Child Caring and Career Limitations among the Working Mothers in Dhaka City

Abstract

The dissertation entitled "Child Caring and Career Limitations among the Working Mothers in Dhaka City" is an original research work based on intensive field work. Due to an increase in educational facilities, the importance given by both government and non-govt. organizations to women's empowerment there has been a welcome change within the society towards women's employment. And the participation rate of working women as well as working mothers has vastly increased in recent years in Bangladesh. But the supportive arrangements for child caring, which is still considered to be the prime responsibility of working mothers, have not yet been made sufficiently well. So the professionals, especially the working mothers are facing many problems at their job and about careers. But full development of potential of men and women is necessary for the overall human development of the country. Considering the role of working mothers for the overall national development, this subject was selected for study. The study mainly tried to link the relationship between child caring and career limitations for the working mothers. Since the husbands of working women were also working in Dhaka city, the sharing of child caring responsibilities in those families were investigated. It was found that in spite of facing much trouble in child caring, high level of sharing i.e. sharing by the husband in overall child caring responsibilities was not significant for the working professionals. Even where close relatives were not available and the mothers were bound to depend on only household assistants, the majority of them had low level of sharing. It investigated the existing situation of career limitations of the mothers due to their child caring responsibilities. It also tried to find out the relationship between major career limitations and development of career of the working mothers. Three groups of professionals were selected for the study and a comparison was also made between them. Seven career limitations were identified by the working mothers under the study. Seven problems were identified as career related problems here: Break of Study; Short break of job; Discontinuation of job; Late-entry into the job; Refusal of more prestigious or more remunerative jobs; Non-participation in national training or workshops and Non ­participation in foreign seminar, training, workshop or international missions. Break of Study, Late Entry into the Job and Discontinuation of Job by the working mothers have been considered to be the major career limitations for them. A relationship between child caring and those major career limitations faced by the mothers was established. A significant relationship was found between child caring and career limitations for all the working mothers. The better the arrangements for child caring, the lower the rate of career limitations encountered by the working mothers. And, conversely, the poorer the child caring arrangements, the higher the rate of career limitations. Again an association was also made between these major career limitations for mothers and their career development. A significant correlation was again found between those variables. It was found that the more the career limitations for the working mothers, the less the career development for them and vice versa. It was evident from the study that working mothers' child caring roles and their career limitations were interlinked. Again, their major career limitations and the development of their career were negatively correlated. The working mothers supported the provisions for 6 months maternity leave with full pay in every organization, long duration leave without pay for the mothers with very young child, locality based day care centres, child care centres with special office timing, day care centre at the workplaces, transport facilities at schools, strict maintenance of office closing time. And all the mothers under study emphasized that a positive change in the attitude of husbands and the society towards women's career is essential. According to them, it is the general feeling of the society to be in a job by women is to have a developed career for them, which is a fallacious point of view. So it is, therefore necessary to take steps towards the removal of these limitations for the overall development of the country.