Paid Leaves as Buffer Zones: Social Policies and Work-Life Balance among Canadian Mothers
| dc.contributor.author | Christopher, Karen | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-11-01T19:29:06Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-11-01T19:29:06Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2015-06 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In this article, I use in-depth interviews with 26 Canadian mothers to explore their accounts of paid leaves and work-life balance. Drawing from a theoretical framework that emphasizes the structural, cultural, and interactional influences on mothers' experiences, I find that among higher-income mothers, paid leaves serve as "buffer zones" in two ways: they postpone the typical conflict between paid and unpaid work, and they assuage the guilt associated with employment under an intensive mothering ideology. However, low-income and non-citizen mothers have less access to the "buffer zones" of paid leaves, and mothers' reports of work-life balance vary considerably by social class after paid leaves end. Among this non-representative sample, higher-income mothers report the most work-life balance. The paper ends with the implications of this research for the policy and work-life balance literatures. | |
| dc.format | Text | |
| dc.format.extent | 16 pages | |
| dc.format.medium | 1 file (.pdf) | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Christopher, K. (2015). Paid leaves as buffer zones: Social policies and work-life balance among Canadian mothers. <i>Journal of Research on Women and Gender, 6</i>(1), pp. 24-39. | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 2375-0944 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10877/12875 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Texas State University, Center for Diversity and Gender Studies | |
| dc.source | Journal of Research on Women and Gender, 2015, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 24-39. | |
| dc.subject | paid leave | |
| dc.subject | work-life balance | |
| dc.subject | motherhood | |
| dc.subject | employment | |
| dc.subject | social policy | |
| dc.subject | intensive mothering | |
| dc.title | Paid Leaves as Buffer Zones: Social Policies and Work-Life Balance among Canadian Mothers | |
| dc.type | Article |