Making it work: How women negotiate labor market participation after the transition to motherhood

Abstract

The increasing participation of women in the labor market coexists with traditional gender roles and a social division of labor that reproduces the feminization of childcare and housework. Reconciling the contradictions between work and family life has become one of the greatest challenges of the contemporary female life course. In this article, I analyze the strategies through which women in Santiago de Chile negotiate their participation in the labor market after the transition to motherhood using qualitative data produced through 28 in-depth life story interviews. The findings confirm that married women from older age cohorts and middle socioeconomic status scale down paid work by working part-time, reducing their working hours, and finding more flexible and less demanding jobs that are closer to home. However, the findings also reveal that single women from younger age cohorts and lower socioeconomic status scale up on paid work by working full-time and finding jobs that are more demanding, involve longer workdays and provide better salaries and social benefits. These findings advance knowledge on the strategies through which women from different age cohorts and family and socioeconomic status negotiate paid work after becoming mothers and highlight the importance of taking a situated and intersectional approach to account for the particular ways in which women reconcile work and family life.