Coping with work and family: strategies of mothers with young children in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

The process of urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa has had gendered consequences as economic, socio-cultural and environmental transformations have resulted in the greater intensification of women’s burdens compared to men’s. In such shifting contexts the combination of productive and reproductive roles may be increasingly difficult which raises the question of how mothers cope with their multiple responsibilities. This research develops a greater understanding of the coping strategies adopted by mothers with young children in Accra, Ghana, through the use of mixed methods. Qualitative data was analysed according to Hall’s (1972) typology of coping. Whilst a diversity of coping strategies was found to be employed by mothers, the majority of these were of a structural role redefinition approach. Of primary importance was the childcare strategy used. In order to quantitatively investigate variation in the adoption of childcare arrangements multinomial logistic regression was performed on data from the Accra Urban Food and Nutrition Survey (AUFNS). The study found that mothers are active agents, drawing upon resources and negotiating with others to alter the demands of their roles to fit the changing requirements of their developing child(ren)

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