Privilege & Parenting: Comparing the Experiences of White and BIPOC Working Moms during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Problem:

The purpose of this study was to better understand and compare the challenges facing working mothers of different racial identities in order to generate immediate and long-term recommendations for how employers can better support them.

Action:

1. I interviewed seven mothers who are professionally employed about the challenges they face during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what strategies they use to mitigate these challenges.

2. I used qualitative research methods to code the interview answers into the following categories.

   1. Challenges: boundary obliteration, autonomy loss, emotional overload, underperformance guilt, health concerns, racism concerns, mental overload

   2. Strategies: activating family, redrawing boundaries, confiding & venting, adapting outlook, fostering wellness, leveraging resources

3. I compared the prominence of the categories across the four white and three BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) participants by analyzing the data both qualitatively—through card sorting—and quantitatively—with tables and graphs.

Data Summary:

• The study results reflected disparities in socioeconomic status and privilege between BIPOC and white working mothers.

• BIPOC participants reported more stress from existential threats, and focused on changing their outlook rather than their circumstances.

• By contrast, white participants reported more stress from loss of amenities and services, and leveraged external resources to improve their work/life balance.

• All participants faced the challenge of underperformance guilt and utilized the strategy of confiding and venting in others.

Result:

I offer the following recommendations to employers to improve work-life balance for mothers.

Download “Privilege & Parenting: Comparing the Experiences of White and BIPOC Working Moms during the COVID-19 Pandemic.”