Relational processes enabling the balancing of academic work and motherhood: A grounded theory study with academic women at a South African university

Through the use of contextual data, this research study aims to explicate a theory about the
experiences of academic women, who are also mothers, employed at a South African University.
The research is interpretive in nature as it explores the women’s accounts of the conflicts they
face in striving to satisfy the demands of both their scholarly work and family responsibilities
within multiple intersecting factors related to their personal/familial circumstances, and the
strategic processes they engage in to manage the balance between these competing roles. The
study followed a constructivist grounded theory design in an attempt to test the hypothesis
(emerging from a prior pilot study) that the most significant enabling factors at work in the lives
of these women comprise various relational support processes. The findings indicate that
balancing academic work and mothering is a delicate activity that is sensitive to a number of
facilitating as well as hindering factors. The participants revealed that they experience work-family
role-conflict as a result of competing desires to dedicate themselves fully to both of these roles.
The relational factors most prominently cited as being critical to enabling a work-family balance
include the presence of a supportive partner, a support structure in the home in the form of an
employed domestic helper, and the support derived from a ‘shared experience’ with other working
mothers. Non-relational factors emanating from the unique quality of life afforded to mothers by
employment within the particular case institution also emerged as being significantly enabling of
a work-family balance for this group of academic mothers.

Publisher: Rhodes University
Year of Publication: 2011