Motherhood Experience and Childbearing Challenges of Working Women: A Qualitative Study in Tehran

For over the past two decades, Iran has experienced a total fertility rate below the replacement level (Alimoradian et al., 2023) with the ideal number of children hovering around 2.5 (Razeghi Nasrabad & Abbasi-Shavazi, 2020). Concurrently, there has been a notable rise in women's involvement in higher education and the labor market within the social landscape of Iran. In this context, education and employment can be perceived as potential constraints that may at times conflict with the decision to start a family. This study aimed to delve into the challenges related to childbearing faced by working women.

This study adopted a qualitative research approach, conducting in-depth interviews with 22 employed mothers in Tehran. The participants were selected through purposive sampling to ensure maximum diversity and interviews continued until theoretical saturation was achieved. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Discussion of Results & Conclusion  :

The study's findings unveiled 4 primary themes and 10 sub-themes concerning the challenges faced by working women in relation to childbearing: challenges at work, child-rearing challenges, economic challenges, and children's education challenges.The theme of challenges at work encompassed 3 sub-themes: anti-maternal administrative structure, work-family conflict, and glass ceiling. The anti-maternal administrative structure pertained to the absence of supportive conditions for balancing work and childbearing despite the existence of protective laws in Iran, such as reduced working hours, maternity leave, and breastfeeding hours for women. However, the study's participants perceived these laws as inadequate and lacking reliable enforcement. Long working hours, bringing work home, dissatisfaction of spouses and children due to extended work hours, feelings of fatigue, low vitality, and unhappiness served as evidence of work-to-family conflict.The glass ceiling denoted gender discrimination in the workplace that impeded women from advancing to higher positions. Examples of the glass ceiling included wage disparities, lack of family benefits, denial of family share of supplementary insurance to women, discrimination in managerial roles or job promotions, and limited number of female managers, particularly mothers with young children.The participants encountered various economic challenges, such as high living costs, limited housing space, especially for families with two children, expensive private schooling and extracurricular activities, high housing rent and mortgagepayments, prolonged installments for home purchases, inflation, and economic downturn. They viewed their employment as crucial for addressing these challenges, often expressing that without employment, they would face hardship and poverty.The theme of childrearing challenges encompassed 3 sub-themes: "child care concern," "breastfeeding and child nutrition issues", "child upbringing concern", and "environmental and social insecurity". The working women in this study had encountered difficulties in caring for their children, particularly those under 6 years old and those in primary school. Mothers with children under 6 years of age highlighted challenges related to arranging childcare, including the transition of kindergartens from workplaces to the private sector.Additionally, the participants reported various issues concerning breastfeeding and child nutrition, such as negotiating with administrators to use breastfeeding facilities, early cessation of breastfeeding, irregular and inadequate feeding, and increased consumption of fast food by their children due to the mothers' limited time and late arrival at home.The theme of challenges related to children's education comprised 2 sub-themes: "inefficiency of family support policy in the education system" and "weakness in educational content." All participants, including women without children, highlighted this challenge and discussed the issues and concerns of their relatives, friends, and colleagues. Mothers expressed concerns about the Ministry of Education's neglect of the limitations faced by working mothers, high cost of educational devices, such as tablets or phones for online classes, mismatch of school and work hours, school closures due to weather conditions, and lack of time to assist children with homework and lessons. A significant concern for mothers with elementary school children was incompatibility of work and school hours as work typically ended at 4:00 p.m. while public schools closed at 12:30. This situation led some families to enroll their children in private schools where they could stay until the end of the workday and be supervised by the school staff. Additionally, parents were worried about their prolonged absence from their children, the need to provide internet access and devices, such as tablets or mobile phones for online schooling (during the coronavirus epidemic or air pollution days), and potential exposure of children to inappropriate content through movies, books, and materials unsuitable for their age.Ultimately, the research findings revealed that the employed women had encountered a multitude of challenges across various facets of their lives, particularly following the birth of a child. Additionally, the results indicated that the administrative framework tended to disregard the maternal role of working women. Aligned with institutional theory (Scott 2014), the normative expectations and gender stereotypes within the cultural context of Iranian society allocated the primary responsibility for family provision and livelihood to men, while domestic work, childcare, and the care of other family members were predominantly assigned to women. These circumstances had led the women in this study to opt for having fewer children as a coping mechanism. Developing programs and policies to alleviate these conflicts and challenges represents an effective strategy for promoting increased childbearing among working women.