Gender as a Moderator between Work-Family Conflict and Job Satisfaction of Medical Doctors: The Case of Ghana

Abstract

In recent times, during the outbreak of the novel COVID-19 pandemic, many health care workers, especially doctors, have to work long or irregular hours due to the increasing demand for health care services. Work and family have been prominent in an individual’s life and require a great deal of time, energy and other resources to manage these multiple responsibilities. Worldwide studies have revealed that doctors have to deal with quite several extraneous difficult tasks in their day-to-day working environment resulting in a high percentage of doctors quitting this noble profession. However, there is a lack of evidence relating to the role of gender in this whole problem. Therefore, this assessed moderating role of gender between work-family conflict and job satisfaction in the case of Ghanaian doctors during the novel coronavirus era. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select three hundred and sixty-four (364) doctors for this study. A structured E-questionnaires was distributed using social media platform, mainly to collect data from study participants. Although, gender and work-family conflict were significantly related to job satisfaction, gender did not moderate the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction. Therefore, this study recommends hospital management and policy makers consider ways of managing the autonomy, flexi-time, recognition, and working conditions of doctors to improve their job satisfaction during this pandemic and beyond.