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Impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
OBJECTIVE: To explore the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) using focus group discussions (FGDs) to understand the impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care. The effects of mothers’ employment on nutritional st...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BMJ Publishing Group
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987718/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24694624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004434 |
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author | Nair, Manisha Ariana, Proochista Webster, Premila |
author_facet | Nair, Manisha Ariana, Proochista Webster, Premila |
author_sort | Nair, Manisha |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVE: To explore the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) using focus group discussions (FGDs) to understand the impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care. The effects of mothers’ employment on nutritional status of children could be variable. It could lead to increased household income, but could also compromise child care and feeding. SETTING: The study was undertaken in the Dungarpur district of Rajasthan, India. PARTICIPANTS: Mothers of infants <12 months of age. Ten FGDs, two in each of the five administrative blocks of the study district were conducted. The groups were composed of a minimum of 5 and maximum of 8 participants, giving a total of 62 mothers. Thematic analysis was conducted to assess patterns and generate emergent themes. RESULTS: Four major themes were identified—‘mothers' employment compromises infant feeding and care’, ‘caregivers’ inability to substitute mothers’ care’, ‘compromises related to childcare and feeding outweigh benefits from MGNREGA’ and ‘employment as disempowering’. Mothers felt that the comprises to infant care and feeding due to long hours of work, lack of alternative adequate care arrangements, low wages and delayed payments outweighed the benefits from the scheme. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides an account of the trade-off between mothers’ employment and child care. It provides an understanding of the household power relationships, societal and cultural factors that modulate the effects of mothers’ employment. From the perspective of mothers, it helps to understand the benefits and problems related to providing employment to women with infants in the MGNREGA scheme and make a case to pursue policy changes to improve their working conditions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3987718 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-39877182014-04-16 Impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Nair, Manisha Ariana, Proochista Webster, Premila BMJ Open Public Health OBJECTIVE: To explore the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) using focus group discussions (FGDs) to understand the impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care. The effects of mothers’ employment on nutritional status of children could be variable. It could lead to increased household income, but could also compromise child care and feeding. SETTING: The study was undertaken in the Dungarpur district of Rajasthan, India. PARTICIPANTS: Mothers of infants <12 months of age. Ten FGDs, two in each of the five administrative blocks of the study district were conducted. The groups were composed of a minimum of 5 and maximum of 8 participants, giving a total of 62 mothers. Thematic analysis was conducted to assess patterns and generate emergent themes. RESULTS: Four major themes were identified—‘mothers' employment compromises infant feeding and care’, ‘caregivers’ inability to substitute mothers’ care’, ‘compromises related to childcare and feeding outweigh benefits from MGNREGA’ and ‘employment as disempowering’. Mothers felt that the comprises to infant care and feeding due to long hours of work, lack of alternative adequate care arrangements, low wages and delayed payments outweighed the benefits from the scheme. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides an account of the trade-off between mothers’ employment and child care. It provides an understanding of the household power relationships, societal and cultural factors that modulate the effects of mothers’ employment. From the perspective of mothers, it helps to understand the benefits and problems related to providing employment to women with infants in the MGNREGA scheme and make a case to pursue policy changes to improve their working conditions. BMJ Publishing Group 2014-04-02 /pmc/articles/PMC3987718/ /pubmed/24694624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004434 Text en Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
spellingShingle | Public Health Nair, Manisha Ariana, Proochista Webster, Premila Impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act |
title | Impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act |
title_full | Impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act |
title_fullStr | Impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act |
title_full_unstemmed | Impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act |
title_short | Impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act |
title_sort | impact of mothers’ employment on infant feeding and care: a qualitative study of the experiences of mothers employed through the mahatma gandhi national rural employment guarantee act |
topic | Public Health |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987718/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24694624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004434 |
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