Mothers' Experiences of Childcare Policy in Iran: A Phenomenological Study

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Ph.D. of Women Studies, Faculty Member in Woman and Family Research Center

Abstract

One of the most important issues in social service patterns, as the central place in status of gender in the welfare state, is the situation of women in the labor market, and in particular is the policy of childcare for working mothers. This is problematic topic in various aspects of the family and society and, therefore, is the basis for creating wide disagreements in the views, positions and policy strategies. One of the most important ways of understanding the deficiencies and strategies for improving childcare policies is to study the experiences of working mothers of these policies. They are the most relevant group with these policies. This research is based on the phenomenological method and the data have been collected from a sample of mothers working with children under the age of seven. They have been selected based on purposeful sampling to focusing on employees in the universities of Isfahan. The intention is to understand the meaning and experience of the mothers working on Iran's policies in childcare. Therefore, these data can show policy strategies to improve policy making in this sphere. The data analysis based on the seven-level approach delivered five main themes including policy evaluation, intermediate variables, effects and outcomes, and strategies. According to the results of this study, the analysis of working mothers experiences show the childcare policies in Iran from different aspects particularly lack of flexibility in the rules and their implementation in relation to maternal/child conditions and also lack of gender and advocacy in the intellectual domain of the executives and employers. This is not sufficient to provide the peace of working mothers. The results have indicated that various mediating variables such as family circumstances, financial status, work, personality, and awareness of mothers on how they perceive and deal with child care policies have an influence on the different effects of maternal/child/occupational status.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Woman in Development & Politics
Volume 17, Issue 1
April 2019
Pages 121-145

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