Maternal Employment during Northern Vietnam's Era of Market Reform

Abstract

This research explores the relationship between family structure and maternal employment in Vietnam's Red River Delta, a region experiencing economic development and market transition. Analyses of work intensity, measured as working hours and multiple jobholding, demonstrate that women, including mothers of infants and preschoolers, persistently work at high levels of intensity. Work intensity is especially high among women raising teenage children, due to demands for education and other resources exerted upon parents. The findings suggest a reframing of the 'role compatibility' thesis that has guided research on maternal employment. Women's employment is a foremost response to financial pressures in poor households; it is central to the maternal role and even more salient than care work and supervision in contextsfeaturing diverse, alternative forms of childcare. Research exploring the interrelationship in women's lives between the demands of raising children and participating in the workforce has broadened to span several academic disciplines, theoretical bases, and diverse international contexts. Consequently, our understandings of the macro-structural, cultural, and institutional forces that constrain and promote maternal employment have evolved in complexity and diversity over the past three decades. I contribute Vietnamese women's experiences during the transition from socialism to market economy to the theoretical and analytical perspectives that have made meaning of women's working lives in the global South. The stories of Vietnamese women, to this date