ORGANISATIONAL SUPPORT, WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT AND JOB TENURE AS PREDICTORS OF JOB COMMITMENT AND SATISFACTION AMONG WORKING MOTHERS IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA

: The search for factors that contribute to working mothers’ job commitment and satisfaction in organisations is an ongoing one in view of the fact that they are crucial to working mothers’ well -being. This study extended the frontiers of this search by investigating the contributions of organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure to the job commitment and satisfaction of working mothers in public universities in South-West, Nigeria. The study employed a survey research design of an ex-post-facto type. The target population of the study consisted of all working mothers in the thirteen (13) public universities in South-West, Nigeria from which a sample of 1,456 working mothers was selected through a multi-staged stratified random sampling technique. Four validated instruments namely; Job Commitment Scale (r = 0.93), Job Satisfaction Scale (r = 0.70), Organisational Support Questionnaire (r = 0.92) and Work-Family Conflict Scale (r = 0.88) were used to obtain responses from the participants. Data were analysed using Canonical Analysis at 0.05 level of significance. The results indicated a significant joint contribution of organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure on working mothers’ job commitment and satisfaction (Rc = .383, F = 47.706; p <.05; Rc = .171, F = 21.773; p <.05). It was found that 76.6% of the variance in working mothers’ job commitment and satisfaction was accounted for by organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure. These findings are attributable to the nature of women and their unique gender roles which predispose them to


Introduction
One of the objectives of every organisation is to increase efficiency and effective productivity through its committed and satisfied employees but this has not always been easy to realize especially where both couple work in order to earn income for their livelihood.Working mothers are finding it difficult to balance both work and family responsibilities hence employers and superiors on a daily basis do complain about the job commitment of working mothers.This burden may also affect the job satisfaction of these working mothers.In view of this, many managers may be reluctant to hire mothers because of their high rate of absence and lateness to work as a result of getting their children ready for school in the morning, doing school runs and catering for their children when they fall sick.According to the National Bureau of Statistics (2016), 63.8% of women aged between 15 and 64 in Nigeria participate in the labour force and Ugwu (2010) observes that their job commitment and satisfaction have remained poor due to the fact that these mothers still struggle to combine their work roles with handling the unending demands of caring for young children as well as other family responsibilities without receiving enough support from their organisations.Observation shows that some mothers with young children trying to find where to keep their children immediately after resumption from maternity leave may come late to work, sneak out to breastfeed, and may go home earlier than the normal closing time.
Furthermore, working mothers sometimes find themselves struggling to juggle the competing demands of work and family.The excessive pressure and scarcity of free time may adversely affect their ability to cope which can lead to work-family conflict, job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, poor personal relations, and decreased work performance (O'Laughlin & Bischoff, 2005).
Every employer expects its workers to be committed because employees that are committed to their jobs also experience job satisfaction and give their companies crucial competitive advantages in addition to lower employee turnover (Allen, 2003;Vance, 2006).Committed and satisfied employees are more likely to take pride in organisational membership, believe in the goals and values of the organisation and therefore exhibit higher levels of performance and productivity (Yew, 2010).Highly committed and satisfied employees perform better than less committed and dissatisfied ones because they are true assets to the organisation (Ahmad, Nadeem& Hamad, 2014).In addition, they are likely to assist their organisations to achieve greater productivity and commitment.
In organizations, the activity of every employee is guided by the rules and regulations of the organisations which they are expected to comply with.Workers are expected to arrive at work on time; stay till closing time and not be allowed to take extended breaks or unauthorized leave of absence.Working mothers are not exempted from these rules, and, to the employer, compliance with these rules shows commitment.Unfortunately, as a result of the dual roles of being a mother and a worker, commitment to these rules may not always be possible since a dissatisfied worker may not also be committed.According to Chuks (2013) and Ejike (2013), women in paid employment face additional tasks and duties that are tiring as well and are consistently pushed into juggling both ends in order of priority.
Commitment means dedication, loyalty, devotion, adherence, responsibility, tie, duty and obligation (The Free Dictionary, 2010).Job commitment is how much of you that is invested in your work (Omeonu, 2010).Lumley, Coetzee and Tladinyane (2011) opine that job commitment is an employee's level of attachment to some aspect of work.However, the focus of employees' commitment to work may vary because employees may be committed to their professions, their work, unions, as well as to their organisations (Nwibere & Olu-Daniels, 2014) and the basis of a worker's commitment can improve the prediction of employees' intentions and behaviours (Nwachukwu, 2007).Commitment is demonstrated when a line of activity is pursued despite obstacles to that activity (Scholl, 2008;Tolentino, 2013).
Job commitment can predict some role behaviours like attendance, remaining or quitting the job (Rusbutt & Farell in Dam, 2011).It can predict absenteeism, tardiness, quality of work, turnover and job performance (Robbins, 2001).Committed employees will not voluntarily miss work (Williams & Anderson, in Huary and You, 2011) and they can offer assistance to do work that is not part of their job description (Marks, Murray, Willig, Evans, Woodall & Skykes, 2006).It is therefore clear that people who are committed to their work always have a strong sense of duty and obligation towards their work and also place intrinsic values on their job as a central life interest (Gupta, 2011).
Mother's job commitment therefore refers to the extent to which working mothers are serious with, and how obligated and attached they are to their jobs.It is how much of their time, interest, strength and energy that are invested in their jobs, and this can be measured through their job performance.Ahmad, Nadeem and Hamad (2014) define performance as the work consequence of excellence and the given duty that is accomplished by someone in directing his/her job obligations.It is the degree of accomplishment of the tasks that make up an employees' job.It refers to how well an employee is fulfilling the requirements of a job.
Poor job commitment is revealed when employees stay in the organisation but they minimize their work time by being absent or coming late to work.It is true that the attributes, skills and abilities of individuals are the raw materials that enable them to perform (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2000).These raw materials are transformed into objective results through employees' behaviour.It is true that employees can exhibit behaviours only if they have the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities but there are situational constraints within the performance system that may negate this.An employee may have the necessary skills and yet not exhibit the necessary behaviour because of constraints within the work environment that often prevents him/her from performing like no provision of child care centers, elder care support, and marital care (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2000).This can lead to psychological withdrawal at the workplace.Nazarey (2001) therefore, opines that work activities itself can be a source of job commitment when they are self-rewarding and represent the expressions of that individual's ego or central values.That means that work itself can be a determinant of a mother's job commitment.
Job satisfaction is an important variable because it contributes greatly to the growth of an organization.Determining what makes people happy about their jobs may be very difficult because of individual differences.Employees in organizations have their unique needs hence what will satisfy one may not actually satisfy another.Therefore, for working mothers, job satisfaction could be considered along the lines of those factors that affect their work experiences like the quality of working life, general well-being, control at work, stress at work, home-work relationship and working conditions.In line with the aforementioned, job satisfaction refers to the extent to which an employee experiences a state of positive effect from an appraisal of his or her job (Esson, 2004).It is the feeling that individuals have about their jobs (Hong, Alison, While & Louise, 2006) and such feelings could be on working conditions, interactions with co-workers/managers, work itself, remuneration as well as organisational policies (Tella, Ayeni & Popoola, 2007).It is a personal feeling of contentment that a worker has and exhibits toward his or her work situation.Since job satisfaction is an individual liking more aspects of her job than she dislikes or a positive orientation of an individual towards the work role which she is presently occupying (Medina, 2012;Ladebo, 2011) as well as feelings about various aspects of the workers work setting, then it is a reflection of the match between what workers want from their jobs and what they actually receive (Medina, 2012).Positive attitudes towards the job are conceptually equivalent to job satisfaction while negative attitudes are equivalent to job dissatisfaction (Man, Modrak, Dima & Panchura, 2011).
Job satisfaction is also related to working mothers' job commitment.Employees who are satisfied with their jobs are also committed to their jobs as Lu (2007) found a positive relationship between job commitment and job satisfaction of working mothers.Satisfied workers are strongly committed to their organisations, they avoid withdrawal behaviours and maintain continued attachment to work.Hafer (2006) categorically opined that they are more productive and maintain an excellent quality of work.Contrarily to this, Aryee, Chu, Kim and Rhy (2013) and Alexander (2011) found that employees who are less satisfied with their jobs had stronger intentions to leave the organisation than those who are satisfied with their jobs and dissatisfied workers are not likely to recommend their organisations to a friend.Low levels of job satisfaction predict negative attitudes and behaviours in the work context such as absenteeism, turnover and reduced productivity (Salguero, Carrasco-Gonzalez & Salinas-Martinez de Lecea, 2010).Working mothers who experience more work-family conflict may likely be dissatisfied with their jobs.Greenhaus and Beutell cited in Jaga, Bagraim and Williams (2013) suggest that work-family conflict occurs when demands from work and family are mutually incompatible to some degree, hence work-family conflict occurs when demand from one role affects one's ability to meet the demands associated with another role in another domain.Today, many women do not want to just stay at home and do housework but want to work and excel in their careers.They see themselves as losing their self-esteem if they stay at home and therefore, they prefer to work outside the home.Work-family conflict takes place when one is forced to handle two different and incompatible roles at the same time (Gearson, 2011).For instance, there may be conflict when a person finds it hard to strike a balance between her role as a mother and her role as an employee especially when her child's demands for time and attention distract her from fulfilling the role for which she is employed.For a working mother, there could be conflict when she returns to work after maternity leave and management did not give her time off during the day to pump milk or breastfeed.This can cause difficulty in meeting both role expectations fully.
Working mothers may experience conflict because they lack access to childcare facilities during work hours.Cascio (2005) submits that only about 25% of large employers actually provide on-site or near-sit child care programs, even though the demands for such services are high.Poduval and Poduval (2009) therefore, opine that shouldering dual responsibilities may actually decrease productivity at the workplace coupled with the absence of satisfactory organisational support in the form of childcare facilities which may likely affect mothers' work behaviour.When an organisation makes provisions for its own child care facility the resultant effect is that absenteeism will be reduced while productivity as well as satisfaction will be enhanced.Consequently, Finn (2013) argues that maximum cooperation and commitment from working mothers will be realized if in addition to daycare services; a sick-child care centre is also provided which may help solve employee major problems leading to a decrease in absenteeism.
Organisational support is viewed by Allen (2001) as global perceptions about the extent to which an organisation is supportive of an employee's work-family balance.Organisational-related work support embraces family-friendly policies and supportive organisational culture which is necessary to enable working mothers to become committed and satisfied with their jobs.They help employees to achieve work-life balance as well as decreased absenteeism, decreased turnover and increased employee performance (Colakogu, Osman & Atay, 2010).Organisational support includes every support received from the employer as policies or programs developed to help accommodate the needs of employees in the form of flexibility in work schedules, on-site child care, family leave, maternity leave provisions, lactation room and other breastfeeding support and child care support (Dixon & Bruening, 2005).
Yew (2010) submits that in organisations today, managers place great importance on the issue of job commitment and satisfaction of the employees yet employers fail to admit that every working mother who decides to breastfeed and return to work will need a degree of flexibility in order to breastfeed/pump during the workday.They also fail to realize that the needs of these mothers will also vary and have to be addressed on an individual basis (United States Breastfeeding Commission Report, 2011).The question now is, how can a working mother cope with the responsibility of work, child care and other family responsibilities?Most working mothers have young children and may need to breastfeed them exclusively to ensure the development of the child from birth till six months after which other foods can be introduced.The World Health Organisation ( 2006) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life.Exclusive breastfeeding is part of National Policy on Infant and Young Child Feeding in Nigeria which is aimed at ensuring optimal growth, protection and development of the Nigerian child from birth to 5 years of life (Federal Ministry of Health, 2005).According to this policy, all Nigerian mothers whether working or non-working is encouraged to breastfeed their children exclusively for the first six months of life.
The organisation where the mother works will determine to a greater extent her level of commitment and satisfaction.For a working woman to effectively complete the transition from pregnancy to motherhood, she will depend on the support provided by her employer.Premature termination or too short a maternity leave may have undesirable consequences in the form of poor job commitment and low level of job satisfaction.Mothers who lack support from their employers might experience workfamily conflict and are not able to combine child care with full-time work and so some leave their roles as employees.
Therefore, the increasing proportion of employees with family responsibilities suggests that workers, especially working women might need more family-friendly benefits or policies to help them handle their family demands beyond their paid work (Hon, 2002).The goal of such policies is to alleviate the negative effect of juggling the demands of work and family life in order to improve commitment and satisfaction.In Nigeria today, even though the government has put in place some of these policies, the effectiveness depends on a supportive organisational culture.Bernard and Major (2000) mention that employees may not have access to such policies if their organisations are not supportive.
Organisational support is related to work-family conflict, job commitment and satisfaction.Various supports received by working mothers in the form of family-friendly policies and supportive work-family culture will enable working mothers experiencing conflict between their work and family roles to adjust.When work and family life are balanced, then working mothers will also be satisfied and committed to their jobs.
Job tenure is likely to affect a mother's job satisfaction and commitment.Job tenure describes the number of years a worker has put into her job and The Cambridge Dictionary defines job tenure as the length of time an employee has worked for his/her employer.Gupta (2011) opines that job tenure is positively related to affective commitment.Therefore, employees with low affective commitment will choose to leave their jobs while employees with high affective commitment will stay for longer periods on their job.Working mothers who have spent a greater number of years on the job are more likely to experience less work-family conflict and may be better committed and satisfied with their jobs since it is possible that they have identified a method of balancing work and family which suits them than mothers who just joined the workforce and who have little experience as employees.
With this array of different researchers' views, job satisfaction and commitment for a working mother may be difficult if the organisation or university where she works fails to provide flexibility in work schedules in addition to organisational support.Furthermore, mothers whose length of service on the job is less may likely find it difficult to adjust to the demands of work and family and hence might experience more workfamily conflict.
This study, therefore, investigated the contribution of organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure to the working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction in public universities in South West Nigeria.

Objectives of the Study
This study aimed to establish the contribution of organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure to the working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction in public Universities in South-West Nigeria.

Hypothesis
• There is no significant contribution of organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure on working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction in public universities in South-West Nigeria.

Organizational Support, Job Commitment and Job Satisfaction
USBC Report (2011) has found that without employer support in terms of lactation room provision, working mothers who breastfeed are at a greater risk of adopting behaviours that will negatively impact their company in the form of taking an extended leave of absence, losing focus on the job, discontinuing breastfeeding prematurely or not returning to work at all.Moreover, the findings of Yimyam (2009)  The absence of support from the employer is related to low job commitment among working mothers.Mensah (2011) conducted research to determine the effect of workplace support on job commitment and satisfaction and discovered that working mothers who return to work after maternity leave in Accra Ghana and received support from work and colleagues appeared to be more satisfied and committed to their job.The CDC Guide (2013) confirms that breastfeeding support led to a high measure of satisfaction in participants and a positive impact on success.Further studies (Balkam, Cadwell & Fein, 2011;Kathleen & Taylor 2013) indicate that support for lactation at work benefits individual families as well as employers through improved productivity and staff loyalty, enhanced public image of the employer; and decreased absenteeism, health care costs, and employee turnover.Respondents who agreed that their organizations are supportive of work-life balance were more satisfied with their jobs than respondents who stated that their organizations did not support work-life balance (Himilica, Kroupa & Vaskova, 2002).

Work-Family Conflict, Job Commitment & Job Satisfaction
Lower job satisfaction has been reported among female employees who have family commitments like duties in childbearing and rearing, the inadequacy of spousal support (Al-Rubaish, Rahim, Abumadini & Wosomu, 2009) while family size, years in marriage and age of the mother are associated with higher levels of work-family conflict (Frone & Rice, 1987;Kinnunen & Umauno, 1998;Simunic & Gregov (2012).It has also been proven that more conflict is likely to occur for a woman than a man because she typically has greater family management responsibilities.Studies by Aryee (1992) on the antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict in a sample of working women in Singapore concluded that there is a negative relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction.Other studies supporting this are Netemeyer (1996;and Oyewobi, Suleiman & Muhammad-Jamil (2012).It has also been discovered that work-family conflict was associated with diminished value attachment which was associated with a low level of job satisfaction (Anafarta, 2011;Greenhaus & Powell, 2003).It's been found in many studies that the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction is such that an increase in work-family conflict reduces the level of satisfaction (Netemeyer et a, 1996;Carlson et al., 2000;Lyness & Thompson, 1997).Working mothers with family responsibilities may spend more time with their children and therefore diminish their efficiency at work (Sinacore-Guinn, 1998).

Job Tenure, Job Commitment and Job Satisfaction
In a study on the career commitment of nurses, Nazarey (2001) found that years of experience is the best predictor of job performance.Patel (2006) also reports that the older the worker, the better job performance ratings, and also the older the worker, the longer the years of service and more experience resulting in better job performance and job commitment.Gupta (2011) discovers that individuals whose tenure of work is longer, tend to stay than employees with smaller tenure because older employees are more likely to believe in the organization and its mission than a newly employed worker.Yew ( 2010) carried out a study on Job Satisfaction and Affective commitment among employees in the Tourism Industry in Malaysia, which also supported that older workers tend to be more committed since they are likely to experience greater satisfaction with their jobs than newly employed workers.In this study, Yew (2010) found that 74% of the younger employees have changed employers over the past 5 years while 39% intend to change employers within the next 2 years.Among older workers, the study discovered that only 58% of them have done so with only 23% of them indicating intent to change employment in the next 3 years.
The studies of Al-Aameri (2000); Coomber and Barriball (2007) reported similar results showing that duration of service has a positive correlation with job satisfaction.However, the research work of Akintayo (2010) did not support the above evidence.Akintayo (2010) discovered that there is no significant difference between experienced and less experienced workers in their experience of role conflict, in essence, this may not account for their level of commitment and satisfaction.

Research Design
This study adopted the descriptive design of the ex-post facto type.

Target Population
The target population for the study comprised of all employed mothers working in all the selected public universities in South-West Nigeria totaling seven thousand, two hundred and ninety-three (7293).South West Nigeria is made up of six (6) States.These states are Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo States.There are a total number of thirteen (13) public universities (6 Federal and 7 State) in the six (6) states that makeup South West, Nigeria (Ministry of Education, 2015).

Sample and Sampling Technique
One thousand, five hundred and twenty-six (1,526) working mothers comprised the sample for this study chosen from the population through the multi-stage stratified random sampling technique.This is because it is a stage-by-stage system of sampling method.The states were selected first through a simple random sampling technique.Out of the six states that make up South West Nigeria, three states were selected randomly by balloting.Secondly, the universities were stratified into federal and state and one federal and one state university was selected from the three states respectively.For Ogun State, since there is more than one state university, the researcher employed the simple random sampling method by balloting to pick one university out of the two state universities.Thirdly, the selection of working mothers that participated in the study was done using a proportional stratified sampling technique.This is because the researcher selected 21% of working mothers from each of the universities that emerged from the selection making a total of one thousand, five hundred and twenty-six (1,526) respondents.However, out of this number, only thousand four hundred and fifty-six (1,456) respondents dully completed and returned the scales given to them representing a 95.4% attrition rate.

Instrumentation
The following instruments were adopted for the study:

Demographic Data Form
This section tapped information on age, job tenure, number and ages of children, name of the university, years in marriage, nature of the job (teaching or non-teaching) etc..

Job Commitment Questionnaire
This scale termed "investment model" was developed by Farrell & Rusbult in 1981 to measure commitment incorporating three components of satisfaction, investments and alternatives to commitment was adopted for this study.It has 24 items with 9 options, for example: "how long would you like to stay at this job?" 1 = short period of time and 9 = long period of time.The reliability was high showing the first time, 0.88, 0.92 the second time, 0.92 the third time and 0.93 the fourth time.The researcher adopted the initial validity established by Rusbult and Farrel (1983) which reported a divergent validity of .60,.56,.55 and .53 for the first, second, third and fourth times respectively.

Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS)
Babin and Boles (1998) six ( 6) item scale was adopted to measure Job Satisfaction.Respondents indicated the extent to which they agree with each item reflecting their level of satisfaction with their jobs by using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), for example, "my job is very pleasant".The developers of the scale reported a reliability of above 0.70 indicating adequate internal consistency.

Organizational Support Questionnaire (OSQ)
To measure Organizational Support, the researcher adopted a 20-item scale termed "Organizational Support Questionnaire" developed by Thompson and Lyness (1999) on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) with a coefficient alpha of .92.

Work-Family Conflict Scale (WFCS)
To measure Work-family conflict, the researcher adopted a 10-item scale termed "Work-Family Conflict Scale".This scale was developed by Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian (1996).The scale assesses the extent to which work-family conflict affects workers' work and family lives.Respondents indicated the extent to which each item reflects their views on the intensity of their experience of work-family conflict by using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).For example, "the demands of my work interfere with my home and family life".On psychometric evaluation of the scale, the developers reported coefficient alpha levels ranging from .83 to .89, with an average alpha of .88 for Work-Family Conflict (WFC), and of .86 for Family-Work Conflict.They also carried out a discriminant validity test for Work-family Conflict (WFCS) and the estimates were .48,.33 and .42 for samples 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

Method of Data Analysis
The SPSS was used to analyze the data generated from the questionnaires.Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze section A which borders on demographic information.Canonical analysis was employed to test the hypotheses.The significance level for testing the hypotheses was placed at 0.05.

Hypotheses Testing
Hypothesis One: There is no significant contribution of organisational support, workfamily conflict and job tenure on working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction in public universities in South-West Nigeria.
The results of the canonical correlation analysis in Table 4.2.1(a)indicated a significant contribution of organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure on working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction in public universities in South-West Nigeria.The canonical correlation for Factor 1 was statistically significant (Rc = .283,F = 47.706;p <.05).The canonical correlation for Factor 2 was equally statistically significant (Rc = .174,F = 21.773;p <.05).The relatively most important variables based on the standard canonical coefficients are for the first factor, in the case of dependent variables, job satisfaction (.657), and job commitment (.479) and in the case of independent variables, job tenure (.671), organizational support (.579) and work-family conflict (-.523).The canonical loadings are more interpretable data than the canonical coefficients.These are the correlations between a variable in a set and its own canonical variate.They reflect the loading on a factor.According to the guiding principle, loadings equal to .30 to .39 are viewed as significant, .40 to .49as more important, and .50 and above as very significant.The two dependent variables vis-à-vis job satisfaction (.657) were very significant while job commitment (.479) was more important.Among the independent variables, job tenure (.671), organizational support (.579), and work-family conflict (-.523) were very significant.These findings mean that organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure are related to working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction in public universities in South-West Nigeria.The redundancy index is the amount of variance that one set of variables (either the independent or dependent set) is explained by the other set.Because one set of variables is considered as dependent and the other set as independent, this study sought after knowing how much variation in the dependent set is explained by the independent variable set and vice versa.The results of the redundancy analysis are presented in Table 4.2.2(b).
The results of the redundancy analysis in Table 4.2.1(b)indicated that with organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure set as the independent variable, a redundancy index of 4.734 was revealed, indicating that about 4.734% of the total variance in organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure is accounted for by the factors of working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction.With job commitment and job satisfaction set as the dependent variable, a redundancy index of .76552was revealed, thereby predicting 76.55% of the total variance in working mothers' job commitment and job satisfaction is accounted for by organisational support, workfamily conflict and job tenure.

Discussion of Findings
The hypothesis that stated that "there is no significant contribution of organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure on working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction in public universities in South-West Nigeria" could not be sustained by the outcome of this study.The reason for its rejection is that organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure actually significantly contributed to the job commitment and satisfaction of working mothers in public universities in South-West Nigeria.The explanation for this outcome is that working mothers actually need the support of the university administration in the form of extended maternity leave provisions, flexible starting and closing time, lactation support and others in order to become satisfied and committed.Furthermore, work-family conflict lowers job satisfaction and commitment among female employees who have family commitments and duties in childbearing and rearing.Job tenure has a significant contribution because older employees on the job may be more likely to tap from the support of their friends and colleagues at work than new employees who are trying to adjust to their new jobs.The outcome of the analysis shows that the independent variables contributed significantly to job commitment and satisfaction.However, they contributed more to working mothers' job satisfaction than commitment.
It is believed that due to the economic situation in the country, the lack of better job opportunities elsewhere and the pressing need to contribute to the financial upkeep of the family, working mothers show commitment by trying to fulfil the requirements of their jobs even though they may not be happy or satisfied with their jobs.Secondly, for women employees, there is more to job satisfaction determination because of the nature of women's existence and the gender roles imposed on them.This study, therefore, lends credence to the findings of Ogbogu (2013) that long hours of work, overcrowded job schedules, inadequate working facilities, family and domestic responsibilities, teacher-student ratio and cohesive heads of department accounted for work-family conflict among academic staff and this experience resulted into negative effect on level of job performance as well as well-being.This present study agrees with Karatepe and Sokman (2006) who in their studies reveal that work-family conflict impacts negatively women's job performance and well-being while Tang and Chang (2010) confirm that this tension contributes to poor job satisfaction because of the strain arising from multiple roles of women.
Among the independent variables, job tenure was very significant followed by organizational support and lastly by work-family conflict.This is not surprising because when employees are new to their jobs, they have to struggle with becoming adjusted to the new job, new environment, new colleagues, and new supervisors and all these may affect commitment to the job and satisfaction.This corroborates the studies of Nazarey (2001); Patel (2006); Yew (2010), Ntube and Samuel (2014) on the impact of job tenure on individual factors such as satisfaction and commitment at work.They found out in their different studies that employees' experience at their jobs based on job tenure assists them find jobs that match their needs.It is possible that during the early years of their careers, married working women especially those in their early twenties and thirties pass through certain experiences like marriage, childbearing and family care responsibilities.All of these tend to interrupt their job commitment.
The studies of Gupta (2011) found that job tenure is the best predictor of job commitment and satisfaction.It then implies that the older the worker, the better job performance ratings and also the older the worker, the longer the years of service and more experience resulting in better job satisfaction and job Working mothers whose tenure of work is longer, tend to stay than working mothers with less tenure because older employees are more likely to believe in the organization and its mission than newly employed workers.
Conclusively, working mothers who have spent a greater number of years on their jobs are more likely to experience less work-family conflict and may be better committed since it is likely that they have identified means and strategies for coping with their dual roles and still be committed to their jobs, unlike mothers who have spent a smaller number of years at work.Older employees are better able to benefit from the support of their friends and colleagues at work in contrast to new employees who are trying to adjust to their new jobs.
Organisational support was also found to make a significant contribution to the dependent variables.This is because working mothers especially those with young children may need support from the university administration in the form of extended maternity leave provision, flexible starting and closing times, flexible work-schedules, lactation support, etc to be committed and satisfied.However, when the university fails to provide the needed support, working mothers may adopt behaviours that will negatively impact the university assignment in the form of taking an extended leave of absence, losing focus on the job, discontinuing breastfeeding prematurely, or not returning to work at all.The finding of this study is in line with that of Wann-Yih and Htaik (2011) who found that organizations obtain favourable outcomes from favoured treatment of employees.Employees who are treated well and are shown concern and support are more likely to be satisfied and involved in the organization (Aselage & Eisenberg, 2003;Eisenberge et al., 2001).
The findings of Yimyam ( 2009) demonstrate that obstacles in the efforts of working mothers to take care of their family responsibilities while at work are a problem that affects mothers' job commitment and satisfaction.This finding is also similar to the report of research carried out by Cumings (2007); Monyihan and Pandey (2011) and Mensah (2011) indicating that working mothers who received support from their organizations appeared to be more satisfied and committed to their jobs.Further studies (Balkam, Cadwell & Fein, 2011;Kathleen, Kathleen & Taylor (2013) indicate that support for working mothers' benefits individual families as well as employers through improved productivity and staff loyalty, enhanced public image of the employer; and decreased absenteeism, health care costs, and employee turnover.
Further on this discussion, it was found that work-family conflict has a significant contribution to job commitment and satisfaction of working mothers in public universities in South-West Nigeria.The reason behind this is not far-fetched.Observation has shown that when people experience conflict, they may become unproductive and for working mothers, conflict at work and at home may create tension preventing them from being satisfied or committed with both work and family roles.This study also agrees with the findings of Al-Rubaish, Rahim, Abumadini & Wosomu (2009) that work-family conflict contributes to job satisfaction and job commitment.It lowers job satisfaction and commitment among female employees who have family commitments and duties in childbearing and rearing.Aryee (1992) supports a negative relationship between workfamily conflict and job satisfaction.Other studies supported by this recent study are Netemeyer (1996); Boles (2001); Hung, Allison, While & Louise (2006) and Oyewobi, Suleiman & Muhammad-Jamil (2012).Working mothers with family responsibilities may spend more time with their children and therefore diminish their efficiency at work (Sinacore-Guinn, 1998).
This present study is consistent with Ogbogu (2013); Karatepe and Sokmen (2006); Tang and Chang (2010);and Adelabu (2005).Ogbogu (2013)'s findings from 250 women selected from three Nigerian public universities in the South-West supports that experience of work-family conflict can contribute to job performance and further to job satisfaction of female employees in Nigerian public universities.According to Adelabu (2005), job satisfaction is determined by pay, fringe benefits like housing and car loans, free medical services, early payment of pension and gratuity, career advancement prospects, vocational intent, status, competence and working conditions.
Furthermore, although work-family conflict contributed significantly to job commitment and satisfaction of working mothers in public universities in South-West, Nigeria, yet from the outcome of the analysis its contribution is not as much as that of job tenure and organizational support.In the researcher's opinion, the length of years spent on the job as well as the support provided by management in terms of family-friendly policies and supervisor support for work-life balance will go a long way in assisting mothers overcome the conflicts between family and work.It then implies that having longer job tenures and organizational support reduces work-family conflict for working mothers.

Conclusion and Recommendation
This study has been able to affirm that all the independent variables (organisational support, work-family conflict and job tenure) contributed significantly to working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction in public universities in South-West, Nigeria.Job tenure was very significant in contributing to working mothers' job commitment and satisfaction followed by organizational support and lastly by work-family conflict.These findings are attributable to the nature of women and their unique gender roles which predispose them to desire an appreciable level of support from management, reduced work-family conflict and longer job tenures to engender their job commitment and satisfaction.It was recommended that university management should endeavour to improve staff retention efforts since longer tenures on the job equip employees with the necessary skills to become more committed and satisfied, provide childcare facilities in every unit, implement flexible resumption and closing times for nursing mothers and extend maternity leave to 16 weeks in order to enhance their commitment and satisfaction.
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demonstrate that obstacles in the efforts of working nursing mothers to maintain lactation while at paid work is a problem that may affect mothers' job commitment and satisfaction.The report of a research carried out by Cumings (2007) among IT workers indicated that working conditions and work environment is capable of influencing job satisfaction.The studies ofBright (2008)andMoniyan and Pandey (2011)are in line with this result.

Table 4 .2.1(a):
Canonical Correlation, significance, coefficients, and canonical variate loadings of significant contribution of the independent and dependent variables

Table 4 .2.1(b):
Redundancy Analysis of Dependent and Independent Variates for the Canonical Functions