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Using a critical librarianship framework, this chapter argues that library administrators ought to advocate for comprehensive family leave policies and support employees more fully as they return from maternity leave. Improved policies support and enhance working conditions for all employees. Drawing on a diverse body of literature to illustrate that the significant life transition of becoming a mother is a unique opportunity for the library profession to improve the professional experience of its employees. Finally, practical action steps for supervisors are provided so they can structure a support plan for mothers transitioning back to work.

Women with little-to-no English continue to have poor birth outcomes and low service user satisfaction. When language support services are used it enhances the relationship between the midwife and the woman, improves outcomes and ensures safer practice. However, this study has shown a reluctance to use professional interpreter services by midwives. This study aims to understand the experiences of midwives using language support services.

A maximum variation purposive sampling strategy was used to recruit midwives (N = 12) to a qualitative, semi-structured interview study. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Four themes were generated from the data analysis with a central organising concept of “Navigating Care Without Language”. These themes were: “Continuity as Key”, “Facilitating Tools”, “Networks of Support” and “Innovative Planning”. Each of these themes had between three and four sub-themes. It was found midwives are keen to support women with language barriers. However, support can be difficult due to the unavailability of equipment and resources; lack of continuity (of interpreter and midwife); inability to plan for the acute care of women who require interpreter services; and the system not being accessible enough to women who require language support services, thus causing them to fall through the net.

Continuity of carer appears to be a protective factor due to the flexibility, relationship and continuum of support. This study will aid the development of education for undergraduate, post-graduate and practising midwives. It will also inform policymakers working to improve the service offered to women who speak little-to-no English.

The existing gender gap in the workplace, that affects job satisfaction and career advancement of women, creates a need to understand further the causes and effects of the gender gap phenomenon. Although, there are many challenges that affect women’s job satisfaction and advancement in the workplace, this paper aims to investigate work–life balance using multiple theoretical lenses.

In total, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with women from Nigeria and Ghana residing in the UK, they were selected using a purposive sampling method.

The findings show four main factors that explain the choices these women make in relation to work–family. These are cultural sensitivities, current phase in family and work–life, personality types and other influences such as policies and financial commitment. Results also show how these women make these work–family choices using networks and services.

The paper postulates the need for organisation’s to pay attention to the acculturation and enculturation of these women, which would indicate observing their cultural behaviour’s, values, knowledge and identities to understand how they integrate, assimilate and to also prevent separation and marginalisation. In addition, the use of (internal and external) networks as support systems for these women can create the opportunity for informal learning. Finally, organisation’s should create structure that support workplace learning and should include activities such as decision-making, communication, career advancement planning and flexible work patterns.

This study contributes to theory using multiple theories (work-family, gender inequality and Theories X and Y in explaining the work–family construct of women of African origin in the UK.

In order to address the gender divide in technology entrepreneurship, we explore how different national contexts impact policies and policy implementation. We investigate how transnational concerns (macro level) about women’s low participation in (technology) entrepreneurship are translated and implemented amongst actors at the meso level (technology incubators) and understood at the micro level (women tech entrepreneurs).

We adopt gender institutionalism as a theoretical lens to understand what happens in the implementation of gender equality goals in technology entrepreneurship policy. We apply Gains and Lowndes’ (2014) conceptual framework to investigate the gendered character and effects of institutional formation. Four countries represent different levels of gender equality: high (Norway and Sweden), medium (Ireland) and low (Israel). An initial policy document analysis provides the macro level understanding (Heilbrunn et al., 2020). At the meso level, managers of technology business incubators (n = 3–5) in each country were interviewed. At the micro level, 10 female technology entrepreneurs in each country were interviewed. We use an inductive research approach, combined with thematic analysis.

Policies differ across the four countries, ranging from women-centred approaches to gender mainstreaming. Macro level policies are interpreted and implemented in different ways amongst actors at the meso level, who tend to act in line with given national policies. Actors at the micro level often understand gender equality in ways that reflect their national policies. However, women in all four countries share similar struggles with work-life balance and gendered expectations in relation to family responsibilities.

The contribution of our paper is to (1) entrepreneurship theory by applying gendered institutionalism theory to (tech) entrepreneurship, and (2) our findings clearly show that the gendered context matters for policy implementation.

This research examines effects on emotional burnout among “maternity support workers” (MSWs) that support women in labor (labor and delivery (L&D) nurses and doulas). The emotional intensity of maternity support work is likely to contribute to emotional distress, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

This study uses data from the Maternity Support Survey (MSS) to analyze emotional burnout among 807 L&D nurses and 1,226 doulas in the United States and Canada. Multivariate OLS regression models examine the effects of work–family conflict, overwork, emotional intelligence, witnessing unethical mistreatment of women in labor, and practice characteristics on emotional burnout among these MSWs. We measure emotional burnout using the Professional Quality of Life (PROQOL) Emotional Burnout subscale.

Work–family conflict, feelings of overwork, witnessing a higher frequency of unethical mistreatment, and working in a hospital with a larger percentage of cesarean deliveries are associated with higher levels of burnout among MSWs. Higher emotional intelligence is associated with lower levels of burnout, and the availability of hospital wellness programs is associated with less burnout among L&D nurses.

While the MSS obtained a large number of responses, its recruitment methods produced a nonrandom sample and made it impossible to calculate a response rate. As a result, responses may not be generalizable to all L&D nurses and doulas in the United States and Canada.

This research reveals that MSWs attitudes about medical procedures such as cesarean sections and induction are tied to their experiences of emotional burnout. It also demonstrates a link between witnessing mistreatment of laboring women and burnout, so that traumatic incidents have negative emotional consequences for MSWs. The findings have implications for secondary trauma and compassion fatigue, and for the quality of maternity care.

The purpose of this paper is to map and understand work-family state support for the self-employed compared to employees across European countries.

To map state work-family support policies for the self-employed, an overview of public childcare, maternity, paternity, and parental leave arrangements across European countries is created based on databases, local government web sites, and local experts’ country notes. Secondary data analyses are conducted in order to compare support for the self-employed to support for employees and across countries. Differences across countries are analysed from a welfare state regime perspective, which explicates assumptions about the role of the government in providing work-family state support and which is often used in research on work-family support for employees.

Results show that, in general, the self-employed receive less work-family state support than employees or none at all. The extensiveness of work-family state support varies widely across European countries. Patterns of welfare states regimes, which explain variation in work-family support for employees, can also be found in the context of self-employment.

Findings result in practical suggestions for policy makers at the European and national level to monitor policy compliance considering maternity leave for the self-employed, to increase childcare support, and to rethink the European Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan.

Work-family state support for the growing number of self-employed has never been mapped before, although this is a very topical issue for (European) policy makers. This paper offers a starting point to contextualise and understand the way self-employed experience the work-family interface in different country contexts.

This paper aims to clarify an impact of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) on job employment of working mothers. It proposes the certain facts that has positive impact on employment of women from the point of view of Government of India, but at the same time it highlights some negative implications that are faced by the employers and working mothers. The objective of this act is to provide a woman with a financial assistance and make her free from engaging in any work so as to protect health of “New Mother” and “New Born child”. Also, the act ensures women to take care of her child without having worry about loss of her job and loss of her employment.

This paper carries efforts of researcher done on the topic of “Impact of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017)” and measures its impact on employers and job employment of working mothers in India through literature review from various sources like SCOPUS, EMERALD, EBSCO, PROQUEST, SAGE, etc. The paper opted for an exploratory study using the questionnaire approach of grounded theory, including 50 in-depth interviews of working mothers.

Outcome of this describes both positive and negative implications of this amendment on businesses and job employment of working mothers. It throws the limelight on implementation of this act in real life and identification of problems and stress faced by women employee either to get the job or to retain the job during pregnancy period which is very hazardous to the health of women and her inborn child also.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

The paper includes implications of the Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) on employers whether to hire women employee or not and on women though they are having capability to do work but because of ignorance of government on ensuring proper implementation of act, women are not getting opportunity to work after baby birth.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study and find some measures for effective implantation of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) so as to protect and regulate employment of women workers before and after child birth so as to increase female labour force participation rate.

Work-life challenges experienced by employees navigating pregnancy, maternity, and parenting young children are well documented in the literature. Correspondingly, work-life balance policies and provisions aimed at supporting affected staff are well established in many modern organizations. Within this agenda however, complications within maternity journeys, and specifically the intersection with mental health has been neglected. In this chapter, we consider the work-life issues associated with perinatal (pregnancy and post-birth) mental illness. After introducing perinatal mental illness, and its impact on individuals and families, we consider the two-way relationship between illness and work: how employment factors influence the development of perinatal mental illness and recovery trajectories, with implications for family life; and how such illnesses impact work and employment. We offer key insights from our empirical research on this topic in the context of UK policing, highlighting challenges linked to the nature of police work and organization culture, and issues that are more broadly applicable to how maternity and mental illness are treated in the workplace. The chapter offers recommendations for people management practice aimed at reducing or mitigating occupational factors that exacerbate illness and maximizing those facilitating recovery in the perinatal period and beyond, thus advancing work-life inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the management of maternity leave in small firms and particularly to explore the perceived costs and benefits of paid maternity leave (PML). PML is a universal right in some countries (i.e. the UK), but not in Australia where most private sector female employees only have access to 12 months unpaid maternity leave. It also aims to explore how the business case for (or against) PML is constructed in small firms.

The study was limited to smaller firms operating in the business services sector in the same regional area. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with eight employers and female employees in six of these firms. Analysis by theme was undertaken within and across interview transcripts.

Not one of these small firm employers offered PML and the cost of doing so was not considered to outweigh the benefits already realised through the (legislated) unpaid maternity leave scheme. In these firms maternity leave was managed in an informal way with notions of flexibility – give and take – characterising what happens.

The paper addresses the lack of research on access to family‐related leave policies in small firms. Employer and employee views of the issue are drawn upon, the latter not often being heard. The paper contributes to understanding the construction of the business case for a specific issue in smaller firms and human resource management from a resource‐based view more generally in smaller firms.