When Public-Sector Employment Becomes Unfriendly to Mothers: How State Control and the Market Economy Impede Mothering in State-Owned Enterprises in Post-Reform China

Abstract

While prior studies portray public-sector work as mother-friendly, this study examines how the state, market and their interplay impede such work from accommodating mothering through work–family interface and gender regime theories. Drawing on an ethnography in a state-owned enterprise and interviews with 21 mothers experienced in working for state-owned companies in post-reform China, this research finds that state control and market economy operate as interrelated macrosystems that undermine the reconciliation of public-sector work and mothering by generating job demands incompatible with family demands, threatening employment security and weakening work resources supporting childcare. Tensions between public-sector employment and mothering manifest as work–to–family conflict or obstacles to achieving a family demand–work resource fit. This study contributes to scholarship on public-sector maternal employment by conceptualising how political and economic contexts create conundrums for mothers handling work and family within this employment segment. Policy implications are discussed.