<論文>働く母親の二重労働と性別分業を維持する循環メカニズム : 核家族・正規雇用共働き世帯の母親の経験から

Abstract

In this article, I focus on the experiences of mothers who decide to live with the double burden of work (doing housework, while also doing full-time jobs outside the family), though they are well aware of that this decision may put them into a rather difficult situation. I am of the opinion that mothers who decide to do so are those with preschool-aged children in nuclear families living in suburbs, having full-time jobs just like their husbands. I interviewed fifteen mothers of this type. Based on their experiences, I describe how they cope with this situation. Firstly, I describe the process of the full-time working mothers who undertake the double burden of paid work and housework both forcibly and voluntarily. They always consider what would be the best for their children, whenever they have to choose people to help with the housework, or do it instead of them. They also often reach the conclusion that they will do the housework by themselves even if it is difficult. Secondly, they attempt to shorten their long working hours though they are full-time workers. As a result, they are frequently being regarded as less efficient workers than their male colleagues or other female workers without children. This means that, to a certain extent, working mothers try to maintain the gender division of labor, by trying to reach a balance between paid full-time work and housework. Thus we can see a circular mechanism to maintain the gender division of labor. These working mothers, while struggling to achieve a certain harmony between both roles without being dragged into that circular mechanism, are the kind of women who never give up their aspirations in life, which include both child rearing and full-time job.