Bravo-Moreno, A;
(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
, 10
, Article 458. 10.3390/socsci10120458.
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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.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Intersection of Reproductive, Work-Life Balance and Early-Education and Care Policies: ‘Solo’ Mothers by Choice in the UK and Spain |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3390/socsci10120458 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120458 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Public policies; assisted reproductive policies; work-life balance policies; early-education and care policies; UK and Spain; ethnography; solo-mothers-by-choice families |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10141847 |
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