Inclusion of Home-Centred Women

Abstract

Firms are highly interested in better inclusion of women with childcare commitments, especially for leadership positions, as reward for higher work groups’ gender diversity is valuable. Gender diversity became topical issue in corporate social responsibility of companies. However, many firms report that gender diversity is stalled, due to conflicting stereotypes about social roles of employees. Hakim’s influential preference theory suggests explanations of how women choose between productive and reproductive work. According to it, there are three types of employed women: home-centred, work-centred and adaptive workers, who combine both. Three options for preference assume three alternative frames of reference. Inclusion-related initiatives aim to reshape such frames by addressing employees’ identity work through readjusting managerially inspired discourses. Current research narrows the focus to the most vulnerable of them – home-centred women. We referred to responses of 721 mothers with previous working experience, from the biggest cities in Russia to find answers to the following questions: what affects home-centred women in their decision to return to the same employer after the maternity leave and what causes them to quit. We enriched empirical analysis with a theoretical review of initiatives helping to readjust corresponding stereotypes.