Working Women and CET: Enablers and Barriers

The role and expectations of working women have changed dramatically in many countries due to shifts in social and economic conditions, changes of legislative requirements about work and actions against discrimination and social demands. These include such as women wanting and needing to have as fulfilling working lives as males. Working women usually have additional family responsibilities, including managing the primary care of children and extended family members and, thus, often faced with greater challenges when seeking to pursue career pathways than male counterparts. Such family commitments tend to be heightened in Asian culture, such as is the case in Singapore. When engaging in continuing education and training (CET) to sustain their employability concerns, working women/mothers usually face heightened challenges associated with (i) managing study commitments alongside work and self-care, (ii) balancing study with family commitments, and (iii) balancing study with work commitments. There is, however, a complex of personal and work factors that variously hinder or enable working women’s participation and engagement in CET. So, provisions of CET are set amongst a range of other factors that support or inhibit participation and engagement of women workers. All this suggests effective CET provisions are required to meet the varied needs of these working age adults. Drawing on interviews with CET women graduates, this chapter seeks to understand their experience with CET courses in terms of enablers and barriers to their participation and engagement. Such understanding is pivotal to respond to the quest of what constitutes effective CET provisions for working women.