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This is exploratory research on the Bruneian sense of motherhood. The pre-socially established religious definition of motherhood is unformulated where; the analysis is located in the inner context of experience. The Western feminist idea defined motherhood as such reality as the “otherness” whereby its common sense justifies sexuality and feminism. The religious significance gives meaning to its spiritual connection, embodying a foundational knowledge of Bruneian proper personhood – being a good, spiritual and respected person. This relates to the importance of the body as an entity of both culture and symbol that has drawn attention to its sociological significance.

The argument here is how religious experience influences the meaning of motherhood in Brunei Darussalam, which underwent a transformation scheme to empower women. Participants were interviewed, and the transcribed interviews were analysed using the reflexive methodology to find out the natural phenomena of motherhood.

The findings indicate that the Bruneian sense of motherhood is regulated through natural norms of femininity, an unformulated knowledge of spirituality, religion and the influence of cultural and religious rituals, such as prayers, consuming pure food, concoction and reciting holy verses from the Quran.

This study reveals to codify and extend the sense of religious obedience through generations. Religion rationalises the spiritual experience and provides the basis of obedience towards a proper development of personhood Bruneian. The idea of motherhood itself recreates a role to empower women, which will initiate opportunities for further studies in Brunei context.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the factors responsible for the utilisation of safe motherhood practices under the Government of India (GOI)-run maternal health programme Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY).

Data for the survey were collected from 435 expectant mothers registered under JSY from seven districts of western Uttar Pradesh, India. Based on the existing theories of behaviour change and the social marketing framework, a model of antecedents of adoption of safe motherhood practices was tested out empirically.

The results suggested that controlling for demographic variables such as age, education, number of children, intention to follow safe motherhood practices, maternal health self-efficacy, attitude towards safe motherhood, life satisfaction and facilitating conditions all contributed towards the adoption of safe motherhood practices. However, facilitating conditions moderated the relationship between intention to follow safe motherhood practices and adoption of safe motherhood practices.

The study focused only on maternal health, excluding child health under JSY.

The study findings suggest that social marketers should focus on the individual (micro)- as well as programme (macro)-level factors to bring about systemic behaviour change.

The adoption of safe motherhood practices will result in a reduction of the maternal mortality rate. This will improve the overall health of mother and child.

The JSY programme is targeted at promoting safe motherhood practices among poor women in the reproductive age group from India. The adoption of safe motherhood practices will result in less maternal mortality and contribute to the well-being of the family.

Guided by self-presentation theory and social role theory, this study examines the different strategies elite female athletes used in personal branding on social media before and after becoming mothers. Scholars have investigated the authenticity of female athletes’ frontstage versus backstage representation on social media for branding purposes, but this study further expands on existing literature to review how female athletes would present themselves in the same realm once entering motherhood.

Through a content analysis, researchers evaluated whether there was a shift in three elite female athletes’ (Serena Williams, Allyson Felix and Skylar Diggins Smith) Instagram posts and captions one year before their pregnancy and one year after motherhood. A total of 732 posts were examined and were organized into six main categories: athletic, professional, promotional, personal, motherhood and dual identity.

Results revealed there was a difference in the self-presentation strategies used by the three female athletes on their social media pages. Specifically, the researchers confirmed the presence of a combined role of athlete and mother.

The findings support existing literature on the importance and the challenges of “balancing” a third identity of blending being both a mother and elite athlete as one. Yet, the findings challenge the previous notion that women cannot continue to perform at an elite level and manage the expectations that society institutes of being a “good mother.”

To critically analyse how Latin American migrant women entrepreneurs living in Ireland and the UK negotiate their entrepreneurial and motherhood identities in transnational settings. The paper explores (1) how motherhood influences the choices of becoming entrepreneurs; (2) how women reconcile the social imaginaries of motherhood from their country of origin in the new contexts of settlement; and (3) the impact of these transformations on their businesses.

This paper draws on six biographical case studies (three in Ireland and three in the UK) and employs the theoretical lens of translocational positionality to analyse entrepreneurship as context-specific and relational processes that bring together a multiplicity of social and geographical locales.

Latin American women entrepreneurs navigate their roles as “good mothers” and “good businesswomen” by simultaneously (1) complying with core values of marianismo that confine them to traditional gender roles and (2) renegotiating these values in ways that empower them through entrepreneurship. Finally, juxtaposing these two contexts (Ireland and the UK), this study (3) illuminates the similarities of the ever-continuing gender power struggles of egalitarianism for Latin American migrant women in both contexts.

Despite the agreed need for exploring motherhood as one of the critical aspects shaping family and business cycles, this area needs to be sufficiently analysed in its intersection with ethnicity or migratory status, particularly with participants from the global South. This article aims at bridging that gap.

This paper aims to describe the lived experiences of modern urban mothers in Pakistan as they navigate shared motherhood responsibilities with family elders. This paper brings to light their feelings, fears and ambitions towards safeguarding the environment for the future of their children, by reconciling ancient traditions of their female elders with contemporary sustainable consumption practices.

This phenomenological study explores lived experiences of urban mothers through in-depth personal interviews. Their discourse explores sharing childcare responsibilities with family matriarchs, negotiating “green” parenting strategies between intergenerational parenting partners.

Navigating life through the intersections of modernity and tradition and ethical choices and consumerism, urban mothers integrate wisdom of their ancestors into their modern lives to mitigate the environmental degradation of today.

This study sheds light on a unique genre of green mothers, termed as the traditionally green eco-mom, which allows modern mothers and their female elders to synchronously adopt sustainable childcare behaviours that overcome intergenerational barriers by reconciling contemporary lifestyles with traditional wisdom.

Women in public accounting firms are still proportionally much fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men, whereas recruitment at junior level tends to be increasingly gender‐balanced. This paper aims to analyse the relationships between the glass ceiling and motherhood. The mechanisms explaining the difficulties encountered by auditor mothers in their hierarchical progression within the Big Four in France are identified.

From 24 interviews with male and female auditors of various hierarchical levels, one seeks to reveal the specificity of the difficulties encountered by auditor mothers.

It is argued that, throughout their careers, they are confronted with a dilemma that often leads to their being excluded and excluding themselves from the group of “those who may become partners”. It is shown that public accounting firms place both implicit and explicit obstacles in their way, tied to a desire to neutralise the effects, deemed costly, of motherhood. Moreover, the expectations of the organisation and society as a whole conflict on many points and confront female auditors with a dilemma: how to be a good mother and have a bright career? It appears that women who want to better manage this dilemma shape working practices imposed on the whole team and implement tactics to adapt their work‐life balance (specialisation and lateral move to staff departments). This leads to individual trajectories that break out of the organisational model and account for the scarcity of women in the upper management levels in audit firms.

The paper gives voice to male auditors and shows that managing the professional life/private life dilemma is difficult for fathers as well as mothers, in the long term. Moreover, rather than thinking in terms of horizontal and vertical segregations, this paper invites one to question the concept of the glass ceiling and consider the construction of the scarcity of women in the accounting profession.

After many years of equal opportunities legislation, motherhood still limits womens' career progress even in a feminized occupation such as nursing. While the effect of motherhood, working hours, career breaks and school aged children upon career progression has been discussed widely, its actual scale and magnitude has received less research attention. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of these factors individually and cumulatively.

This paper considers the impact of the above through a longitudinal analysis of a demographically unique national database, comprising the 46,565 registered nursing workforces in NHS Scotland from 2000‐2008. The variables examined include gender, employment grades, number and length of career breaks, lengths of service, age, working patterns, the number and age of dependent children.

The results indicate: motherhood has a regressively detrimental effect on women's career progression. However, this is a simplistic term which covers a more complex process related to the age of dependent children, working hours and career breaks. The degree of women's restricted career progression is directly related to the school age of the dependent children: the younger the child the greater the detrimental impact. Women who take a career break of greater than two years see their careers depressed and restricted. The results confirm that whilst gender has a relatively positive effect on male career progression; a women's career progression is reduced incrementally as she has more children, and part‐time workers have reduced career progression regardless of maternal or paternal circumstances.

This paper is the only example internationally, of a national workforce being examined on this scale and therefore its findings are significant. For the first time the impact of motherhood upon a women's career progression and the related factors – dependent children, career breaks and part‐time working are quantified. These findings are relevant across many areas of employment and they are significant in relation to broadening the debate around equal opportunities for women.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions and realities regarding professional advancement following motherhood. Results show great conflict between work and home life regardless of employer support or family‐friendly policies. The paper also seeks to assess conflicting societal attitudes relating to work/family responsibilities and roles, with a focus on the stereotyping and discrimination towards women endemic in the workplace following motherhood.

The paper utilized a survey with Likert‐type options and open‐ended questions to measure both perceived and real impact of motherhood on a woman's professional advancement. The sample was purposive featuring working mothers in professional fields at the managerial level and above, all of whom have children who require some level of childcare.

More than 90 working mothers responded to the survey. The results show a contrast between qualitative and quantitative data and indicate a contradiction between a working mother's expected response and her reality.

Findings indicate that flexible work arrangements do not support working mothers seeking advancement. Limitations may include the size and selection of population.

Working mothers who strive to continue an upward career track following motherhood acknowledge that motherhood has an extreme impact on professional advancement. Many mothers chose to slow down their career path, even when employer policies are family‐friendly.

One of the most compelling findings in this paper is the disparity between women's perception of their situations and the reality of their actual experiences and behaviors, as indicated in the contrasts between the qualitative and the quantitative findings.

The paper aims to shed light on the factors that affect female entrepreneurship at the macro-environment level and motherhood in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Drawing on the 5M model and an institutional approach, this paper uses a qualitative semi-structured in-depth interview approach with 44 female entrepreneurs.

The results uncover several findings highlighting the important influence of the macro-environment on female entrepreneurs in Bahrain, grouped under formal (complex regulations, double employment constraints and financial obligations) and informal (societal perceptions) institutions, as well as the nuanced role of motherhood factors.

The study addresses the motherhood aspect of female entrepreneurs comprising household, family, child/elderly care and societally perceived female duties. Therefore, it constitutes the primary building block in a more gender-aware approach to female entrepreneurship. Addressing societal perceived gender roles leads to a comprehensive perspective on the study of female entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the question whether women’s employment is negatively affected in countries with very long periods of childcare leave.

The authors analyzed data on 192,484 individual women, 305 country-years, and 18-countries, combined with country-level data on childcare, unemployment and service sector size.

The authors found that in countries with short periods of childcare leave the motherhood-employment gap is smaller than in countries with no childcare leave, while in countries with long periods of childcare leave the motherhood-employment gap is bigger than with short periods of leave.

The authors argued that to correctly answer the long-leave question – the relationship between duration of leave and employment of women should be explicitly hypothesized as being curvilinear; and childcare leave should be expected to affect only mothers, not women without children; testing the long-leave hypothesis requires the use of country-comparative data in which countries are observed repeatedly over time; and is best tested against person-level data.