Influence of empty-nest syndrome in the family life cycle on emotional and social adjustment of teachers in Lagos State

Abstract

As people pass through different stages in life, they are faced with the challenges that come with their new responsibilities, stage or age. Empty-nest syndrome is one of such challenges which is mostly thought as being characteristic of people in the empty-nest stage of the family life cycle. This study examined the influence of empty-nest syndrome and family life cycle on social and emotional adjustment of teachers in Lagos State. This was a descriptive study which adopted a survey research design. The researcher adopted multi-stage sampling technique to select three hundred teachers from fifteen randomly selected schools in three randomly selected education districts in Lagos comprising a target population of all the married teachers in Lagos State. The researcher used four validated research instruments namely; Social Adjustment Questionnaire (SAQ), Emotional Adjustment Questionnaire (EAQ), Marital Adjustment Questionnaire (MAQ) and Empty Nest Syndrome Questionnaire (ENSQ) to gather relevant data on the study variables. The researcher tested nine hypotheses by using 3-way ANOVA and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. There was significant difference in empty-nest syndrome of teachers with respect to the interaction between gender and marital adjustment. Gender and family life cycle have significant interaction influence on empty-nest syndrome of teachers. There was need for women to continue to receive more attention in receiving help on empty-nest syndrome. Marriage counsellors should include teachings on empty-nest syndrome in their services to ensure that couples eventually utilise marital coping in curbing the experience of empty-nest syndrome. The gray area of this present research where maritally adjusted contracting families experienced empty-nest syndrome more than maritally maladjusted contracting families can better be illuminated by further studies.

Keywords: Empty-nest syndrome, Family Life cycle, Social Adjustment and Emotional Adjustment