‘I’m so much more myself now, coming back to work’ - working class mothers, paid work and childcare.

similar background characteristics but from areas with a greater class mix (2005).
Duncan and Edwards (1999; 2003) and Reynolds (2001; 2005) have emphasised the
importance of paid work to the identity of African-Caribbean mothers in the UK. The
former argue that this group displays a ‘mother/worker integral’ identity, where
mothers’ full-time employment provides a positive role model to their children, as
well as financial benefits to the family (Duncan & Edwards 1999; 2003). In contrast
to the ‘primarily mother’ or ‘primarily worker’ concepts, this constructs being a
worker as a fundamental part of being a good mother. Reynolds argues that
historically, black women in the UK have been cast as workers (from slavery, through
colonialism and to more recent migration patterns). In addition, structural inequalities
and discrimination in the labour market have pushed black women towards full-time
employment to make up for the financial shortfalls of low paid work. According to
Reynolds, these factors interlock, so that ‘full-time paid work becomes central to
black women’s mothering and black mothers’ work status is part of their everyday
family experience’ (2001, p. 1046).

Quantitative data also shows that mothers’ attitudes towards the acceptability of being
in employment have changed in line with the observed behaviour of other mothers
with pre-school children. Using successive waves of the British Household Panel
Survey (BHPS), Himmelweit and Sigala demonstrate that over the course of the
1990s, as the employment rate of mothers with young children rose, fewer mothers
believed that pre-school children suffer if their mothers work outside the home (2004,
p. 469). Their study, which also included a qualitative element, shows that behaviour
and attitudes have considerable feedback effects on each other: attitudes affect the
likelihood of behaviour change and vice versa. There are also dynamics of social

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