MOTHER’S EMPLOYMENT GUILT AKA WORKING MOTHER’S GUILT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY AMONGST WORKING MOTHERS IN INDIA
Abstract
In most of the Indian households, women are raised with values having strong roots and love for family. They are mostly raised with the belief that one day they have to bear the responsibility of running the household by themselves. This mindset mostly results in many highly talented, high performing women scarifying their careers and aspirations to raise their respective families. Although we are thousands of years away from primitive mindset of gender roles, where the man was supposed to be the breadwinner and the women were supposed to raise the kids, the patriarchal system still pushes career women who have career goals to have a sense of guilt when they play the dual role of working women and mothers. When women have to scarify their careers after the maternity break, it represents a huge loss of brain power for the industry and the nation and when they continue to pursue their careers, the continuous oscillation between household chores, social and family commitments, other obligations and career takes a toll on their health which results in distress and a typical guilt which makes them feel that they are not giving enough time to raise their children. This paper tries to measure whether this guilt exists in Indian working women, the extent to which it exists, impact of demographic variables, and various other factors that may impact the level of guilt in working women. The study was conducted among Indian working mothers based in various prominent cities of India. The respondents for the study included Indian working mothers belonging to an array of sectors like, BFSI, IT, Manufacturing, Education and Retail.
Keyword : Working mother’s guilt, career orientation, work life balance, distress, work-life balance
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