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

The study

This paper draws on interviews with 70 working class families in inner London (36 in
Battersea and 34 in Stoke Newington), conducted between spring 2005 and winter
2006. National and local economies were fairly buoyant at the time of the study and
both locales provide easy access to other parts of London and their respective labour
markets. Interviews with parents were semi-structured, guided by an aide-memoire,
with an emphasis on giving the respondents freedom to express their concerns,
thoughts and practices around childcare and other aspects of their lives with children.
Topics covered included decisions on children’s care arrangements, relationships
between carers and parents and the choice between paid work and staying at home.
Initial contact with parents was made through visiting public sector nurseries, Sure
Start activities and groups, as well as playgroups and toy libraries in the two localities.
Interviews mostly took place in respondents’ own homes or in the nursery or Sure
Start setting where we first met. Families were included in the study taking into
consideration a range of indicators, such as occupation, education qualifications and
housing, and families that were clearly categorised as middle class on these indicators
were retrospectively excluded from the study.

The families were a highly varied group, all had children under 5 years, but were
otherwise very diverse on several indicators, such as number of children, family
structure, occupational status, education qualifications and ethnic background. Half
of the mothers in the study worked outside the home and did so in occupations
ranging from routine (NS-SEC 7) to lower managerial (NS-SEC 2), with

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