IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v12y2023i4p218-d1116717.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Achieving Gender Equality through Paid and Unpaid Work: An Exploration of Mothers’ Perspectives on Work

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Madörin

    (School of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, 4600 Olten, Switzerland
    Department of Social Sciences, University of Basel, 4051 Basel, Switzerland)

  • Sofia Jacinto

    (School of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, 4600 Olten, Switzerland
    Centre for Social Research and Intervention (CIS-Iscte), School of Social Sciences, Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal)

Abstract

The prevailing understanding of work as paid work is reflected in political efforts to achieve gender equality, which include emphasising that women, like men, should increasingly pursue paid work. This exploratory research aims to question whether this idea to align female with male life patterns is conducive to gender equality and to promote new insights based on mothers’ experiences. Our analysis is based on guided interviews with eight Swiss mothers in part-time employment who have at least one child aged three or older, and a working partner in the same household. The interviews show that these mothers do not share the expectation that all mothers should take on the main responsibility for domestic and care work, nor the expectation that all women should be doing full-time paid work. They would like to see greater acceptance and appreciation of different forms of work. This research concludes that gender justice can be understood as a freedom of choice that includes both the right to be doing paid work and the right to have time for domestic and care work—for men and women. Gender equality efforts do not have to be restricted to one form of work, but can leave room for different types of work and the appreciation of them.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Madörin & Sofia Jacinto, 2023. "Achieving Gender Equality through Paid and Unpaid Work: An Exploration of Mothers’ Perspectives on Work," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-24, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:4:p:218-:d:1116717
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/4/218/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/4/218/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:4:p:218-:d:1116717. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.