Caring for Caregivers: Working Mothers’ Care Work in Kin-Based Childcare

• In Event: 50261 - Family Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 10: Gendered Parenting

Abstract

Household tasks are increasingly outsourced, but we know little about the labor of managing the third parties to whom working mothers delegate household tasks, particularly childcare, in order to remain in the labor force. In this paper, we introduce a novel form of gendered labor for working mothers managing kin-based childcare, which we call care work for caregivers. Drawing from interviews with 48 mothers and fathers in South Korea, we show that mothers not only do the work of arranging kin-based childcare but expend significant care work in navigating and preserving these arrangements. While their care work helps maintain smoother relations and secure the continued maintenance of childcare, it can also come at the cost of significant time demands and emotional labor for working mothers. Further, the care work and its implications may have broader significance for mothers’ workplace attribution, maternal well-being, and the marginalization of fathers in childcare. Our research makes contributions to the literatures on gender division of household labor, care work, and work-family conflict, and suggests new avenues for research at the intersection of work and family.

Authors

• Eunmi Mun, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• M. Teresa Cardador, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Gail Kim, Salisbury University

• Karen Z. Kramer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign