Antecedents of Family Conflict in Uganda

The purpose of this study was to explore the antecedents of family conflict in Ugandan. A qualitative approach was used in this study. A sample size of 139 participants provided data which was subjected to content analysis. Results revealed that the core themes associated with family conflict are finances and priority of resources. Further findings show that differences in tastes and interests, selfishness and lack of communication played a key role as causes of family conflicts. The implication of this study is that finances and priority of resources are antecedents of family conflict in the context of Uganda. Therefore, the antecedents of family conflict that emerged from this study can be understood, defined and analysed through the lens of social identity theory. Future research may include conducting quantitative studies with a particular demographic using the themes that have emerged from this study.

The international Anglican Communion forms the third largest Christian communion in the world (Worsley, 2015). Like in other continents, Africa has been permeated by many churches among which the Anglican Church has for several decades been one of the most dominant in the East African region (LeMarquand, 2011). In Uganda, the Church of Uganda is a member church of the Anglican Communion, with 34 dioceses each headed by a Bishop. For instance, the 2002 Census revealed that Anglican Ugandans were 36.7% of the total population and the 2014 census indicated that 32% of the Ugandan population constituted the Anglican Christians (Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2016).
With a history filled with diverse challenges, the relationship of the Church of Uganda and the Church of England continues to live with some disagreements. For instance, in 2013 the Church of Uganda disapproved of the Church of England's decision to allow clergy in civil partnerships to become bishops (Conger, 2017). Nonetheless, the teachings of such Christian values as loving one another, faith, submissiveness, and humility, constituted the formidable basis to investigate the core factors associated with family conflict (Anderson, Caldwell, Barfuss, 2019;Callaghan, 2017;Coutts, 2015;Hoehl, 2011;McKay & Whitehouse, 2015;Williams, 2016). This study expected that Anglicans were familiar with family bonds and therefore, their perceptions would be enhanced by a deeper understanding of family conflict.
In addition, intergroup behavior, intergroup conflict, as well as social norms within groups, are core tenets of social identity theory (Cuhadar & Dayton, 2011;Hogg, 2001Hogg, , 2016Tajfel, 1972;Turner, 1975). Several studies have investigated the family from the perspective of work, finances, business and resources (Danes, Fitzgerald & Doll, 2000;Habbershon et.al., 2003;Lee & Persson, 2012;Sarbah & Xiao, 2015;Schillaci et.al., 2013). Although most of these studies were conducted in developed countries, they do reveal unique findings. For instance , Lu et.al. (2009) investigated work resources and work-to-family conflict from a Tawanese-British cross-cultural comparison. Work resources are organisational or institutional support and benefits provided to employees (Lu et.al., 2009;Warren & Johnson, 1995). There are three types of work resources that can be used to promote work-family balance and these are family-oriented benefits, family-friendly organisational culture, and supportive supervisor practices (Warren & Johnson, 1995). The study by Lu et al. (2009) examined work-to-family conflict concerning work resources in terms of support and benefits in Taiwan and the UK and revealed that for Taiwanese and British employees, there was a negative relationship between work resources in terms of support/benefits and work-to-family conflict (Lu et.al., 2009).
Other family related studies, however, indicate contrasting findings. For instance, Habbershon et.al. (2003), Olson, Portner and Bell (1982), Olson et al. (1992) and Schillaci et al. (2013) found that the family brings about resource protection in the family. Resource protection is when the family exceeds the self-protective instincts of emotional ties over time by ensuring the survival of the dynasty and the firm (Schillaci et.al., 2013). These resource protections become benefits to the family in terms of creating a stable family with values while at the same time, it intensifies its strategic and competitive dimensions (Schillaci et.al., 2013). On the other hand, it was revealed that family involvement is associated with nepotism (Charles, 2011;Schillaci et.al., 2013). There is limited literature from developing economies which, therefore, limits our understanding of family and conflict especially since most studies have focused on the family regarding business and firms (Astrachan, & Pieper, 2012;Santiago et.al., 2019;Schillaci et.al., 2013). To advance knowledge of the family, this study explores the antecedents of family conflict in Uganda.

Family
Family comprises key components such as family functioning, child rearing, familial relationships, and the presence of intergenerational families (Emlen, 1995). Cox and Paley (1997) have described the family as a fundamental way of operationalising social structure. Levine, Sato, Hashimoto, and Verma (1995) mentioned that in western culture, the family is linked to legal institutions like marriage. Other scholars have defined family based on household composition (Milan & Bohnert, 2012;Vespa, Lewis, & Kreider, 2013). Family has also been referred to as having three key components which are blood ties, legal status, and residence (Tam, Findlay, & Kohen, 2017). In this paper, family is defined as parents and children living together. Tajfel (1972) is the originator of social identity theory and introduced the social identity tenets theorizing that people conceptualize themselves in the context of the intergroup. Turner (1975) added the concept of competition to enhance the positive identity of intergroup relations. Turner (1975) further explained that the relationship between perceived social identity and intergroup are social comparisons giving rise to processes of mutual differentiation between groups which can be analysed as a form of social competition. Turner (1975) stated that groups are a function of the relations between groups and may range from conflict through cooperation to complete fusion. Social identity theory was further developed in the 1980s, when the focus was on social influence and norms between or within groups (Hogg, 2016). The assumption of social identity theory is that individuals want a positive social identity and seek to improve their self-concept through their interactions with others in the group and between groups (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).

Social Identity Theory
Social identity theory also emphasizes the analysis of intergroup conflict (Hogg, 2016). However, social identity theory has received criticisms and gone through refinements over the years (Cuhadar & Dayton, 2011). For example, in 1989, Northrup refined social identity theory by stating that individuals belong to multiple identity groups rather than one identity group (Northrup, 1989, as cited in Cuhadar & Dayton, 2011). Other studies have mentioned social identity theory in research (Boyle & Magnusson, 2007;Cuhadar & Dayton, 2011;Hogg, 2001;Smith & Hogg, 2008;Stets & Burke, 2000). Smith and Hogg (2008) applied social identity theory to investigate social identity and attitudes. Since family is comprised of individuals interacting with others in the group and between groups, relationships between groups may range from conflict to cooperation (Balliet & Van Lange, 2012;Blandul, 2012;Chizhik, Shelly, & Troyer, 2009;Dayal, 2002;Hamilton & Catterall, 2008;Hoang, Haslam, & Sanders, 2019;He, An, & Zhang, 2019;Hochberg, Rankin, & Taborsky, 2008;Michel, Kotrba, Mitchelson, Clark, & Baltes, 2011;Radford, Majolo, & Aureli, 2016;Ratner, Meinzen-Dick, May, & Hauglund, 2013;Ratner, Mam, & Halpern, 2014;Ratner et.al., 2017;Vukovic, 2014Vukovic, , 2019. Boyle and Magnusson (2007) were interested in the utilisation of social identity theory to research social identity and brand equity formation. What is evident is that the context of intergroup, attitudes and intergroup conflict has, to some extent, been tackled as well as social norms between or within groups under social identity theory. However, few studies have examined antecedents of family conflict especially focusing on the Anglican family based in a developing economy context. Since family involves individuals interacting with others in the group and between groups, this study applies social identity theory to guide the analysis on antecedents of family conflict in Anglican families.

Antecedents of Family Conflict
Social identity related studies have revealed contrasting views on dynamic and gender in group affiliation (Boyle & Magnusson, 2007;Chapin, Green, & Neuberg, 2019;Charness & Rustichini, 2011;Raghubir & Valenzuela, 2010). For example, Boyle and Magnusson (2007) did a study on social identity and brand equity in the USA using a quantitative approach and found that social identity is dynamic and that gender is a social identity in group affiliation. Furthermore, these authors found that in the context of fans of a university basketball team, there was a significant positive relationship between the social identity of the alumni and the general public. This study was exclusive to the groups and intergroup identities but hardly looked at the family.
Other studies have focused on the family (Danes et.al., 2000;Fernandez-Lozano, 2019;Fomby, 2016;Lee & Persson, 2012;Lu et.al., 2009;McKeown, Pratschke, & Haase, 2003;Richard, Sverker, Hasselberg, Ostlund, & Hensing, 2017;Sarbah & Xiao, 2015;Sinnott & Artz, 2016). Danes et al. (2000) conducted a study in the USA and used regression analysis to investigate the relationships of financial decision, assertive conflict mode, and family business goal achievement for husbands and wives. The findings indicated that both husbands and wives managing finances predicted decision involvement, while off-farm employment and income adequacy perception predicted goal achievement (Danes et.al., 2000). Further results from the study by Danes et al. (2000) showed that tension over finances predicted assertive conflict mode for husbands while for the wives the prediction for tension over finance was from income adequacy perception. Similarly, Richard et al. (2017) did a study in Sweden using content analysis and concluded that a combination of individual, social and contextual demands were identified in work and sports-related experiences with near-injury situations.
McKeown et al. (2003) used regression coefficients and found that there was no statistically significant variation on the well being of children for the different family types examined in Ireland. Family types based in Europe could largely differ from those based on the African developing economy context. Lu et al. (2009) examined work-to-family conflict in relation to resources in Taiwan and the UK by applying Pearson's Correlation Coefficient and revealed that, for Taiwanese and British employees, there was a negative relationship between work resources being organisational support and benefits with work-to-family conflict. The study by Lu and others was largely based in more advanced economies, and we can hardly generalise such findings to the Ugandan situation. Similarly, Lee and Persson (2012) focused on family finances and entrepreneurial risk-taking. Lee and Persson (2012) noted that family finances builds trust but discourages taking risks in entrepreneurship. Equally, Fernandez-Lozano (2019) conducted a study in Spain on fathers as solo caregivers and findings revealed that fathers are more likely to be equal sharers when earning less than their spouse.
From the literature, it is evident that most research is from developed nations and that there are limited studies from developing nations. Even those studies that investigated the family, the majority examined family regarding business and mainly by quantitative methods. Therefore, to contribute to the literature gap, this study uses a qualitative approach to explore the antecedents of family conflict in the context of Uganda.

Method
The phenomenological approach was largely utilized in the context of this study. The study explored the phenomenon of family conflicts in reference to antecedents using this particular qualitative method. Phenomenological philosophy focuses on description and interpretation being inherent in experience (Davidsen, 2013;Neubauer, Witkop, & Varpio, 2019;Reiners, 2012;Tuffour, 2017). Qualitative data analysis was conducted through thematic analysis using NVivo 10 software tools. A case study design was adopted in this study due to the need to collect data from different sources (Naumes & Naumes, 2012). Case study design supports a deeper understanding of something which is unique to the given individual (Crowe et.al., 2011;Ridder, 2017). A convenience sampling technique was used to select the married men and women as respondents. The purposive sample assisted this study to select the pre-married men and women in order to conduct the face to face interviews between June to August 2017. A total sample of 139 respondents provided the qualitative data needed to understand family conflict. The face-to-face interviews happened in phases. The first phase of the data collection using face-to-face interviews consisted of 69 participants in a father's union family breakfast meeting in Kampala and provided information on antecedents associated with family conflict.
The respondents' answers were recorded on paper and subjected to coding and content analysis to discover the core emerging themes on family conflicts. The second phase of the qualitative data collection was carried out and 70 different participants in the same diocese took part in a premarital counseling session. They were constituted into 14 focus groups to discuss reasons behind the two major conflicts. The pre-married were later requested to form focus groups. Members were asked not to mention their names or age. In other words, the matters discussed were not linked to identity. The intention of the group setting was to allow freedom of debate on the matters. More insights were obtained from the young couples. Fourteen focus groups were formed. The young couples were requested to discuss the reasons why finances and priority of resources were causing conflict in the family.

Findings
The characteristics of the sampled respondents revealed that the majority were between 40 to 49 years old, male, married and had a university education. Further findings revealed that habits and beliefs as well as land, manifested as the least likely causes of family conflict and therefore the habits, beliefs and land were not taken on for further inquiry with the respondents during the second phase of the interview. Beliefs and habits being solid psychological concepts need psychometric analysis (Lee, 2012). Land was also not taken into consideration for further analysis as the concept of land needed more extensive in-depth analyses, especially with regard to the institutional voids related to land affairs in sub-Saharan Africa (Webb et.al., 2015). Nonetheless, this study is underpinned with socioeconomic patterns, and therefore, the priority of resources was considered for further analysis in this study.
Having discovered from the married couples across the different age groups that the frequent sources of family conflict were finances and priority of resources, the core reasons that cause these conflicts in the family were further investigated using qualitative analysis techniques. The participants from the second phase of the interview, through focus group discussions, were asked to create names that stood out to encourage competitiveness in the focus group discussions. Different titles manifested (i.e. Agape, Alpha Dynamite, Awesome, Brisca, Firm, Fortunate, Go-Getters, Happy, Oscar, Superstars, The Great Thinkers, The Visionaries, Victory, and Warriors). These groups presented their deliberations on the following guiding questions: What are the reasons that lead to conflict related to finances? What are the reasons that lead to conflict related to priority of resources?
The findings of the fourteen focus groups are shown in Table 1 and Table 2. The findings of the fourteen focus groups in Table 1 show the reasons for conflicts related to finances. Findings from the respondents as the most frequent reasons for conflicts related to finances were "lack of disclosure of finances/sources", "lack of openness", "insecurity", "not enough money", "unemployment", "lack of planning", "lack of or inadequate finances", and "selfishness". Failure to fully disclose finances or other sources of finance to your spouse, Failure to take responsibility in a home, Failure to support each other financially.

Go Getters
Finances are not always enough, Finances are used as a measuring yard stick, The more money, the more success, and the reverse are true, The partner who earns more is more authoritative/control, Men never disclose fully, and women are always inquisitive, Women are stingy.

Happy
Unmatched enjoyment, Expectations, Our money, your money, Failing to agree on common grounds, Poor communication, Money earning roles.

Oscar
Money is never enough because we have more needs, Stingy bread winners, Insecurity among partners, Women earning more than men.

Superstars
Everything to maintain a family is fulfilled by money; People earn money differently, Different upbringing/ background, Difference in spending patterns, Poor time allocation to family The Great Thinkers Non-disclosure, When one person is earning, No employment, Disrespect by ladies earning more than men, Pushing everything on one partner.

The Visionaries
High expectations in the family, Most men do not want their wives to work, Less farming in a society which means buying food all the time, Catering for extended family.

Victory
Lack of planning, Selfishness (my money, your money), Lack of financial openness, Inequitable financial distribution.

Warriors
Man's money is for the family, Selfishness, Money is never enough, Undisclosed money. Source: Field Data (2017) The findings of the fourteen focus groups in Table 2 shows that the reasons for conflicts related to priority of resources are extensive. The focus group called "Happy" was not able to provide information on reasons for conflicts related to priority of resources. Therefore, the findings for reasons on conflicts related to priority of resources are based on the remaining thirteen focus groups. The findings revealed that the strongest reasons for conflicts related to priority of resources that emerged frequently were "different tastes and preferences", "different interests", "selfishness", "communication which is termed as poor communication or lack of communication", "lack of planning in terms of planning or financial planning", and "prioritisation of resources". Decision-making process, Different interests, Family Ties.

Superstars
Different backgrounds, Interferences from other people, Difference in earning.

The Great Thinkers
Different dreams, Family extra income, High expectations from the ladies.

The Visionaries
The difference in temperaments, In case one person earns more than the other, Competition in choosing schools for your children.

Victory
Lack of family vision or investing and resource allocation, Background cultural differences, Aspirations verse expectations.

Warriors
Friends first before the relationship, Proper relocation of resources, Needs against wants, Putting children before the other partner, Making the man the last 'baby' of the house/home. Source: Field Data (2017) Further analysis revealed ideas from the respondents of the fourteen focus groups. The patterns and links relating to the ideas are presented in Figure 1 where the most frequently pronounced include finances and priority of resources. Figure 1 also illustrates that family, expectations, selfishness, and planning are other core concepts in this study. Four clusters manifested themselves from the ideas as indicated by numbers 1 to 4. In cluster 1, ideas on resources, finances, priority, teamwork, and communication have been grouped. Perhaps due to the fact that conflict has also been clustered here, there is a justification that poor communication, finances, resources use and absence of teamwork could explain the genesis of conflict.
Cluster 2 identifies what may be interpreted as personality issues relating to their mindset, attitude and behaviours such as selfishness, planning, interests, and openness, among others. These link the individual attributes that may create conflict. Cluster 3 collects background, earnings, allocations, and women together. The interesting part here is that women are sorted in this cluster yet men are put in cluster 2 interpreted as personality cluster. Whereas the women feature around the issues of background which may affect the earnings as well as the allocation of resources, the men feature in the personality cluster that also includes selfishness and planning issues. Therefore, in a family unit that comprises men and women, there is a need to deal with both personalities and background issues. Cluster 4 features mainly expectations, time, and children. Perhaps, besides the children taking time of the parents, they also bring in high expectations amongst family members and this is because children are growing and their needs continually feed the expectations 'basket' of their parents or caretakers.

The Link between the Core Themes of Family Conflict and Children as Perceived by the Respondents from the Focus Group Discussion
In this study, the concept of family is defined as parents and children, and thus intergroup analysis between parents and children is important in order to allow themes related to the cause of family conflicts to emerge. Because of this, a query on children and family conflict was undertaken, having observed that the idea of children was a prominent answer given by the respondents. The study's findings revealed that issues such as choosing schools, favoritism, unfaithfulness, priority, and lack of family vision does link the core conflict factors of finances and priority of resources to children. Further findings show that children are linked to expectations and family, while family is linked to finance, priority of resources, and conflict. These findings affirm that children are indeed pivotal and are linked to the two major subthemes of family conflicts. Regarding 'team,' there are several links to the word team which manifest from respondents' ideas. The respondents' idea of the word team is connected to finances, resources, priorities, and differences which link to family conflict matters.

Discussion
The socio-demographic characteristics results suggest that most of the respondents in this study were middle-aged married men with a university-level education. The results differ from the study by Boyle and Magnusson (2007), where the sample included only university students still studying at the undergraduate level while results of this study showed that most of the respondents were university graduates. Furthermore, the findings showed that the core themes of family conflict were finances and resources priority. The findings for finances as a core theme in family conflict suggest that there are many reasons that lead to conflicts associated with finances with the most frequent being "lack of disclosure of finances/sources", "lack of openness", "insecurity", "not enough money", "unemployment", "lack of planning", "lack of or inadequate finances", and "selfishness". The results suggest that family conflicts due to finances is greatly associated with hiding how much the partners are earning and thus creating situations where there is a lack of disclosure, openness and feelings of insecurity. Furthermore, the results also imply that "finances" is one of the core themes for family conflict where one partner is unemployed while the other partner is the sole provider. This situation where there is not enough money coupled with a financial dependency on one partner also adds to conflict. Additionally, unemployment as one of the reasons for family conflicts is also related to finances since most of the men do not want their wives to work. This implies that there is not enough money to satisfy such family needs as buying food, and catering for extended family. The results of this study differ from a similar study by Danes et al. (2000), which discovered that tension related to finances predicted assertive conflict mode.
On the other hand, the findings for priority of resources as core theme for family conflict suggest that there are many reasons that lead to conflicts associated with priority of resources. The reasons that are most frequent were "different tastes and preferences," such as school preferences for children: "different interests," whereby partners do not have the same dreams, vision and investment priority: "selfishness," in terms of money where the respondents stated, "my money or your money,": "communication which is termed as poor communication or lack of communication" particularly where there is failure to agree or communicate between partners. Other reasons for priority of resources as family conflict among the respondents were "lack of planning," in terms of planning or financial planning: "prioritisation of resources" which suggests that priortisation of resources exists when a partner dominates decision making in allocating resources. The results of this study are different from a similar study of resources and family conflict by Lu et al. (2009), where the results showed a negative relationship between work resources and work-to-family conflict while in this study found that family conflict regarding priority of resources is related to many reasons including lack of planning and communication.
In addition, the results of this study confirmed that children are pivotal in relation to the identified major family conflict themes, finances and priority of resources. This suggests that children are linked to antecedents of family conflict in terms of the way partners have to choose schools for their children. These results are different from a similar study by McKeown et al. (2003) in that both explored children but the focus for this was choosing education while McKeown et al. (2003) concentrated on different family types of which findings showed no statistical significant variation on the well being of children and the different family types.
The emphasis of social identity theory on intergroup whereby people conceptualise themselves in the context of intergroup guided this study and respondents were able to identify finances and priority of resources as core themes of family conflicts.

Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to explore antecedents of family conflict in Uganda. The findings indicated that finances and priority of resources are antecedents of family conflict in the context of Uganda. The results further suggest that the major themes for family conflicts are due to many reasons. For instance, finances as an antecedent of family conflict are due to lack of disclosure of finances, inadequate finances and unemployment. On the other hand, priority of resources as an antecedent of family conflict is due to reasons such as different interests as partners do not have the same dreams, vision, investment prioty and lack of communication arising from the failure to agree or communicate what one partner is going to do. The outcome of this study has practical and theoretical implications.

Practical Implications
The findings of finances as an antecedent of family conflict implies that finances as an antecedent of family conflict are explained by many reasons, such as lack of disclosure of finances and insecurity. The results also imply that priority of resources as an antecedent of family conflict is explained by many reasons, including lack of planning and communication. Practitioners should consider finances and resources priority in understanding family conflicts.

Theoretical Implications
From the perspective of socialization, the antecedents of family conflict identified in this study augment the social identity theory in the context of a developing economy. Perhaps teamwork may offer remedies to family conflicts especially for the two core antecedents which are finances and the priority of resources.

Limitations of the Study and Areas for Further Research
This study was qualitative and manifested in core areas of finances and priority of resources. Future research can use the emerged themes to conduct a quantitative study, as well as explore how the relationship of married couples contributes to family conflict.