ABSTRACT
Social and economic divisions between the sexes have led to different worlds for men and women. Women perform unpaid labour in the private sphere of the home, while men have paid work in the public sphere. The woman was mother and wife; the man breadwinner. These specific divisions of labour appear to be gradually breaking down as increasingly more women and mothers enter the labour market. The traditional women’s occupations were always permeated by implicit and/or explicit ‘motherly’ skills. Take for example nursing. However, in the 1990s, women may still be overrepresented in the traditional women’s professions, but they are also gradually gaining ground in higher positions and in ‘men’s’ occupations. This has resulted in the emergence of the working mother and symbolic motherhood. The expectation of ‘motherly’ skills of women in work outside the home is known as symbolic motherhood. The term ‘working mother’ refers to biological mothers.
