Solo motherhood and childcare: investigating the return-to-work experiences of families formed through donor insemination or IVF

自1978年路易丝·布朗出生以来，新的生殖技术使家庭能够以新的方式建立（Gurtin和Faircloth 2018）。一个例子是由单身母亲（或选择单身母亲）使用供体授精或越来越多的IVF（HFEA 2020）组成的家庭。人们对这些新的家庭形式的工作和照料做法越来越感兴趣;然而，对单亲家庭的现有研究往往侧重于通过分居或离婚形成的单亲家庭。这往往强调儿童的结果较差，主要是由于经济困难（Amato 2005）。由于单身母亲通常在经济上是安全的（Graham and Braverman 2012），这种框架排除了他们的经验。因此，我的项目将探讨单亲父母这一未被充分研究的亚群体在休完育儿假后重返工作岗位时的育儿选择和做法。该项目定位于解释主义范式内，并将采取定性方法。我预计我的数据收集方法将是重复的半结构化访谈：这种方法已用于解决类似的研究问题（例如Graham 2018和Bock 2000）。这个多学科项目属于ESRC教育研究领域，也将借鉴社会学、儿童研究和育儿文化研究领域。该项目将产生概念上的影响，有助于理解与新的家庭形式中的儿童保育和育儿假有关的政策问题，并重新构建单亲家庭的赤字模式。这将符合ESRC的研究职责，为社会和经济做出可证明的贡献。

Since the birth of Louise Brown in 1978, new reproductive technologies have enabled families to be created in new ways (Gurtin and Faircloth 2018). One example is families formed by solo mothers (or single mothers by choice) using donor insemination or, increasingly, IVF (HFEA 2020). Interest in the work and care practices of these new family forms is growing; however, existing research into single parent families has tended to focus on those formed through separation or divorce. This often emphasises poorer outcomes for children, primarily due to economic hardship (Amato 2005). As solo mothers are usually financially secure (Graham and Braverman 2012), this framing excludes their experiences.My project will therefore explore the childcare choices and practices of this understudied sub-group of single parents as they return to work following parental leave.The project is positioned within the interpretivist paradigm, and will take a qualitative approach. I anticipate that my data collection method will be repeated semi-structured interviews: this approach has been used to address similar research questions (for example Graham 2018 and Bock 2000).This multidisciplinary project sits within the ESRC research area of Education and will also draw on the fields of sociology, childhood studies and parenting culture studies. The project will have conceptual impact by contributing to understanding of policy issues related to childcare and parental leave in new family forms, and by reframing the deficit model of single parent families. This will meet the ESRC remit of producing research that makes a demonstrable contribution to society and the economy.