Determinants of perceived role conflict among women in bangladesh

The purpose of the present study was to find important determinants of perceived role conflict (PRC) by building a regression model. The paper examined the joint linear influences of wife's age, her income, her time for household chores and outside job, her female role perception (FRP), husband's income, his time for household work and outside job, total number of children, child-density, age of youngest child, and age of oldest unmarried girl to the variance of PRC of women. It also examined relative contribution of each of the independent variables controlling the influences of other independent variables to the variance of the PRC. The subjects were 140 women (homemakers—63; working women—77) from Dhaka City. One demographic and work characteristics questionnaire, one FRP Scale (Ilyas & Zaman, 1988), and one PRC Scale (Begun & Tasneem, 1984) were administered by two female interviewers visiting the household of the subjects. Regression analysis indicated that 27.12% of the variance (R² change = .2712) of PRC was explained by all the independent variables operating jointly. However, FRP alone explained 20.61% variance of the PRC. Standardized beta indicated that one standard deviation unit change in FRP introduced greatest change ( = -.512) in PRC and one unit change in husband's time for outside job, the least change ( = -.003). Part and partial correlation coefficient also indicated FRP is related negatively to PRC. Thus, FRP is the only independent variable contributing significantly to the variance of the PRC.