Anneliğin Kadın Çalışanlar Üzerine Etkileri: Yorumsamacı Bir Alan Araştırması

Abstract

Motherhood is an extensive research topic that can be seen in different disciplines. Problems rising from motherhood are main research questions of this thesis. Social constructivism has been chosen as a philosophical basis of the research in order to understand subjective motherhood experiences of female employees through their self expressions. According to social constructivism individual always search the meaning of the world they live. In the light of social constructivism phenomenological research approach has been chosen with a qualitative research design. Participants of this study consist of 33 (3 pilot studies) working mothers with 0-6 years old children in Ankara area. Since the research needs intensive interviews, 33 participants are considered satisfactory sample size. For sampling method snowball sampling method was used as a purposive sampling strategy. Qualitative data is gathered by using an unstructered interview form with 20 question. All interviews were conducted face to face with participants. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis method. Findings show that the first priority of working mothers is motherhood. Keeping balance between motherhood and work is a real challenge for working mothers. They face various problems and difficulties. The most common problem expressed by participants is time limitation. Working mothers like their jobs and don’t want to leave their job but also they want to be a good mom. As a result of this challenge they experience maternal ambivalence. Keeping balance between work and motherhood becomes a hard problem to solve for working mothers. Therefore they need to get support from their family members and others (day care centres, care takers). In our sample, they mostly take support from grandmothers due to their safe and compassionate attitudes towards their grandchildren. Working mothers also need a great deal of support from their husband. If there is no grandmother around to look after the baby a day care centre looks more preferrable than individual caretakers. The other important finding of the study is that patriarchal social structure does not support motherhood of working women. It is also expressed that supports are insufficient for working mothers and legal rights are inadequate. Employed women expected to come back to the work after a short time from the birth date. This situation cause negative consequences both mother and child. Working mothers need at least 6 months maternity leave for baby and herself. Working mothers expect more flexibility in the workplace. The most commonly problem referred by mothers is the lack of day care centre in the workplace. Working mothers are in need of and want day care centre in the workplace. In the other hand, motherhood also has some positive impacts in working life. They can be more emphatatic for others because of their motherhood experience. The research findings suggest that all sections of society should support working mothers by providing them a mother friendly and kids friendly working environment.