 How do professionals and managers combine mothering with employment? Western theories in the Sri Lankan experienceThilakshi Kodagoda International Journal of Management Practice, 2010, vol. 4, issue 2, 169-181 Abstract: Women are increasing their labour market participation, while at the same time their identity and workload continue to be defined around caring work, especially for children. Although the Sri Lankan government is encouraging and recruiting more female workers to public sector employment, there is no 'women-friendly' gender state. A number of theories have been developed in Western contexts to explain this conflict between caring and employment and how mothers straddle the two. It would be pertinent to examine how far these theories are applicable to Sri Lanka. This paper demonstrates that working women's mothering is responsible for the formation of gendered identity, which varies with the availability of different sociocultural and religious opportunities and constraints. The conclusion is that these working mothers have a low capacity to achieve a work–life balance and such combinations may lead to complex social problems. Keywords: female professionals; female bank managers; work–life balance; gender identity; Sri Lanka; intensive research; management practice; women; child care; children; working mothers; social problems. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijmpra:v:4:y:2010:i:2:p:169-181 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Management Practice from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.