Neoliberalism as a Lens to Understand Professional Women’s Re-Entry into the Workforce Post Child-Birth: Evidence from India

A 2014 report by World Economic Forum on BRICS nations lists India as a poor performer with respect to handling gender diversity. In India, tradition and conservative cultural norms continue to be held in great regard. In this context, a major reason for women leaving the workforce is child-birth. However, few studies have focused on experiences of women`s re-entry into the workforce after child birth.

Recent feminist literature discusses the impact of neoliberalism, requiring individuals to be entrepreneurial and value choice and freedom to take care of self on working women. Traits of the neoliberal individual who is enterprising and self-regulating find close parallels in the feminist agenda for women to be active and exercise choice. In this context, a woman seeking to ascribe to be a good mother is often described as one who nurtures her family and considers care-giving to be more fulfilling than work. Such women may opt out of the workforce, slow down career progress or integrate or compartmentalize work and family time and emotions in attempts to be the perfect mother. However, such opt-outs or exits need not mean a permanent exit and recent years have seen a positive trend of such women attempting to return to full-time work. We present a qualitative study from India where we conducted in-depth interviews with 34 middle class working women who had taken a permanent exit during child birth and after a period of at least 2 years of break attempted to return to the workforce. Many of these women had a nuclear set up at home with frequent visits by in-laws and parents. Using neoliberalism as a lens to understand how middle-class women professionals navigate conflicting aspirations and expectations they face, we uncovered differential strategies that these women adopted during re-entry in to the workforce.