Choice and the Relationship between Identities and Behaviour for Mothers with Pre-School Children: Some Implicatons for Policy from a UK Study

This article reports on the findings & policy implications of a UK study that used both qualitative & quantitative methods to investigate mothers' decision-making with respect to the interlinked issues of the care of their pre-school children & their own employment. Mothers were found to have both internal & external constraints on their decisions. In the three areas of finances, childcare & working time, both personal identities & external circumstances limited mothers' choices. However, neither external circumstances nor identities were fixed. Behaviour & identities were therefore adjusted to each other, giving rise to feedback effects at both the individual & the social level. While the constraints of identity limit the direct effectiveness of some policies, the long-term effectiveness of others may be enhanced by positive feedback arising from attitudes changing along with behaviour. A 'policy multiplier' is defined as the ratio of such indirect to direct effects. This is likely to be greater for enabling policies that lift existing constraints & enable choices that were previously not available, than for coercive policies that impose new constraints on behaviour. The article examines the implications of such feedback effects for developing policy that expands the choices available to mothers in the short term, reduces the costs of motherhood, & meets the government's long-term objectives of reducing child poverty & increasing employment. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.