ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Background: Life satisfaction among working-class women in Malaysia are influenced by several factors includes their socio-demographics such as marital status, age, religiosity, ethnicity and their education background. This is also not limited to other external influential factors such as work-life conflict. Only little amount of research focuses on life satisfaction among working-class women in the state of Sabah, Malaysia, in relation with their socio-demographics and work-life conflict. Objectives: Firstly, this research aims to investigate the relationship between socio-demographics and life satisfaction among working-class women in Sabah, Malaysia. Next, will also to examine the relationship between work-life conflict and life satisfaction among working-class women in Sabah, Malaysia. Methodology: A total of 348 female government servants in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia participated in the study by using snowball sampling method. An online questionnaire and physical questionnaires distributed to the respondents at government sectors. Results: It was shown that marital status among working-class women in government sectors partially mediated the relationship between dimensions in work-life conflict and dimensions in life satisfaction. Morever, there was a correlation between all dimensions in work-life conflict and cognitive life satisfaction (p < 0.01) among working-class women in government sectors. Based on results, female government servants in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia’s level of life satisfaction are partially influenced by their marital status, especially married individuals. Further research is needed to investigate whether the role of female government servants’ grade position in their work organizations influence their level of life satisfaction.
Aazami, S., Mozafari, M., Shamsuddin, K., & Akmal, S. (2016). Work-family conflict and sleep disturbance: The Malaysian working women study. Industrial Health, 54(1), 50-57. doi:10.2486/indhealth.2015-0086
Ahmad, A. (1996). Work-Family Conflict Among Married Professional Women in Malaysia. The Journal of social psychology, 136, 663-665. doi:10.1080/00224545.1996.9714054
Ahmad, M. S., Fakhr, Z., & Ahmed, J. (2011). Working women work-life conflict. Business Strategy Series, 12, 289-302. doi:10.1108/17515631111185923
Aman, J., Abbas, J., Nurunnabi, M., & Bano, S. (2019). The Relationship of Religiosity and Marital Satisfaction: The Role of Religious Commitment and Practices on Marital Satisfaction Among Pakistani Respondents. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 9(3), 30. doi:10.3390/bs9030030
Arham, A., Norizan, N. S., Ridzuan, A. R., Alwi, S., & Arham, A. (2019). Work – Life Conflicts among Women in Malaysia: A Preliminary Study. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9. doi:10.6007/IJARBSS/v9-i9/6337
Ba?levent, C., & Kirmano?lu, H. (2017). Gender Inequality in Europe and the Life Satisfaction of Working and Non-working Women. Journal of Happiness Studies, 18(1), 107-124. doi:10.1007/s10902-016-9719-z
Borzumato-Gainey, C., Kennedy, A., McCabe, B., & Degges-White, S. (2009). Life Satisfaction, Self-Esteem, and Subjective Age in Women Across the Life Span. Adultspan Journal, 8. doi:10.1002/j.2161-0029.2009.tb00055.x
Degges-White, S., & Kepic, M. (2020). Friendships, Subjective Age, and Life Satisfaction of Women in Midlife. Adultspan Journal, 19(1), 39-53. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/adsp.12086
DOSM. (2023). STATISTICS ON WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN SELECTED DOMAINS, MALAYSIA [Press release]. Retrieved from https://www.dosm.gov.my/portal-main/release-content/32b46d37-8b84-11ed-96a6-1866daa77ef9
Greenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of Conflict between Work and Family Roles. The Academy of Management Review, 10(1), 76-88. doi:10.2307/258214
Hartman, P. (2016). Development and Validation of a Work-Life Conflict Scale: Identifying Energy and Emotion.
Hayre-Kwan, S., Quinn, B., Chu, T., Orr, P., & Snoke, J. (2021). Nursing and Maslow's Hierarchy: A Health Care Pyramid Approach to Safety and Security During a Global Pandemic. Nurse leader, 19(6), 590-595. doi:10.1016/j.mnl.2021.08.013
Healy, K. (2018). A Theory of Human Motivation by Abraham H. Maslow (1942). The British Journal of Psychiatry, 208(4), 313-313. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.115.179622
Howell, R., Chong, W., Howell, C., & Schwabe, K. (2012). Happiness and Life Satisfaction in Malaysia (Vol. 6, pp. 43-55).
Jones, G. W. (2011). The Population of Borneo: A Study of the Peoples of Sarawak, Sabah, and Brunei. By L. W. Jones. London: The Athlone Press, 1966. 213 pp. Maps, Tables, Appendices, Bibliography, Index. 42s. The Journal of Asian Studies, 27(1), 182-183. doi:10.2307/2051735
Julka, T., & Mathur, U. (2017). A Conceptual Study of Work- Life Balance among Women Employees.
King, V. T. (2017). Borneo and Beyond: Reflections on Borneo Studies, Anthropology and the Social Sciences. In V. T. King, Z. Ibrahim, & N. H. Hassan (Eds.), Borneo Studies in History, Society and Culture (pp. 79-124). Singapore: Springer Singapore.
Kohno, A., Dahlui, M., Nik Farid, N. D., Safii, R., & Nakayama, T. (2020). Why girls get married early in Sarawak, Malaysia - an exploratory qualitative study. BMC Women's Health, 20(1), 46. doi:10.1186/s12905-020-00911-z
Kossek, E. E., & Lee, K.-H. (2017). Work-Family Conflict and Work-Life Conflict: Oxford University Press.
M.Hamdan, S. N. b., Lim, B., Pazim, K. H., & Nga, J. L. H. (2019). DETERMINANTS OF FEMALE LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION IN SABAH. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the International Conference on Economics 2019.
Marziah, S., Abdul Kadir, N. B. y., Kadir, A., Baharuddin, K., Kelantan, M., Bachok, . . . Zakaria. (2018). Marital Status, Career and Income as Indicators of Life Satisfaction Among Middle-aged Career Women in Hulu Langat, Selangor, Malaysia. Populasi, 24. doi:10.22146/jp.32363
Marziah, S., Ijon, R., Wan Shaharuddin, W. Y., & See, S. (2017). JOB SATISFACTION AS A MEDIATOR OF LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG MIDDLE-AGED CAREER WOMEN IN KELANTAN. 31.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396.
Mathes, E. W. (1981). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a Guide for Living. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 21(4), 69-72. doi:10.1177/002216788102100406
McLeod, D. S. (2020). Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Isa, M. N. A., Misri, N. A., Fazlan, M. I., Rezali, N. S. N., Moktar, N. A. A., & Ku Aziz, K. A. (2020). THE PERCEPTIONS OF WOMEN IN LATE MARRIAGE. E-JOURNAL OF MEDIA AND SOCIETY (E-JOMS); Vol 3 No 1 (2020): E-JOURNAL OF MEDIA AND SOCIETY (E-JOMS).
Khalli, M. N., Sintang, S., & Kamu, A. (2022). The framework of socio-religious harmony in Sabah, East Malaysia: An application of Fuzzy Delphi method. Heliyon, 8(8), e09976. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09976
Ng, K.-M., Loy, J. T.-C., Gudmunson, C. G., & Cheong, W. (2009). Gender differences in marital and life satisfaction among Chinese Malaysians. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 60(1-2), 33-43. doi:10.1007/s11199-008-9503-6
Noor, N. M. (2006). Malaysian Women's State of Well-Being: Empirical Validation of a Conceptual Model. The Journal of social psychology, 146(1), 95-115. doi:10.3200/SOCP.146.1.95-115
Noor, T., Mohamad, M., & Dahri, S. (2019). Relationship between Social Support and Work-Family Conflict: A Case Study of Women Employees in a Malaysian Higher Education Institution. Journal of Technical Education and Training, 11. doi:10.30880/jtet.2019.11.02.009
Okulicz-Kozaryn, A., & da Rocha Valente, R. (2018). Life Satisfaction of Career Women and Housewives. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 13(3), 603-632. doi:10.1007/s11482-017-9547-2
Panatik, S. A. B., Badri, S. K. Z., Rajab, A., Rahman, H. A., & Shah, I. M. (2011). The Impact of Work Family Conflict on Psychological Well-Being among School Teachers in Malaysia. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 29, 1500-1507.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.11.390
Parvazian, S., Gill, J., & Chiera, B. (2017). Higher Education, Women, and Sociocultural Change: A Closer Look at the Statistics. SAGE Open, 7(2), 2158244017700230. doi:10.1177/2158244017700230
Peng, T. N., Li, L. S., & Lian, J. C. K. (2022). Demographic and Socioeconomic Changes in Sabah: Universiti Malaysia Sabah Press.
Pugh-Kitingan, J. (2017). An Overview of Cultural Research in Sabah. In V. T. King, Z. Ibrahim, & N. H. Hassan (Eds.), Borneo Studies in History, Society and Culture (pp. 235-259). Singapore: Springer Singapore.
Ibrahim, R. Z. A. (2014). Malaysian Work Family Conflict and Wellbeing: The Moderating Role of Job Control and Social Support. International Journal of Social Science and Human Behavior Study, 1, 55-60.
Salleh, S. N. S., & Mansor, N. (2022). Women and Labour Force Participation in Malaysia. Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH), 7(7). doi:https://doi.org/10.47405/mjssh.v7i7.1641
Soomro, N., & Memon, A. (2014). ETHNIC RELATIONS IN MULTI-ETHNIC MALAYSIA. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 53, 1-11. doi:10.46568/jssh.v53i2.78
Swami, V., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Sinniah, D., Maniam, T., Kannan, K., Stanistreet, D., & Furnham, A. (2007). General health mediates the relationship between loneliness, life satisfaction and depression. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 42, 161-166.
Taormina, R., & Gao, J. (2013). Maslow and the Motivation Hierarchy: Measuring Satisfaction of the Needs. The American journal of psychology, 126, 155-177. doi:10.5406/amerjpsyc.126.2.0155
Veenhoven, R. (2012). Happiness: Also Known as “Life Satisfaction” and “Subjective Well-Being” (pp. 63-77).
Waltemire, C., & Bush, K. R. (2020). Safety Needs. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences (pp. 4541-4544). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Yusof, S., Noon, M. H., Haneef, M. A., & Amin, M. R. (2003). Religiosity and Social Problems in Malaysia. Intellectual Discourse, 11, 77-87.
(Juli et al., 2024)
Juli, E., Uddin, M. S., & Tangit, T. M. (2024). The Role of Socio-Demographics Profile and Work-Life Conflict on Life Satisfaction Among Working-Class Women in Sabah, Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 14(5), 1653–1667.
(Juli et al., 2024)
Juli, E., Uddin, M. S., & Tangit, T. M. (2024). The Role of Socio-Demographics Profile and Work-Life Conflict on Life Satisfaction Among Working-Class Women in Sabah, Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 14(5), 1652–1667.