Masculine Psyche Culture Mitigating Work-Life Balance Among Female Police Officers in Central Region, Kenya

Abstract

Work-life balance is key to overall health of an individual in the domains of physical, social, economic, spiritual, cognitive and emotional wellbeing. However, the nature of police work requires toggling between conflicting demands and application of undue pressure in arresting situations. This favours the aggressive nature of men as opposed to the nurturing attitudes among women. Thus, female police officers become more vulnerable to being physically harmed in combat, having limitations in social, economic and spiritual endeavors due to labeling or stereotyping as well as experiencing both cognitive and emotional distress in the line of work. This poses the risk of female police officers tendency to expend more time and energy on work at the expense of family and social life. Therefore, this study sought to examine masculine psyche culture mitigating work-life balance among female police officers in Central Region of Kenya. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study whose population was 163 Comprising of 158 female police officers and five accredited therapists from the national police service. Stratified sampling technique was used to select a sample of 133 respondents. Questionnaires and interview guide were employed for data collection. Descriptive statistics and themes were used for data analysis purposes enabled by statistical package of social sciences version 22. The findings indicated that masculine psyche culture diminished the experience of work-life balance among female police officers in central region in Kenya. As a result, there was need for relevant psychotherapeutic interventions and programs geared towards enhancing work-life balance in the context of masculine psyche culture within the police service in Kenya.