent faculty members. The respondents served in two public sector universities of city Lahore but they belonged to different areas of Punjab including rural as well as urban. Participants were selected from the departments of basic and social sciences in order to get more diverse views on the presented issue. Some participants started their jobs as Lecturers in the universities and others started their jobs in colleges who moved towards universities, later. Thus, participants were involved in both teaching and research. One participant had the additional charge as department head.

Data Collection
Firstly, face to face semi-structured interviews were conducted for data collection by the first author. Semi-structured interviews are beneficial for the investigation of acuities and opinions of participants regarding their complex and sometimes subtle problems. This also allows probing for more evidence and amplification of answers (Hutchinson & Wilson, 1992). Secondly, interview protocol was developed in line with the research questions to explore the views of respondents regarding the tasks or duties academics have to perform. Academics have to work through many supportive and non-supportive situations in order to achieve work-life balance. They use various coping strategies in order to deal with the effects of work stress on their health and personality. Lastly, various probes and follow up questions were used for the clarification and more details in responses given by the participants in order to get certain answers that needed further explanations. Initially 15 academics were contacted for interview but only 10 participants gave consent for interview. Hence, informed consent was obtained from the participants and they were assured of confidentiality. Each interview took 25 to 30 minutes to be completed. Thus, all interviews were tape recorded which provided verbatim account.

Data Analysis
Thematic analysis based on inductive approach was followed for the analysis of interviews. Braun and Clarke (2006) provided a framework to conduct thematic analysis based on six steps: Become familiar with the data, generate initial codes, search for themes, review themes, define themes, and UMT Education Review Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 write-up. Furthermore, transcribed data was read and re-read a number of times to become familiar with the main ideas of data. Here, the researchers did not code every piece of text and used open coding; that means they developed and modified the codes as they worked through the data. Besides, the codes were grouped into themes in line with the research aims/questions. Thus, the themes were reviewed in detail for similarities and differences, in this case, six themes were finalized which were further described with their subthemes (for detail see the Table 1). In this case, member check was applied to verify the reliability of generated themes. For member check, data and its interpretation were sent back to five randomly selected respondents from the sample of the current study so that they can confirm the credibility of the information (Creswell, 2012). The respondents' consent was taken after interviews for member check review. Lastly, participants were asked to review their transcribed interviews for any changes they would like to make. Thus, analysis was finalized after this member check review. Department of Education Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022

Findings
Women academics in this study had to perform multiple duties. They were responsible for teaching the classes as well as they had to perform many administrative tasks. Also, they had to perform supervision of curricular activities in their institutions. That's how, multiple tasking of women made it hard for them to manage their duties at home as well as at their work place. At the same time, it was evident that academic career at higher educational institutions demanded excellence in teaching and their growth in research. Women academics were also responsible to manage their certain tasks including administrative tasks and co-curricular activities. These multiple tasks made the daily routine of women more difficult. Hence, findings showed that multitasking was the major issue for female university teachers according to the current study.
Following themes emerged from analysis of interviews:

Women Academics' Responsibilities at Workplace
This theme is based on the tasks or duties that female academics had to perform in their universities. Within the current theme, three categories of tasks could be derived: Management tasks, teaching at campus, and research activities. Also, nature of duties varied from department to department.

Management Tasks
Female academics had to perform different administrative duties because many higher authorities or heads of the department prefer to give administrative duties to female staff members. R 7 said, "I just dislike being the in-charge tours because these duties add to my work burden and make my daily routine tough." R 1 reported, "I get irritated when I have to spend extra time in the university, just to perform duties in co-curricular activities". R5 argued, "Director (head of department) prefers to give administrative duties to female teachers because they try to complete that task with utmost dedication. But females are not rewarded or even appreciated for these duties at any forum in the university." Some academics who belonged to science discipline had to take care of the labs which was a hectic duty for them.
Maintain the lab, manage the lab stock and staff other than teaching and research. Before joining this university, I was a part of well-known UMT Education Review Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 college in private sector. I sometimes compare my duties in the university with college teachers. I find that my routine was more hectic at that time. But being young in age I managed my duties more appropriately at that time.
R 2 shared, "I always have classes every day in my academic career that is actual demand of my profession. But simultaneously I have to manage time table for my department and also, I have to perform duties in different committees". R 6 reported that she finds it difficult to keep work-life balance due to her extra duties.

Teaching at Campus
Academics complained about the hectic teaching schedule at university. R 3 said, According to the university policy lecturers are bound to teach 5 to 6 subjects and assistant professors have to teach 4 (3 credit hours for each subject) in one semester. Although teaching is my main assignment but I have to teach 4 subjects along with research activities and a lot of administrative tasks. These tasks make me work around the clock. This work load affects my health badly. I feel mental stress due to this hectic routine.
Similarly, R 2 reported, "My ambition was to become an ideal teacher. To achieve this, I stayed at the university till late hours in the start of my job. Although I became popular but my domestic life got affected."

Research Activities
Some academics had research interests and they wanted to establish labs in their institutions. R 9 asserted, The start of my job, I wanted to establish lab (of physics). I worked really very hard for that. Managing resources for lab, arrangement of equipment, supervision of experiment all are hectic for me as a teacher. Later on, I realized that this affected my health badly.
Research articles are mandatory for academics to progress in their profession. R 2 argued: "I am always passionate to conduct research projects but multiple assignments at university and at home restrict me to take the research projects offered by different national and international organizations." R5 said, "Extra duties (management tasks) restrict me to complete my research tasks, compulsory to get promotion in job". Similarly, R 7 said that she has to stay in university till late hours to supervise her research students that has badly affected her personal life. She also lamented the fact that she has to work about 14 hours a day in order to meet the deadlines.

Women Academics' Problems at Workplace
Some of the problems faced by the respondents of this study at the work place included transportation, setting unrealistic targets, and out of station posting.

Transportation Problems
One university out of two did not have residential facilities for its employees at all and the second university offered the residences partially for its employees. Most of the participants complained that in the start of their career they had to travel for 2-4 hours daily in their personal or local transport to reach their workplace. Regular long time travelling affected their mental and physical well-being.

R2, for instance, said:
The first 7 years of my career were very difficult. I had to travel on local transport from my home to university. It took two hours to reach college (work place) and two hours to reach back home. Four hours travelling on daily basis was chaotic and affected my health badly. I have got the problem of backache due to this travelling.

Unrealistic Targets
Respondents had high expectations at the beginning of their career. As R 4 said, "at start of my career I wanted a quick progress…. Now I realized that things can't be achieved at once… you have to stay and work steadily be calm and have to wait for right time." Almost all the females had very positive and high expectations for their career. They had set their goals at the start of their career and struggled to achieve them.

Out of Station Posting
Becoming the part of university faculty, many respondents served in college education. Four respondents out of ten lamented that at start of their jobs they were posted at outlying places from their homes. R 10 said that "I was resident of Lahore and transferred to Sahiwal…. I stayed there UMT Education Review Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 approximately for two years. It was very hard and terrible period of my life. Staying away from family disturbs me psychologically".

Women Academics' Responsibilities at Home
Most of the respondents talked about their busy schedule at home. Women academics' responsibilities at home included multiple domestic tasks including cooking, washing, cleaning, and childcare responsibility.

Domestic Work
Public sector universities in Pakistan usually have eight working hours a day and five working days a week. After performing work duties in university all respondents had to manage their household chores, that is, cooking, washing, cleaning and others. R 2 shared, "After coming back from university I spend time in the kitchen for cooking." R 7 added, My family expects me that I have to cook food for them. I do the cooking thrice a day, including breakfast, lunch and dinner. Although

Childcare Responsibility
Childcare at home came out as an important responsibility of these working women academics. R2 said, "I have to look after the matters of my kids; homework, meal, shopping etc." Similarly, R 9reported: I have four kids and being a mother feel disadvantaged in work place when my child is sick and I can't stay with him at home as I have to attend a meeting called by head of the department. I want to spend time with my kids but due to my busy routine I often can't manage. I personally feel that my work burden affects my children upbringing negatively. My husband is out of country for his job. I usually come back home in late evenings after spending a hectic day at my university. My kids are too young. They want to share their whole day routine, their activities with me but I am usually not available to them. The absence of parents from their daily routine affect their personalities. They became aggressive and violent on miner issues.

Co-operation of Family as a Strength to Gain Work Life Balance
Family support came out as a main source of help to the female academics in keeping a work-life balance. Female academics largely appreciated the co-operation of their families in this regard.

Parents' Support
They try to accomplish their duties with parental support as R1 reported: When I was unmarried, I had fewer domestic roles. My mother managed all my domestic tasks. She took care of me as daughter. As my family expanded my domestic engagements increased. Now I have tough routines.
Sometimes co-operation of family helped female academics to maintain their work-life balance. R9 recalled her deceased mother and said, My mother was a teacher and she always had proper planning to wind up her domestic chores. I try to follow my mother's guidelines to accomplish my domestic affairs. But I feel that as a university teacher I have more tasks to perform.

Family Support
Family support was a big help for female academics to maintain balance in their lives. An individual who gives a balance time to his work and family can enjoy the maximum level of satisfaction on both fronts. R7 said: I manage balance between university tasks and home assignment due to my family support. My mother in law is very cooperative. She always helps me in cooking and grocery. But my husband usually does not take interest in domestic matters.

Effects of Work Pressure on Academics
The respondents of this study reported that due to work life imbalance they did not find leisure time for themselves and to further explore their hobbies and interests. Whereas, their recreational needs were ignored and they felt stressed.

Lack of Leisure Time
All the mid-career academics claimed that they hardly found leisure time for themselves in the busy schedules of their daily lives. R 5 said, "It is very hard to spare even a single hour for myself". R 9 argued, "To get leisure time is difficult as I have to work hard to perform duties equal to two persons first in job and second at home". Lake of leisure time for themselves affected their personal wellbeing.

Hobbies or Interests
In response of probing about hobbies or interests only R6 said: In start of my career I had interest in dress designing. I design my dress by myself and I remember this gives me lot happiness when someone appreciate my designs. But as I proceeded in profession and get busy in administrative and academic tasks, I almost windup my hobby of dress designing.

Self-Ignorance and Stress
Respondents reported regarding the negative effects of work pressure on their health. R 2 asserted: I find myself busy all time in one task and another at university and at home. I hardly get free time in my busy routines even at weekends. Due to unrest and lake of sleep to meet the deadline for different tasks, I sometime got depressed…… I sacrifice my personality but I don't think that I have good balance.

R 7 replied:
Due to work pressure my health has spoiled a lot because when you bear all pressure on you, your health goes down. Due to long sitting I have backache problem. Sometime I can't manage time for lunch during working hours. All time mental engagement in variety of tasks effect my health badly.

Coping Strategies that Female Academics Used
Female academics used different coping strategies to deal with stressful conditions. Most of them discussed the situation with their family members Department of Education Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 (father or husband most of the time). Some academics mentioned that they remained positive even with those who had negative thinking about them. R 8 shares interesting coping strategy: I prefer to spend time with my students to come out from stress. I stay with my students in an open place in university. I ask them to share their routine activities, ambitions in life, difficulties they are facing in their life. These meetings divert my thinking and help me to come out from stress of work.

R 4 mentioned:
I just ignore the things that are irritating for me. However, to gain the attitude to ignore the things needs a lot of intrinsic motivation. I don't think that I have balance but I am happy. I keep a smile on my face to avoid stress into my life.
Academics tried to manage their professional responsibilities in such a way that they had least impact on their personal life. R 10 said I focus on time management. I try to complete all my university tasks in my office e.g. marking students' assignment, reviewing thesis as supervisor, and other relative assignments. I try to avoid to meet my colleagues to save my time for work. At home I have no need to spare time to do university related tasks. So, I try to manage tasks by managing time for both tasks.
Thus, academics agreed that it was difficult to achieve work-life balance as they had to perform different tasks in their home as well as in their work life.

Discussion and Implications
The current study reveals that the women academics have to do multitasking both at their workplace and in their home. The women academics in the Pakistani context are responsible to perform different administrative tasks at universities other than teaching, that is, time table, admission, discipline maintenance, supports, and managing day to day tasks assigned by heads of the departments. Moreover, women academics have to manage research assignments along with their administrative duties. These academics are engaged in teaching, research, and administrative tasks at their work places. After performing work duties in universities, women UMT Education Review Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 academics also have to manage their household chores, that is, cooking, washing, child care and others.
Previous studies in the Pakistani context such as the one by Yousaf and Schmiede (2017), reveal similar findings that female teachers are overburdened due to multiple tasking. Studies in the context of the United states of America, United Kingdom, New Zealand, India, and Bangladesh (O' Laughlin & Bischoff, 2005;Houston et al., 2006;Kinman & Jones, 2003;Punia & Kamboj, 2013) also reveal similar findings. However, Emmerik (2002) found that support from an administrator is more important for employees to handle their work-related issues than the support from their family. On the other hand, support from spouse and family is beneficial only for dealing with the personal life stress. Hence, universities need to introduce employee support programs related to flexible work arrangements, stress management, and support from co-workers (Gillespie et al., 2001) will be helpful to prevent work-life problems in universities.
Findings of the current study suggest that female academics need improvements in their management practices. Especially, they need to improve their work time management and the better realistic goal setting can contribute to increase work-life balance among women. In this case, self-management is important where female academics need to control their own expectations regarding their work-life balance. Women academics strive to manage their family responsibilities as well as to meet their career expectations. The burden of these duel tasks may cause conflicts and tensions. Despite working so hard, their progress continues to remain slow because they are unable to get some more time to conduct further research activities. This study also reveals that women academics did not have leisure time for themselves. Due to this reason, they had no hobbies and could not find spare time for their recreational activities. This issue led to the level of negligence regarding their personal, physical, and mental wellbeing. Hence, balance in work and personal life has been associated with their mental wellbeing and better performance (Punia & Kamboj, 2013).
Academics need to engage themselves into some recreational activities in order to keep themselves healthy and active. The current study reveals that the complex nature of university work stress seemed to influence women academics work-life balance negatively. Stress related to work-life balance among women academics has been on the rise globally which has Department of Education Volume 5 Issue 2, Fall 2022 further implications for the educational process. According to the current study, findings reveal that women academics used different coping strategies to overcome the stress of work pressures. These strategies included discussion with the male family members like father and husband, ignoring difficult situations, managing time, and spending good time with their students. Furthermore, it is interesting to know that in a traditional male dominated society like Pakistan, women find a substantial social support in keeping their work-life balance. In addition to it, social support helps a lot in having work-life balance. In spite of the burden of work the women academics seem to determine the progress in their career. This study implies that to improve the condition of academics work-life balance, universities may offer programs or trainings for female academics to help them to form realistic goals and manage their tough routines. The findings of the present study also recommend for making campus life for women academics more amenable in terms of providing them with facilities and being more considerate regarding their gender-based balance and equity.

Conclusion
Work-life balance has been an important topic of interest for academics. This is especially of interest with reference to women academics in the context of developing countries. For this case, women are traditionally expected to take the primary responsibilities of housekeeping and child care. Women in traditional societies are facing many problem regarding their work-life balance due to modernization, more opportunities for higher education, and job opportunities outside their homes. The current study consolidates that women academics face a variety of problems in their workplace and at home. These include lack of departmental support, assignments other than teaching at work place, and expectations to perform well equally in both places. Besides, women academics do not seem to have ample time for themselves which affect their mental and physical health. The positive aspect is that women academics seem to exhibit courage, drive, and potential to cope with these challenges by making use of different strategies including separating home, managing work time, sharing problems with family members, and trying to remain calm and determined. Thus, these are interesting and encouraging findings and further large scale for research is needed to explore further such interesting issues on a wider level, in more contextual and methodological detail.