Experiences of career and family from a working mothers perspective
1. Professional Success: The desire for professional success does not stop when women become mothers. 2. Maternity Rights: The provision of maternity leave did not impact on the decision to have children but helped to make life easier. 3.Gender: Women were subtly directed towards female appropriate careers. 4. Empathy: Increased level of empathy was reported by all participants. There was a belief that this made them more well rounded bosses. 5. Love & Caring: The expectation was that the working mothers would also be responsible within the family for the majority of love and caring. It was reported that this was done instinctively. 6.Choice: The suggestion is that when children are small the women did not have a lot of choice and all choice they did make were difficult as either family or career suffered. As children grew up, the women felt more choice became available to them.
Onwards and Upwards? Gender and Work in Ireland
It can be argued that the Irish workforce has been revolutionised over the past 25 years, as married women entered the world of paid work in increasing numbers, bolstering the female participation rate. There have also been changes in gender roles and gender role attitudes over the period. This review will present sociological research analysing this major social change, including research that places the Irish case in a comparative European and international context. The review will mirror the main foci of the field, paying particular attention to research on gender role attitudes, occupational segregation and unpaid work. The gendering of the Irish workforce has been a complex and uneven process, involving continuities as well as changes. Overall, the sexual division of labour remains a key feature of paid and unpaid work in Ireland, and the concept has considerable explanatory power in relation to persistent gender inequalities.
Pregnancy and employment: a literature review
This literature review forms part of a major new research study on women’s experiences in the workplace during 
and after pregnancy, commissioned by the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme and the Equality Authority. In 
addition to this review the research involved a study of pregnancy discrimination cases in the Equality Tribunal and 
Labour Court, 1999 – 2008 (Banks & Russell, 2011) and a nationwide survey of 2,300 working mothers (Russell, 
Watson, Banks, forthcoming). The broad objective of the research project was to investigate the influence of 
pregnancy and childbirth on women’s employment experiences, including an assessment of pregnancy-related 
discrimination in Ireland, and how these experiences are shaped by organisational factors and women’s attitudes 
and characteristics. 
While there is a very substantial literature on the impact of childbearing on women’s employment careers 
and on the transitions back into work, these studies focus on the period after childbirth and rarely focus on 
pregnancy. Instead there is a rather separate literature on pregnancy in the workplace, which deals with the 
health consequences of employment during pregnancy, pregnancy discrimination and maternity rights. In this 
literature review we bring together evidence from both these sources to consider how pregnancy and maternity 
is experienced in the workplace and to understand the immediate and longer term outcomes of pregnancy and 
childbirth on women’s employment. 
Over the past few decades women’s participation in the paid labour market has risen substantially both in 
Ireland and internationally. As a consequence, pregnancy in the workplace has become a much more common 
occurrence. Nevertheless, while there is a large literature on the issue of gender and employment and on 
the intersection of work and family life, the experience of pregnancy in the workplace is less well researched. 
McDonald and Dear (2006) note that “there is a paucity of empirical work ... which has explored women’s 
experiences of pregnancy in the workplace, much less the patterns of behaviour reported in cases where women 
experience disadvantage as a result of pregnancy.” 
Attitudes, norms and stereotypes concerning the roles of mothers and of workers and perceived conflicts 
between these roles are more likely to become evident for pregnant workers (Halpert et al, 1993). Pregnancy 
and childbirth also necessitate a break in employment for mothers, and the way in which this interruption is 
managed has important implications for women’s working and family lives. The potential vulnerability of pregnant 
workers to unfavourable treatment and discrimination, to health and safety risks and to problems associated 
with reintegration into employment, is recognised in maternity-protection legislation and in anti-discrimination 
legislation in many European jurisdictions. Entitlements for Irish workers during pregnancy and the early period of 
maternity are outlined in Banks and Russell (2011).