Navigating Intensive Motherhood: Inventiveness and Agency Among Low-Income Single Mothers

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68378025%3A_____%2F26%3A00637822" target="_blank" >RIV/68378025:_____/26:00637822 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.journals.vu.lt/STEPP/article/view/38926" target="_blank" >https://www.journals.vu.lt/STEPP/article/view/38926</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/STEPP.2026.32.1" target="_blank" >10.15388/STEPP.2026.32.1</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Navigating Intensive Motherhood: Inventiveness and Agency Among Low-Income Single Mothers

Original language description

This article explores how the ideology of intensive motherhood is reflected in, and shapes, the experiences of low-income single mothers in Czechia. By focusing on this group, the study advances understanding of the diffusion of the intensive motherhood ideology and the intersectional aspects of social reproduction. We demonstrate that, while intensive motherhood norms influence maternal practices in Czechia, low-income single mothers respond with inventive adaptations and reframing that reflect their specific circumstances. These forms of agency of low-income single mothers are often overlooked when their mothering is viewed solely through the lens of resource deficits relative to the dominant norms. Despite precarious conditions, these mothers maintain a positive maternal identity and dignity by adapting, reframing, or, at times, challenging the prevailing norms of intensive mothering. Our findings show that, in striving to meet the dominant norms, low-income single mothers undertake a range of additional, highly emotion-, labour- and time-intensive activities on a daily basis, yet these activities remain unrecognised in traditional conceptualisations of intensive motherhood, which are largely based on white middle-class women. In the neoliberal context, however, these unacknowledged efforts contribute to their further marginalisation.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50401 - Sociology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA21-18014S" target="_blank" >GA21-18014S: Diversity of attitudes to childcare and parenting practices: their sources and outcomes</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2026

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Socialine Teorija Empirija Politika ir Praktika

ISSN

1648-2425

e-ISSN

2345-0266

Volume of the periodical

32

Issue of the periodical within the volume

30/7/2025

Country of publishing house

LT - LITHUANIA

Number of pages

22

Pages from-to

8-29

UT code for WoS article

001572990100001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

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