Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers
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Research group
The interviewed mothers were born between 1962 and 1980. Their average age
was 39.3 years. Seven interviewees (18 per cent) had a non-Dutch background.
Of the total female population of Amsterdam, 50 per cent has a non-Dutch
background, so non-native women are underrepresented in the research group
(Vrouwenemancipatie in Amsterdam 2011). This also holds for single mothers:
only four of the interviewed mothers had been divorced. However, as mentioned,
ethnicity and the presence of a spouse were not discriminating factors in selecting
the research group.
23 mothers were highly educated (higher vocational education and
university), and 16 lower educated (intermediate vocational education and lower)
(see appendix 3). Ten mothers were full-time homemakers, eight mothers had a
small part-time job (12 to 24 hours), eleven mothers had a large part-time job (25
to 35 hours) and ten mothers worked full-time.
Interview questions
The interviews can be characterised as oral life history interviews (Bryman,
2008). The interviewees were invited to look back at specific moments
throughout the course of their life while focussing on the behavioural steps of
social life: finishing high school, choosing a continuation course, starting their
first job, giving birth to their first child, continuing through to the present.
Iterative cycles formed the basis of the theoretical framework, centred on
Grounded Theory (Bryman, 2008, p.541). Initially,
the interview questions were
based on a number of concepts that were expected to vary among the four groups
of mothers: early adult work aspirations and choices, present preferred number of
work hours, gender and work values and attitudes. After the first interviews, and
an examination of the mothers’ answers in the light of this study’s central themes,
more theory was incorporated, in order to interpret the interview-material more
fully. For example, more questions towards
early adult expectations of
motherhood were included.
The study is built on four core categories or central themes: narrative of
choice towards work (including work experience and number of preferred work
hours), work attitude, gender general values and personal attitudes, and attitudes
towards motherhood. The main concepts within these themes are defined below.
The interviewees were asked several open questions in order to discover how and
with which words women refer to these themes themselves.
Narrative of choice. In the interviews, specific attention was given to whether
choices or decisions were
made implicitly or explicitly, and whether this revealed
something about mothers’ perceived behavioural control. Perceived self-efficacy
corresponds to the extent to which a person feels able to enact the behaviour,
which is related to the supposed ease or difficulty of performing the behaviour. A
person’s sensitivity may be based on past experiences as well as on expected
Chapter 3 - A qualitative typology of Dutch mothers’ employment narratives
85
hindrances and obstacles (Ajzen, 1991; Bandura, 1991). Implicit decisions can be
characterised in a number of ways, including as indirect, non-reflective,
retrospective awareness
of having made decisions, incremental behaviour,
conflict avoidance, agreement without discussion, or as pure impulse. In other
words, these contain relatively little perceived behavioural control. Explicit
decisions on the other hand are characterised by a prospective awareness of
making decisions, proactive planning, explicit agreements, and conflict
management steps towards work (Wiesmann et al., 2010, p.343), and are thus
highly perceived behavioural controls. Associated questions
include the
following: How did you end up in the type of work you do or did? Did you have,
as a young adult, ideas about your future profession, and work in general? If you
had time again, would you choose a different direction? Do you work the number
of hours you prefer? What does your ideal working week look like? Why is it not
that way?
Work attitudes are defined as personal motivations to pursue paid work: What
are the most important reasons for you to work?
Gender attitudes refer to a mother’s personal desired division of labour with
her spouse; questions were included on her general ideas
about the ideal division
of labour between men and women. A traditional gender attitude means a desire
to have the main responsibility at home, whereas her partner is in paid work. An
egalitarian gender attitude implies a wish to equally share paid and unpaid work.
Adaptive attitudes are here defined as the personal desire to combine paid work
and family tasks, with consent to the idea that mothers have more responsibilities
at home and fathers may work full-time. Related interview questions: Do you
have ideas about the ideal division of labour with your spouse? Are you satisfied
with your own current division of labour? What would you like to change?
Some questions about mothers’
general gender values were also asked, such
as: How do you perceive differences between men and women in general? Do
you have an opinion about full-time working mothers or mothers who are not
employed?
Attitudes towards motherhood concern a mother’s
early adult ideas and
images of motherhood and children, and the way she experiences motherhood and
childcare: Did you picture yourself as a mother before you had children? How
many children did you want then? How do you experience motherhood now?
Further questions were asked retrospectively, for example enquiring after the
respondents’ ideas about education and work before they started their careers, and
also to their juvenile desires to become a mother. In general, the mothers were
able to answer the questions reasonably quickly without much hesitation.
Nevertheless, one should be aware of the possibility of selectiveness of their
memories, which may influence their answers. People may adjust their memories
to justify
their present behaviour, as is argued by interest-based theorists (Kroska
and Elman, 2009).