Social Support Available to Commuter Couples in Jos,Nigeria

Abstract

Commuter couples are married couples who do not share the same residence due to work and career commitments. In this study, heterosexual married commuter couples were studied concerning their social support networks to include people or activities they rely on to share their burdens and day-to-day activities when their spouses are not with them. The article reports on what social support is available to commuter couples in Jos, Nigeria and how these couples make use of the identified support networks to secure work-life balance. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 17 commuter couples in Jos, Nigeria and is a part of a larger study. Results show that commuter couples studied identified emotional and instrumental social support that serves as a succour to their stressful work and daily lives. These include immediate close family members such as parents and siblings who understand their lifestyle as commuter couples and encourage and support them in various ways including child care, meal preparation and even moving in with them to ease the burden of taking on certain responsibilities alone; colleagues and kind bosses in the workplace who facilitate their visits home and give them the flexibility to cope with the home front; personal religious practices were also identified by couples to see them through tough days and difficult challenges.

Plain Language Summary

The research paper set out to find out what social support networks were available to commuter couples in Jos Nigeria. The study used qualitative research methods to collect data for the study. A snowball sampling method was employed to ask a few people engaged in a commuter marriage in Jos to participate in the study. The present study on social support available to commuter couples notes that the challenges and ambivalence commuter couples encounter make positive social support invaluable. Feelings of ambivalence and challenges are tied to what people think of their marriage. Therefore when commuter couples encounter social support among family members and colleagues who help them navigate their feelings of joy and sadness with the instrumental and emotional support they offer, commuter couples are more likely to do well and their marital, family and work relationships will thrive. This study will add to the growing body of literature on commuter couples and contemporary families in Nigeria and Africa and also help family practitioners and the public gain more insight into the commuter marriage phenomenon. The study is limited by the small sample size that participated and the study area, which is Jos. It will be beneficial to have more participants from a more diverse population of study.

Introduction

Commuter couples are married dual-earner/dual-career couples who live apart from each other due to work-related commitments. Commuter couples live permanently in one “main” house but either one or both of them stay temporarily in different places of residence that are nearer to their place of work (Gregorio, 2020). A commuter arrangement between couples may arise because both individuals in the marriage want to maintain their relationship over distance while also giving both partners’ career aspirations equal priority (Ralph, 2015, p. 25). Couples who agree to this lifestyle are likely to encounter the costs and benefits associated with this. Some costs could be less emotional support daily and feelings of loneliness (Roslan et al., 2013). Chrishianie et al. (2022) further point out that in a commuter marriage, everyday life experiences and activities are not shared and this could lead to numerous challenges including the pressure to balance family and work hence the need for social support.

The decision to commute is not usually made on a whim, without strong considerations for the marriage and family. Nastiti and Wismanto (2017) opine that married couples usually want to live together but when faced with career choices that demand their living apart for a while, the choice to live apart is made due to certain social and economic realities. For example, there may be inadequate housing for the family at the “work” residence and in cases of transfers or trying out a new job, the couple may decide it is a temporary transition and may not want to make a permanent or semi-permanent change in terms of housing, child care and social networks to mention a few reasons as people usually make choices that they can have a certain measure of control over (Hitlin et al., 2015; Huinink & Feldhaus, 2009). It has been noted severally that commuter couples usually embark on a commuter marriage because they are optimistic it is a temporary arrangement which will soon come to an end and the family can continue living together again (Kumswa, 2018; Kumswa et al., Agboola, Kang’Ethe, 2022; Lindemann, 2017; Rabe, 2001).

Benefits of a commuting lifestyle for couples may include career development and opportunities to develop self-identity (Ralph, 2015) as well as being independent with the ability to take care of things on their own (van der Klis & Karsten, 2009). Moreover, the decision to relocate is often based on the best career option, commitment to the career and higher income and benefits to the family (Anderson & Spruill, 1993; Lucchini et al., 2007; Roslan et al., 2013). Nastiti and Wismanto (2017), further allude that other benefits of a commuter marriage are equal participation, commitment and mutual trust.

Ambivalence and Challenges in Commuter Marriages

Related literature reviewed on commuter marriages shows that commuter marriages are filled with ambivalence as well as challenges that make positive social support a much-needed help for commuter couples.

Ambivalent feelings are those mixed feelings of joy and sadness experienced by individuals over a certain phenomenon. Palmberger (2019) clarifies ambivalent feelings as those feelings of relational experiences tied to intimate relationships. Blank (2022) found that commuting couples had feelings of ambivalence when they considered their marital relationship status in terms of feeling lonely, missing their spouses and children and also what they can achieve in terms of their personal goals. Faure et al. (2022) found that ambivalence in committed relationships serves as a functional catalyst toward ensuring that the relationship works out. This could become a good thing for commuter couples who worry about the status of their relationships when compared with traditional marriages and what family and friends think about their marital arrangement.

Challenges in commuter marriages arise from numerous factors. Some of the most significant of these are highlighted by Govaerts and Dixon (1988, pp. 266–267) to include normative stress arising from comparison with the traditional societal norms, absence of intimate communication, the spouse saddled with the care of children and management of the family home has immense responsibilities, times of separation that are not pleasant owing to loneliness, guilt and dissatisfaction, especially for the spouse who is away from family everyday life, and responsibilities, the disruption to family interaction and the unique problems of advancing careers.

This is further buttressed by Lindemann (2017) who adds that commuter couples also face the challenges of reduced physical intimacy and the feeling of being judged by others about their non-traditional form of marriage. Other challenges highlighted by Yan-Li et al. (2020) are the fact that commuter couples who viewed their marital status with a negative perception based on societal expectations that married couples ought to live together had disruptions in their lives as spouses, workers and parents. Another challenge raised by A’yun and Shanti (2021) is that commuter couples due to their being apart due to work commitments for varying periods often have inefficient communication leading to unsolved conflict which can be emotionally draining leaving these couples with negative evaluations of their marriages. Positive social support systems could help commuter couples overcome these challenges.

Objective of the Study

From the foregoing, it is apparent that the ambivalence and challenges encountered by commuter couples will make social support invaluable. This study, therefore, seeks to find out how commuter couples in Jos Nigeria, were able to appropriate social support during their time apart.

Study Questions

What social support was available to commuter couples in Jos, Nigeria?

How did the social support commuter couples receive affect their commuting trajectory?

Theoretical Considerations

In this study, the Social Support Theory and the Life Course Theory served as frameworks for understanding how families depend on social support to balance work and family. Social support is a causal contributor to well-being including spouses, friends, and family members who serve as a buffer during stressful events (Cohen & Wills, 1985). Furthermore, direct and indirect social connections are embedded in social relationships within the family and intimate settings which determine how relationships matter to people and the consequences of these relationships (Viry & Herz, 2021). Social support has been described in various ways and can be categorized into different forms and types. Social support also can come from a diversity of sources on culturally shared norms and expectations. The social support theory emanates from the assumption that social support is embedded in relationships and provides a buffer for the well-being of individuals during challenging times. Three core components of social support are social networks (existence, quantity, and types of social relationships), perceived support (perception that social relationships have provided resources), and supportive behaviors (the receipt of behaviors that help individuals manage strains). Social support theory also describes the functional content of relationships and can be categorized into four types: emotional (providing empathy,), instrumental (offering services), informational (giving information) and appraisal support (supplying practical resources for self-evaluation) (Cohen & Wills, 1985; French et al., 2018; Sendra et al., 2020).

Of the three components of social support mentioned above, social networks and supportive behaviors can be operationalized for a beneficial study on commuter couples. Due to the nature of their work and living arrangements, commuter couples depend on social support to help them balance work and family. Social support networks can create places of refuge through which individuals and families can experience ways of reducing and coping with negative stressors in the workplace and at home. This support can be instrumental where actual help is rendered, such as childcare or helping with a task, or it could be emotional, such as when caring or sympathetic behaviors are displayed. This support could come from work or non-work sources such as co-workers or family (Omilion-Hodges & Ptacek, 2021; Riley et al., 2021). As a commuting family, access to social resources makes a difference in the life course of the family as social support is crucial and provides a foundation to go through various transitions in the life course as it relates to linked lives and social ties. This study on commuter couples embraces emotional and instrumental support as key aspects of support that occurs in their network relationships.

The life course theory is concerned with studying and understanding how individual lives evolve and unfold over time. It is a perspective that integrates individual and family studies. It also represents a major change in how human lives are studied and thought about. It is used in research, providing a framework for examining individual lives concerning aspects such as crime, family health, and demographic history and in various scholastic disciplines, including sociology and psychology. Levy and The Pavie Team (2005) state that the life course theory is important as everything humanly significant can be found in the life course as it takes into full account the fact that lives are a continuing process. According to Elder (1994), four fundamental principles characterize the life course: lives and historical time, timing of lives, linked lives and social ties, human agency and personal control. Of these four principles, three principles explain how individual experiences are linked to a larger socio-historical context and are used toward the arguments in this paper, these are the principle of lives and historical time, linked lives and human agency and personal control. The principle of linked lives in the life course theory is that human lives are linked and dependent on each other as exemplified among the study participants. Experiences are felt not just by those directly affected, but by those close to them. Individuals have a network of social relationships with close family members (the significant other), distant family members, friends and colleagues (Rau & Sattlegger, 2018; Vacchiano & Spini, 2021). Human agency and personal control is another principle of the life course theory that brings to the fore the understanding that individuals plan their life course through the decisions that they make and how they act them out (Landes & Settersten, 2019). Personal religious practices served as a form of agency couples in the study employed over the life course to cushion the effect of stress on the commuting trajectory.

Methodology

The present study has an underlying interpretivist paradigm and therefore a qualitative research methodology was deemed best suited for the study. The qualitative method was informed by the theoretical framework of the Life Course Perspective as explained above, and also by the epistemological nature of the research which views how the actions of actors have shaped their world as it concerns couples in a commuter marriage. Data for this study were collected using qualitative research methods. Denzin and Lincoln (2000, p. 8) state that in qualitative research, there is an “intimate relationship between the researcher and what is being studied” and that qualitative researchers “seek answers to questions that stress how social experience is created and given meaning.” Thirteen personal interviews using a semi-structured interview guide and one group interview were conducted in Jos, Nigeria.

The snowball sampling technique was employed to recruit participants as it was not easy to identify commuter couples in Jos. Snowball sampling is a process whereby a few interested participants who fit the research criteria are recruited to participate in the research while they are asked to also refer the researcher/ research team to other potential participants who also fit the research profile (Parker et al., 2019). This process could keep going until the researcher/research team end the interrogation process.

The participants included 13 women and four men who were involved in a commuter marriage at the time and had been married for a year or more at the time the interviews were conducted. Participants had an average of two children from less than 1 year to 20 years old following the length of their marriages. Participants were selected on this wide spectrum to determine changes and peculiarities among couples by the length of the marriage, in the hope that it would add some richness to the data analysis. Participants were between 30 and 52 years old and had at least a tertiary education and indicated a wide range of occupations including bankers, civil/public servants, businessmen/women, lecturers, lawyers, politicians, primary and tertiary school teachers and medical doctors. Their commuting history showed that the minimum number of years engaged in a commuter relationship is 2 years and the longest is 21 years.

Participants also kept a time diary for 7 days. Rania et al. (2015) used time diaries in their study to determine the time and place certain activities took place. The time diaries used in this study tried to capture a similar thing. The time diaries were designed on A4 sheets of paper where each day was divided into 24 hr over 7 days and participants were asked to write a summary of what they did during the day on an hourly basis. The diary was given to them to fill in after the interviews were conducted, to have a picture of the activities commuter couples engage in. The data was analyzed by doing a thematic analysis (See Attride-Stirling, 2001). A thematic analysis is a process of drawing data from interviews to understand the meanings and how they are related to each other (Sundler et al., 2019).

The transcripts from the interviews and the time diaries formed the corpus from which the themes were unearthed. The quotes reported below are verbatim in the English used during the interviews. Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the University of South Africa (UNISA) and informed consent was sought from participants before interviews began. They gave their consent by signing informed consent forms prepared for the study. Additionally, participants were assigned pseudonyms in a bid to guard their true identities and in conformity with the ethics of research.

Study Area

My consideration for Jos as a study location began with an observation I made in the housing estate where I resided in 2011. It occurred to me that all of the wives and one husband were at home with the children for varying degrees of time from weekdays to 3 weeks or even longer because their spouses were employed in another state. I observed this trend in more detail and found that in various groups I am involved in, such as my place of work, the church I attend and my children’s school, there were many cases of people engaged in commuter marriages. In addition, my neighbors also mentioned they have friends and colleagues who are involved in commuter marriages.

Plateau State in Nigeria has a population of about 3.5 million people (Plateau State Government, 2023) located in 17 Local Government Areas with diverse cultural values. The state capital Jos is comprised of two Local Government Areas Jos North and Jos South, designated as the Jos metropolis (Miner et al., 2020). It can be described as a semi-urban environment which is not as big as the commercial capital of Nigeria (Lagos) and the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja). Adetula (2005) observes that a significant proportion of the population of Jos is involved in the public sector and the representation in the organized private sector is weak. This observation is what makes people refer to Jos as a “civil service state” and it may be responsible for the observation of many commuter marriages as workers are likely to be transferred or travel out of primary homes to pursue work engagements.

Jos is well-loved for its peacefulness and beautiful weather as Maier (2000, p. 195) aptly states that “with its mild climate and clean, crisp air, …Jos is commonly regarded as Nigeria’s most attractive city. It grew up around the tin mines of the plateau, and for a while, during the colonial period Jos hosted the biggest population of whites in Nigeria, after Lagos.”

Relevance of the Study

The research findings will be a relevant addition to the commuter marriage literature across the globe from an African perspective as there is a dearth in Nigerian literature on the phenomenon being studied. The recent emerging literature on commuter marriages in Nigeria is sparse by geographic region. For instance, Nwobi and Iloeje (2020) present research on commuter couples in Universities in South-East Nigeria, while Adeniran et al. (2022) present findings on a comparative study on obstetric outcomes for women in commuter versus non-commuter marriages in South-West Nigeria. This present study in North-Central Nigeria will add to the conversation and give room for comparisons of the commuter marriage population across Nigeria as well as other investigations on the phenomenon. This study also adds to the body of knowledge in family research on contemporary African and Nigerian families. Family therapists, practitioners and members of the public will find this study beneficial to their various research and the growing body of literature in this area.

Findings: Types of Social Support Available to Commuter Couples in Jos

For this paper, four categories of emotional and instrumental social support were identified and discussed under the following subthemes: Family support, employers’ support, domestic help, and faith in God through prayers and church attendance.

Family Support

In traditional and collectivistic societies of which Nigeria is one, the support of extended family, friends, colleagues and neighbors are almost taken for granted. Aryee (2005) identifies distinctive features of the family in urban sub-Saharan Africa, of which Jos is a prototype, to have relations with elderly parents and the extended family, as well as employed domestic workers who constitute support for a family with employed adults. Social support, which is emotional and instrumental (Cohen & Wills, 1985), provides needed support for many professional women. Almost all the participants who were interviewed have one or both of the spouse’s parents, relatives and a wide array of friends and networks living in Jos who are available to render help at any time.

Participants narrate how their family has helped them live out their day-to-day lives, by supporting them in a variety of ways, most especially in the area of childcare and some domestic chores. The invaluable aid makes them realize that truly there are things money cannot buy. For instance, Uzo a barrister at law and a new mother narrates how grateful she is for her brother who was around to help around the house with changing bulbs and lifting heavy things during the time of her pregnancy. Now that she has had the baby, she is glad that she is close to her mum who is helping her out with the baby, knowing what is wrong with the baby and teaching her what to do. The birth of a new baby is a time of anxiety, especially for new parents albeit at varying degrees (Odinka et al., 2018). In Uzo’s words concerning the care of her baby, she says, family like having her around, they love it. It’s not a job (for them), you [I] feel comfortable leaving [going out to run errands] without looking back, no harm is going to come her way ‘cos you know she’s in good hands.

Lumya, a medical doctor, postgraduate student and mother of two young children believes that if her family had to move to where her husband is working, “it would be unimaginable” as her family and support network may not be present there to offer the help and support she currently enjoys. For her, her mother is late but her mother-in-law has been a great source of help especially when she has to make academic trips or keep long work-related hours. At other times, she states that she takes her children to her dad’s place and “just juggles it from there.” She cannot imagine her busy schedule without this dependable social support.

Linda a businesswoman and mother of one at the time, was pregnant with twins. Her sister who lived in with her and her aunt who lived close by were the support system that she relied on to help with domestic chores and childcare.

Michelle a university staff and mother of three states that:

My family members and parents are my support system, unfortunately for me, my husband is not from [Jos] so I don’t have relatives from his side to rely on. He doesn’t even know people here, so it’s my family that does everything, if I have to pick the children and I’m in a tight spot, I can just call them and I know, somehow, they will look for a way to help me out, everything is them…the day I went into labour for my last baby, it was my dad who took me to the hospital… truly if not for my parents augmenting in this area, I would have packed up and gone most probably.

Michelle understands how instrumental the support from her family is that she knows she cannot balance work and childcare without having them close by making her think that she would have gone to meet her husband at his location so they can share moments and home tasks.

Apart from helping with chores and day-to-day activities which almost all the participants reiterated, Saratu has this to say:

Family thinks it’s normal, all my sisters are in a commuter marriage, so If I’m not, they’ll think it’s strange… Just that their distances are not as long as mine.

Saratu states a different aspect of family support that is equally priceless in the statement above. If Saratu’s family see this as being the norm, then she can accept it and live her life normally because she has their support and affirmation and does not need to feel guilty or have to explain all the time to her family. This is a major area where family support is appreciated because they understand the circumstances. This support is invaluable as it also draws on insights from the principle of linked lives in the life course where experiences are felt not just by those directly affected, but by those close to them. Different kinds of kin social networks exist (Litwin & Landau, 2000; Mathews & Sear, 2013), however, this paper finds that the matricentric support network is more prevalent among the commuter couples interviewed. The primary home for most of these couples is also close to maternal kin, as close families of most of the mothers in this study lived in Jos. Macfarlan et al. (2019) suggest that a matricentric social system involves tight social bonds between kinswomen (e.g., grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and nieces), buttressing that labor and social support are interlinked. This serves to help understand why family support is the most important for the women in the study, as the labor and support rendered by female kin are deeply valued. Akanji (2012) found that Nigerian women seek solutions to their work-life balance by outsourcing childcare responsibilities to parents and relatives to help out when they are at work and also employing the services of domestic workers for household chores and general domestic labor. These findings are consistent with this present study which narrate the invaluable help of family members.

Crow and Maclean (2004) think that rising standards of living and mobility tend to loosen ties to local communities and kin, yet younger mothers remain connected to local support. This observation can be compared to the young mothers (Uzo, Lumya, Linda, Michelle, and Saratu) who participated in this research. These women, stay in the primary residence of the couple to work and take care of their children while the husbands go to work away from the primary home. Their opportunity for social mobility is greatly limited in this regard, but they are connected to a familiar support system. It would seem that at the time the decision was made to commute, they also had just started having children. This view can be linked to the Life Course Theory, where the timing of lives, linked lives and events contributed to their transitions on the life course. Here, the birth of the first child served as a transition contingent upon the wives as the primary caregivers of the family. The choice to move, coupled with the said lower standards of living in Jos, the connection to family and community and the help that would come from mothers and extended families, enabled the wives to feel more comfortable and less anxious to stay back in Jos while the husband embarked on the commute.

Employers’ Support

When employees are not fulfilled and satisfied in the workplace, accomplishing family responsibilities may be difficult (Zhou et al. (2019). Some formal employment establishments have various policies such as work leave, flexible work hours or arrangements for paid maternity and sick leave that are especially helpful to commuter couples. Recently, the Nigerian Government approved 14 days of paternity leave for fathers to properly bond with their new babies (Agbakwuru, 2021). This is a step in the right direction and is deemed helpful for all families.

Emmanuel a civil servant who works in South-Eastern Nigeria reflects on the support he received on several levels in the workplace:

It’s a new and unfamiliar terrain for me and I have not been able to get used to it. Sometimes I get to work after 8 am which is supposed to be my resumption time. I don’t want to ever clash with my boss because of my timing. My attitude towards work even changed when I was transferred to Onitsha, when I was in Asaba, I could go to work at any time and come at any time, but in Onitsha, I stay in the office till time to close. My colleagues understood when I resumed late for work due to traffic and that helps. When I was in Asaba, I saw others do it, they are used to it because they were born there but I am new to the place, the people, the attitude, my attitude towards work changed and I stay in the office and make sure I do my work so that I don’t clash with my madam (his boss)… My boss is kind and very helpful, and I have colleagues who are helping me work on my transfer, they are really helpful… this my coming is off record, my madam organized it for me, because, it is a long distance I have to plan it. I usually come once in two months.

He was able to adjust to the time of resumption even when he was in new territory because he had a helpful and understanding boss and colleagues. His being late to work was a result of traffic on the road during rush hour, which could range from 1 to 3 hr. His boss being considerate toward him made him change his attitude toward work and he emphasized not wanting to clash with his “madam” which implies he never wants the boss to call him to her office on account of his being late or any related work misdemeanor. He also mentions his boss giving him time off, the wife may not know the said boss because this is a network specific to the husband. In like manner, the colleagues and friends who help wives in the office, when the husband is away may never have a friendly relationship with the husband. Lee (2015) posits that the support and consideration of co-workers and supervisors can help a great deal in helping women deal with the emotional upheavals that come from having their husbands away from them.

Apart from Emmanuel, Samson has this to say:

I found a way of always stealing out to come and stay a week or two, usually more than the approved leave. Because of the situation in Maiduguri (referring to the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria), they (colleagues) understood with me.

Samson works at a university where the Boko Haram sect is very active and loss of lives and property is rampant. Boko Haram is a terrorist organization based in North-Eastern Nigeria and also operating in Chad, Niger and Northern Cameroon. Osasona (2022) explains that Boko Haram gained international notoriety as a terrorist group in 2014 with the abduction of more than 200 students in Chibok, North-Eastern Nigeria. Maiduguri is also very far from Jos so he values the help of colleagues who allow him to take the needed time off to balance work and family.

Chizo a civil servant who works at the Jos Airport is a mother of four boys who are older than most of the children of the participants in this study has this to say:

I don’t have a driver (her place of work is quite a distance from town, it’s almost an hour’s drive as it is two LGAs away from Jos) I got a driver but he didn’t last long…Thankfully, I got favour from my boss who allows me do my school runs.

Chizo’s boss’ consideration of her need to do school runs is supportive. Her schedule is such that she needs to leave the office well before closing time as her closing time and the children’s school closing time overlap. Her office is about an hour’s drive from Jos city. This means that once she drops the children at school, she is off to work and needs to leave the office at about 2.45 pm to get to pick the children up at about 3.45 pm. Her boss recognizes that she has this parental responsibility and that her efforts to get a driver did not work out.

Henry a civil servant with one of the government parastatals, did not have an experience as positive as the other participants mentioned above. He has this to say:

I was late for this interview because I went to the headquarters to seek a transfer and they are saying I am the head of the department and the work that has been assigned to me requires me to be here, but I am trying to convince them that I can do it better from Lagos and get more customers… Also, before the civil service helps families who are apart by helping make transfers easy but now it seems they are only interested in the output and not the personal lives of their staff. Like I have asked for a transfer, but they don’t see the need.

Not all bosses are kind as in the case of Emmanuel and Chizo, Henry has issues with his bosses not facilitating his move. He believes that this shows how the civil service in Nigeria has changed, family consideration used to take priority. The inability of the civil service to uphold their honor toward family values has been referred to in the public spheres by other civil servants, although, there is no written proof of this claim. The leeway given to parents by employers plays a huge role in commuter couples’ ability to cope with their situation.

Commuter couples receive support from every relevant linked life. In the case of employers, the ability to come home at unscheduled times and stay for longer than anticipated also takes into consideration bad roads and the cost of travel as well as the distances covered and other factors, to give commuter couples more time together. This historical timing principle of the life course theory finds the demographic reality of Nigeria, where resources are unevenly distributed among the populace amidst bad political leadership ridden with corruption and greed. This has an adverse effect on social and economic development making jobs difficult to access, causing families to adapt and cope in certain ways that seem detrimental to them and affecting the socioeconomic reality of families. A direct result of this is the negative effects on dual-earner households that make them resort to unsatisfactory coping strategies that make family life more stressful than it should be. Poor infrastructure, including erratic power supply, poorly maintained roads, inadequate health care and educational facilities and high inflation, make resources difficult to access and life chances unequal such that it behoves individuals to improve their quality of life beyond what the government offers (Abubakar & Dano, 2018; Akanji, 2012; Chirisa et al., 2018; CIA, 2024).

Domestic Help

Another support system identified was that of domestic help. Participants reported on domestic help received from hired workers. Obtaining the services of domestic workers is a choice most families make to help out with cleaning the home and taking care of as many domestic chores as possible. With the extended family, many families had distant relatives to help with these chores, but with industrialization and societal changes, getting paid domestic workers who are not related to you became the norm. Different families employ a variety of staff to meet their needs, some employ domestic workers during the day who resume work at a certain time and close at a certain time during the day, and some employ live-in domestic workers. Their preference for the age of the employee is also their prerogative. Some prefer older women as nannies, some take on younger girls with the aim of also training them through school or acquiring a skill such as computer basics, sewing or catering that could help them in their lives later after they stop working as domestic workers.

Plang (2014, 2016) states that there are three categories of domestic workers in Nigeria namely: the live-in domestic worker who lives in the employer’s home and is available during long and imprecise work days; the live-out or day workers who live in their own homes and resume work at given times; the third is the daily or hourly contract jobs which are preferred by workers who have children. In Nigeria, the most common are the live-in and the day workers.

Participants reported the following:

I also have a live-in nanny to help with the baby and the getting ready for work, school (Saratu).

I have a live-in help who stays with me, but she also goes to school (the help goes to school at the polytechnic in Jos) so Monday to Friday, we leave at eight and come back at about four. So,1 got someone to take care of my little boy while we are all out, she’s like a sister so the domestic chores are handled by me and her, she also helps with dropping my older daughter at school or picking her up when I’m really busy (Lumya).

I have a nanny who does not live in but comes in from eight am to five pm and so after this time, I have to make other arrangements (Tina).

I have two house helps… one in the morning and one live-in to help, especially with the baby (Michelle).

I don’t have a live-in nanny, but someone comes in to wash for me. The children are growing and my older daughter helps out. Once in a while, my sister comes to help… I use the services (the services of a rickshaw driver to help drop the children in school) sometimes because I realise, I need to rest so I don’t break down (Rebekah)

My paid help hasn’t come yet… I dread going back to my house where I know it’s just me and her, even when there is a house help, it’s not just the same (as family)… (Uzo)

The above quotations show how a variety of paid help is obtained for different tasks related to the household and childcare. Rebekah employs the services of two types of hired help, a lady who comes to do the laundry and the services of a rickshaw driver to help her drop the children sometimes at school when she can’t take them to school, especially if Simon is ill or she is tired. She also relies on her sister and daughter to help around the house regularly.

There have been instances where house helps did more harm than good in taking care of children, such as stealing, child abuse and kidnapping, negligence and so forth as shown by one such report on the Sahara Reporters (2015) online news platform. There have also been great stories and oral reports of house helps who have worked for years without incidence and are considered by their employers to be part of the family. There are also oral reports of employers who did not keep their part of the contract and were horrible to their staff with complaints such as sexual harassment, beatings, humiliation and lack of payment of wages. The contract that is entered into between the employer and employee is meant to prevent such negative experiences.

Changes in household structure have also made it necessary for commuter couples to employ paid domestic workers. These workers are employed to help make the running of the household smooth by doing whatever household duties were required of them. The real need for domestic workers in the dual-earner household is because the income the wife contributes in the home is needed and not a luxury therefore, she needs domestic help to make transitions between home and work smooth. In this regard, a gendered life course is examined as women are more likely to need domestic help to fulfill all their roles. Domestic workers will fill the gaps in helping women accomplish their caregiving and homemaker roles. The support network men and women employed also seemed to be gendered in assessment. The men seemed to appreciate their employers/work support more while women seemed to appreciate the domestic help more.

Religious Practices

Religious practices are the last category of emotional and instrumental social support identified by commuter couples in Jos. Religion features prominently in the portrait of Nigerian life with a population of over 200 million people being Christians, Muslims or Traditional Worshippers. However, the two main religions are Islam (53.5%) and Christianity (45.9%) (CIA, 2017). Religious commitments and values are strongly embedded in the lives of individuals and families as a whole, irrespective of the denomination they belong to. Religion encapsulates the personal faith individuals subscribe to. J. A. Schmidt (2005) identifies three dimensions of religiosity including personal faith where individuals have their beliefs or personal experience and intense devotion outside of organized religion, participation in organized religious activities such as attending religious services and identification with a particular religious community. Participants in this study, who all identified as Christians, speak about their faith in a personal way and act these faith practices in their lives in such a way that it informs their way of life. They carry their faith with them everywhere they go.

Prayer and belief in God, to handle situations they ordinarily cannot handle were employed by participants. Examples include praying for journey mercies on the unsafe Nigerian roads characterized by potholes, armed robbers, trigger-happy military and paramilitary officers, and safety in unsafe environments (like Henry who works in Maiduguri, the headquarters of the dreaded Boko Haram sect). When participants mention prayer, they do not mention it flippantly, but with a sense of awe in the reality that God (through prayer) can help them and bring a difference to the situation they find themselves in. In this way, spirituality serves as a social support mechanism because as J. A. Schmidt (2005) notes, religion is beneficial to people in that religious communities provide succour for people, particularly in times of stress. A personal relationship with God through faith practices, such as prayer, can give feelings of confidence, thereby “promoting a sense of security that is psychologically and physiologically beneficial” (J. A. Schmidt, 2005, p. 305).

Personal faith upholds couples in trying times and times of uncertainty as couples pray to God to help them through their commuter trajectory. Faith is taken hold of as agency over the life course as it serves as a motivational force with opportunities for expectations that things will be better, the commute will soon end, children will be better and everyday life will be bearable. With personal faith, commuter couples in Jos can shape their existence and use the resource available to them (including faith in God), to have optimistic outcomes in their lives.

Prayer

Prayer was mentioned often in the time diaries with participants spending time in prayers at specific times including morning prayers and church activities.

For him, he doesn’t like where he is so bringing someone there, doesn’t arise, so you are praying, Lord take me out of here, he is praying that this is not a permanent stop for me as long as he is praying that, then you know (Uzo).

Uzo talks about prayer in confidence, she believes that prayers will positively help their situation as a commuter couple. She states that as long as her husband is praying that his station in Aba is not a permanent stop for them coupled with the fact that he does not like the place and would not want to bring his wife there, then that could bring an end to the commuting aspect of their relationship. It could also lead to another place where he could ask his family to relocate if the conditions are favorable to their needs.

Now that I’m pregnant, I need him around, but he has not even stayed one week and he’s off. He is not around to pray with me and even lay hands on my tummy, I pray alone (Linda).

Linda expresses her dismay at the fact that her husband is not around to lay hands on her tummy in prayers for their baby’s development and safe delivery for her. Her worries are not unfounded as Adeniran et al. (2022) cite that Nigerian women in commuter marriages were more likely to have higher pregnancy-related complications including antenatal illness-associated hospital admissions, preterm deliveries and low birth weight babies than women not in commuter marriages.

I pray it will end soon… I know it’s not a religious thing, but prayer helps (Lumya).

On ending the commute and being helped in her day-to-day activities and her marriage, Lumya employs prayer with the belief that God will see her through her endeavors. She also advocates prayer to commuter couples to see them through this time in their lives.

We don’t hope to commute forever, there will be periods when I have flexibility as a politician and you pray there will be times, your business grows well enough to give you time to be away and use your time the way it suits you… Ultimately you can do your rat race, but it’s God who blesses, I know it’s not a Christian survey but it depends on your motivation and principles, as Christians, we believe God supplies and by whatever means He decides (Isaac).

Isaac employs personal faith in the confidence that God will provide and that it is not always about the efforts you put in but the help of God.

Even our flow together, even our spiritual and prayer lives, we can’t do these things together and it slows things down… sometimes, I even cry about it and take it to God in prayer (Michelle).

Michelle explains that when she is overwhelmed by all the running around and the juggling of activities and she feels tired, she resorts to prayer knowing like the other participants who mention prayer, that she can draw strength from God and receive help and grace in this situation.

Although prayer can be communal and shared by people, most references to prayer in this study are individual acts. Church activities, however, always imply communal events.

Attending Church Activities

Some participants also mentioned church activities as a social support system.

In Abuja, he hardly attends prayer meetings and all. He used to talk about being involved in one church, but I don’t hear him mention it again so I push him… I pray that God will help me with them… I’m just thankful for everything… God’s grace was available and I was coping even though he was not around… but I’m doing well. I leave it to God (Rebekah).

Participating in a religious activity is important for Rebekah, she wants her husband to attend church activities and be involved in a church at the secondary residence because she feels it shows their devotion to God and also, he can meet with people he can pray with and be accountable to. In doing so, he may find like-minded companions there so that he does not have to be lonely.

It is noteworthy that several of the female participants indicated attending midweek services during the week when they filled in their time diaries while Uzo specifically mentioned a leaders’ meeting and Dinah attended choir practice.

C. Schmidt and Roffler (2021) and Hope et al. (2019) opine that spiritual services lead to well-being; religious beliefs and practices are used to manage stressful circumstances and are essential to physical and mental health. Religious engagement is associated with attending church, volunteering, reading religious texts, and/or having a religious community. Chatters et al. (2014) describe religious activities as multidimensional to include denomination, attendance and devotional behaviors, further stating that the ideals of spiritual activities are protective of suicidal ideation and attempts as well as depression and also counterbalances the influence of stressors on personal wellbeing. The authors highlight the benefits of church-based social support networks that include direct aid and services such as help during illness, socio-emotional support, companionship, prayer and cognitive aid, including advice and information. These benefits could be the reason why Rebekah wants her husband to be involved in church and why the participants report that they attend church activities during the week. Religious coping mechanisms reduce stress and worry, giving a boost to individuals handling various life challenges. They emphasize that church-based social support is a good indicator of life satisfaction and indirectly causes more people to be optimistic about their lives as they see this as being closer to God.

Conclusion

The present study on social support available to commuter couples notes that the challenges and ambivalence commuter couples encounter make positive social support invaluable. Feelings of ambivalence and challenges are tied to what people think of their marriage. Therefore when commuter couples encounter social support among family members and colleagues who help them navigate their feelings of joy and sadness with the instrumental and emotional support they offer, commuter couples are more likely to do well and their marital, family and work relationships will thrive.

As commuter couples in Jos negotiate the social support available to them as well as distance themselves from those who do not understand the transitions they are going through, it is noted that these negotiations involve not just anyone but those individuals who are linked to them significantly over the life course. As a result of the merging of these significant lives with the commuter couples, commuter families realize that each life affects the next over their life course trajectory.

The family support commuter women in this study receive have been perceived as pertinent for the couples to receive the boost to continue their commuter trajectory. This is particularly noted when members of the extended family show their support to commuter couples by lending a hand to commuter couples, especially in times when they feel overwhelmed with childcare and domestic care. This invaluable aid from family members helps commuter couples realize that truly there are things money cannot buy. The support also makes commuter couples feel better about their commuting trajectory as family members understand what they are going through and do not judge or show bias toward them as their non-commuting friends have. This shows how commuter marriage couples compare their marriages with traditional couples who live together.