Overview

Modern motherhood in Australia and New Zealand is marked by contradiction. Recent decades have seen policy changes aimed at facilitating gender equality such as enhanced paid parental leave and more generous childcare subsidies alongside cultural shifts in the gendered division of domestic labour and women's workforce participation. Yet, despite these changes, motherhood continues to be a contested and divisive subject, as well as a site of inequality. Many households and communities strive for egalitarian relationships and challenge the conflation of women with motherhood; however, essentialist notions of the maternal persist. Norms of 'good motherhood' continue to limit the identities available to mothers, and structural responses to gender inequities often fall short. Tensions are therefore present in cultural representations of women and families, workplace and sector policies and practices, government initiatives, and lived experiences of motherhood. Intersectional inequalities compound these challenges. Indigenous, sole, and migrant mothers face additional barriers that workplace and welfare policies have failed to adequately address. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified these pressures, while simultaneously presenting opportunities to restructure work and care. With contributions from scholars across a range of disciplines including history, sociology, criminology, human geography, media and communication, and business and management Motherhood, Labour and Care in the 21stCentury: Contradictions in focus interrogates these substantive themes in diverse communities across Australia and New Zealand. It offers a critical reflection on motherhood, labour and care, uncovering taken-for-granted assumptions about gender and family life, and redressing stubborn inequities. Motherhood, Labour and Care in the 21stCentury hopes to encourage individuals and households to think differently about motherhood, and to inform government perspectives and social policy on gender ideologies, families, workplaces, and the broader care deficit.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sheree Gregory ,  Kate Huppatz ,  Carla Pascoe Leahy ,  Briony Lipton
Publisher:   Sydney University Press
Imprint:   Sydney University Press
ISBN:  

9781761540578

ISBN 10:   1761540572
Publication Date:   01 April 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Contributors List of tables Chapter 1: New perspectives on the contradictions of motherhood, labour and care in the twenty-first century: An introduction *by Sheree Gregory and Kate Huppatz * Chapter 2: Doing it alone or doing it my way? Work, care and ambiguous absences in migrant motherhood by Leah Williams Veazey Chapter 3: Motherhood and work–life balance in ABC’s Kids Bluey: Breaking or reinforcing gender norms at home and work? by Briony Lipton Chapter 4: “I’d got back from maternity leave and they’d basically written me off”: Situating servicewomen, motherhood and mothering in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) “family” by Kate Huppatz and Selda Dagistanli Chapter 5: Mothers and writers: Navigating work/care contradictions through creative home-based labour by Emilie Baganz Chapter 6: The (mis)conception of the “bad” Aboriginal mother in Australia by Corrinne T. Sullivan and Georgia Coe Chapter 7: “Have you got your childcare problem under control?” The contradictory construction of care and motherhood in the screen industries by Sheree Gregory and Deb Verhoeven Chapter 8: “Desexualised, vapid and frazzled”: Women’s responses to media treatment of mothers in Aotearoa New Zealand *by Charlotte Kells Robertson * Chapter 9: Labouring towards academic leadership: Mothering, contradictions and possibilities in the neoliberal university by Michelle O’Shea, Emilee Gilbert and Chloe Taylor Chapter 10: Chinese migrant professional women returning to paid work after maternity leave: Mothers’ care and career, employer practices and work–family policies by Yinghua Yu Chapter 11: Cultural contradictions: Perceptions of sole mother poverty and welfare in an age of neoliberalism and intensive mothering by Emily Wolfinger Chapter 12: Conclusions: Resisting and reshaping the contradictions of motherhood by Sheree Gregory and Kate Huppatz Index

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Author Information

Dr Sheree Gregory is Senior Lecturer of Human Resource Management in the Newcastle Business School. Her research explores contemporary issues and policy challenges surrounding work and families and in relation to gender in Australia. Professor Kate Huppatz is Associate Dean, Research (School of Social Sciences) at Western Sydney University. Her research explores the role of labour and culture in the production and reproduction of gender inequality, with a focus on workplaces and families.

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