Devising Coping Mechanisms for Working Mothers of School-Going Children: A Qualitative Study of Pakistan

Abstract

This study aims to amplify the voices of working mothers and provide insights for achieving a balance between work and parenting particularly improving the academic learning of their children. This exploratory study employs a Multiple Case Study Analysis with 30 in-depth interviews of working mothers of school going children (aged 6-12 years). The study focuses on the banking sector of Pakistan, where heavy workloads and long hours exacerbate the challenge of keeping a balance between work and family demands. The study found that the basic elements (drainage of energy, lack of involvement, shortage of time, and emotional burden) needed to be mitigated for enabling working mothers to contribute to better academic learning of their children. It is recommended that four coping mechanisms need to be adopted by working mothers for mitigation of each of the four basic elements. The coping mechanisms include energy-centric, involvement-centric, time-centric, and emotion-centric mechanisms. Through adoption of these mechanisms, it is expected that working mothers will be able to create the much-needed alignment between being exceptional parents and professionally ambitious.