IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v10y2021i12p458-d690895.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Intersection of Reproductive, Work-Life Balance and Early-Education and Care Policies: ‘Solo’ Mothers by Choice in the UK and Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Ana Bravo-Moreno

    (Social Research Institute, Institute of Education, University College of London, London WC1H 0AA, UK)

Abstract

This article focuses on women who have opted to be mothers on their own by choice in the UK and Spain, and how their access to assisted reproductive technologies in the National Health Service was affected because they were 35 years old or older, forcing them to go to private clinics for their treatment. Having given birth to their children, the participants face a second obstacle: the lack of policies that support work-life balance. A third obstacle also arises, in the form of a lack of childcare and early-education provision, particularly in the UK. The last two obstacles affect the whole population, but they are intensified in the case of solo-mother-families where the mother is responsible for simultaneously being the caregiver and the sole economic provider. Solo motherhood by choice highlights the impact of the absence of these policies, and the inequalities that result from current contemporary conceptualizations of family, woman and early-childhood-care and education. This article draws on ethnographic research that took place in the UK and Spain where I conducted 60 in-depth interviews and participant observations. The aim is to provide an analysis capable of capturing and confronting how inequalities affect women-mothers-workers and their children.

Suggested Citation

  • Ana Bravo-Moreno, 2021. "The Intersection of Reproductive, Work-Life Balance and Early-Education and Care Policies: ‘Solo’ Mothers by Choice in the UK and Spain," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-29, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:12:p:458-:d:690895
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/12/458/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/12/458/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthias Doepke & Giuseppe Sorrenti & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2019. "The Economics of Parenting," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 55-84, August.
    2. Sara de la Rica & Lucía Gorjón, 2016. "The impact of family-friendly policies in Spain and their use throughout the business cycle," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-26, December.
    3. J. Ignacio Conde-Ruiz & Ignacio Marra de Artínano, 2016. "Gender Gaps in the Spanish Labor Market," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2016-32, FEDEA.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Falk, Armin & Abeler, Johannes & Kosse, Fabian, 2021. "Malleability of preferences for honesty," CEPR Discussion Papers 16164, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Mariona Lozano & Elisenda Rentería, 2019. "Work in Transition: Labour Market Life Expectancy and Years Spent in Precarious Employment in Spain 1986–2016," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 185-200, August.
    3. Radoslaw (Radek) Stefanski & Alex Trew, 2021. "Selection, Patience, and the Interest Rate (updated 2023 2023_01)," Working Papers 2020_03, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    4. Francesco Agostinelli & Matthias Doepke & Giuseppe Sorrenti & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2020. "It Takes a Village: The Economics of Parenting with Neighborhood and Peer Effects," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2228, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    5. Ylenia Brilli & Simone Moriconi, 2023. "Culture of Origin, Parenting, and Household Labor Supply," Working Papers 2023: 17, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    6. Ekaterina Hertog & Muzhi Zhou, 2021. "Japanese adolescents' time use: The role of household income and parental education," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(9), pages 225-238.
    7. Matthias Doepke & Giuseppe Sorrenti & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2019. "The Economics of Parenting," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 55-84, August.
    8. Gordon B Dahl & Christina Felfe & Paul Frijters & Helmut Rainer, 2022. "Caught between Cultures: Unintended Consequences of Improving Opportunity for Immigrant Girls," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(5), pages 2491-2528.
    9. Brenøe, Anne Ardila & Epper, Thomas, 2022. "Parenting values and the intergenerational transmission of time preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    10. Tomo Nishimura, 2022. "Effects of Fathers' Nonstandard Work Schedules on Childcare Time," Discussion Paper Series 239, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University.
    11. John A. List & Fatemeh Momeni & Yves Zenou, 2020. "The Social Side of Early Human Capital Formation: Using a Field Experiment to Estimate the Causal Impact of Neighborhoods," Working Papers 2020-187, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    12. Giorgio Di Pietro & Federico Biagi & Patricia Costa & Zbigniew Karpinski & Jacopo Mazza, 2020. "The likely impact of COVID-19 on education: Reflections based on the existing literature and recent international datasets," JRC Research Reports JRC121071, Joint Research Centre.
    13. Jonas Jessen & Christa Katharina Spieß & Sevrin Waights, 2022. "Centre‐Based Care and Parenting Activities," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(6), pages 1356-1379, December.
    14. Vincent Boucher & Carlo L. Del Bello & Fabrizio Panebianco & Thierry Verdier & Yves Zenou, 2023. "Education Transmission and Network Formation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 129-173.
    15. Benaya Lie, 2024. "The effect and timing sensitivity of parenting style on cognitive and non‐cognitive skills," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(S1), pages 115-123, May.
    16. Bingley, Paul & Cappellari, Lorenzo & Tatsiramos, Konstantinos, 2022. "Parental assortative mating and the intergenerational transmission of human capital," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Ubaldi, Michele & Picchio, Matteo, 2023. "Intergenerational scars: The impact of parental unemployment on individual health later in life," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1271, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    18. Balbus, Lukasz & Dziewulski, Pawel & Reffett, Kevin & Wozny, Lukasz, 2022. "Markov distributional equilibrium dynamics in games with complementarities and no aggregate risk," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(2), May.
    19. Jorge Luis García & James J. Heckman, 2023. "Parenting Promotes Social Mobility Within and Across Generations," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 349-388, September.
    20. Ao, Xiang & Chen, Xuan & Zhao, Zhong, 2022. "Is care by grandparents or parents better for children's non-cognitive skills? Evidence on locus of control from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:12:p:458-:d:690895. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.