Marginalised mothers: impact of the maternal body on middle-career experiences of low-income mothers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Working mothers face the challenge of navigating two conflicting expectations: the 'ideal worker' and the 'ideal mother' (Stone & Lovejoy, 2004). The concept of the 'maternal body,' which focuses on the fertility of a woman such as during pregnancy, childbirth, and child nurturing, has been largely overlooked in explaining the workplace experiences of women (Gatrell et al., 2017; Haynes, 2008). This article explores these experiences among low-income Nigerian working mothers in their middle career stage, addressing the research question: ‘How do Nigerian mothers in low-income jobs navigate their maternal body experiences at work?’ Responding to calls for research on marginalised southern communities and their cultural perspectives, this study contributes to the understanding of the maternal body and work, using a life-course approach. Through thematic analysis of interviews with 20 mothers, the study reveals that their workplace experiences are marked by discrimination and marginalisation, largely due to their socio-economic status, economic pressures and structural constraints, leading many women to internalise and normalise these challenges, further reinforcing societal expectations and inequalities. The findings highlight the profound impact of economic necessity, cultural norms, and societal perceptions on the maternal body experience. The study further recognises the role of support networks and personal agency in mitigating these negative experiences, suggesting that individual strategies such as seeking informal spousal support, self-advocacy and building resilience can help reduce the adverse effects on working mothers. By examining the transitions and trajectories of these women, the study sheds light on the broader societal dynamics influencing their lives.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".