The Intersection of Reproductive, Work-Life Balance and Early-Education and Care Policies: ‘Solo’ Mothers by Choice in the UK and Spain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper, “The intersection of reproductive, work-life balance and early-education and care policies: Solo mothers by choice in the UK and Spain,” sets out to examine the obstacles that solo mothers by choice face in two different policy contexts. The paper draws on interviews with 60 mothers as well as participant observation.

The paper is ambitious in what it sets out to do, but I think it should be streamlined and rearranged to make its major argument clearer. As it stands, I’m not sure what the main takeaway of the study should be. Generally speaking, I think the components of this paper are there, but more work needs to be done in rearranging and clarifying the argument to make it more legible to readers. Below, I offer some suggestions for improvement.

 

Framing

The author could generally do more to set up the theoretical puzzle earlier in the paper. The paper currently starts with its four research aims, but I think the author should set these up in advance, and start with a more introductory paragraph framing the situation (perhaps noting the rise of solo mothers by choice or other trends). Furthermore, the first paragraph of the introduction makes many references to “policies” but does not specify which policies it is referring to. I think the paper would benefit by introducing a bit about the work-family policy landscape first before introducing what the paper plans to do, especially for readers who are less familiar with the context of the UK or Spain. This would help frame the paper, and make it clearer to the reader why this is a subject (and context) worth studying. This may involve some rearrangement in how the sections are currently written.

In terms of the four different research aims, I wonder if these could be streamlined somewhat. Perhaps something like “What barriers do women in the UK and Spain face on the road to becoming solo mothers by choice, and how do they navigate these challenges?”

In the context section, I would also appreciate a more specific discussion of the policy landscape in these two countries. As it stands, this section discusses why policy is important broadly, but I would like to know more about the concrete policies that exist in these two countries around child care, work-family conflict, parental leave, etc. I’d be especially curious about the differences between these two countries, and how they might impact mothers’ experiences. Doing so would help justify the settings of your study. You get at this somewhat on page 8 where you discuss Esping-Andersen’s work, but I think this could be discussed much much earlier in the paper. You might also find Collin’s more recent book Making Motherhood Work useful in setting this up.

 

Methods

I’m not sure what the particular guidelines are for this journal, but I typically see the discussion of methods coming after the review of the literature (and generally following the order: introduction, literature review, methods, findings, conclusion). This helps to set up the theoretical puzzle before introducing how you will go about solving it. I would suggest moving Section 2 below Section 3 and perhaps rearranging other sections of the paper to make it flow more logically.

In terms of methods, I would also like to know more about how you found the mothers you spoke with. It may also be useful to have a summary table for sample demographics. Because some mothers have older children, I'm also curious whether the policies have changed in the intervening years. That is, were the experiences of women with 20-year-old children the same as those with newborns? I would also appreciate hearing more about the participant observation portion of the study, beyond the few lines at the top of page 3.

 

Findings

I think the first 5 paragraphs under “First obstacle: Solo motherhood in Spain and the UK, access to ART” could be moved to a broader section on “context.” As it stands, this section seems to mix literature review information with your own findings, in a way that could be confusing to readers. The same could be said for the sections that come after.

This brings me to a related point that despite the vast amount of research you did for this project (60 interviews + participant observation), this data was often muddled with facts coming from elsewhere. I think you could do more to highlight your findings in the paper and make them stand out as your contribution. As it stands, it is hard to parse what information comes from your project, and what information we knew before it. This is particularly the case when it comes to the ethnographic/participant observation portion. It is unclear to me what, if anything, came from this portion of the study for this particular paper. You’ll want to highlight your contributions more throughout.

There were some sections where I thought you integrated your findings with previous research in ways that still allowed your findings to shine through. Pages 11-12 are a good example of this (as they mostly focused on your findings, but linked them to some prior research). It would be helpful if more of the findings section resembled pages like these (rather than pages like 5, which I think would be great for a more “literature-review” focused section of the paper).

 

Smaller points:

I found a few sentences (including the first sentence of the abstract) a bit convoluted and difficult to parse. I think the paper would benefit from some mild editing throughout to clarify some of its statements.

The last line of the abstract about “how situations of discrimination affect women-mothers-workers and their children” seemed somewhat out of step with what the paper is about more broadly. I would clarify what you mean by discrimination here (as it can be difficult to measure discrimination with the sort of data you have on hand).  

 

Recommended Readings

Collins, C. (2019). Making motherhood work. Princeton University Press.

Orgad, S., 2019. Heading home: Motherhood, work, and the failed promise of equality. Columbia University Press.

 

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper shows the challenges of well-educated women who have decided to be mothers on their own by choice in the UK and Spain. The article presents three main obstacles for solo mothers: a) access to assisted reproductive technology (ART), b) work-life balance – mothering and full-time work, and c) early education and caring costs. The situation and experiences in Spain and the UK are compared.

The national health system in the UK is criticized because of age discrimination to access to ART. Difficulties to childrearing without the support of a partner, costly childcare services, and restrictive care policies are discussed, as well as the burdens of paid and unpaid work for solo mothers.

This is an underexplored research topic, which is much needed to make it visible and discussed – challenges and policies including non-normative families. The paper is original and interesting. The research is well documented, well written, and relevant.

Suggestions:

The paper starts declaring the aims of the article, but the reader does not know the field to be explored yet. “This article has the following aims: first, to identify the dominant approaches and the ways in which the normative assumptions and lack of policies are challenged in the UK and Spain. Second, ...” (first sentence p.1). I suggest introducing the context – the dominant approaches of xxx and normative assumptions regarding xxx.

The journal has a wide audience. I understand that the study is carried out in Spain and in the UK, however, (1) I would introduce a comparison with other countries regarding reproductive rights and access to ART. Most countries do not include fertility treatments no ART as part of their national health services (include worldwide data) so it is a class matter to be able to afford and deal with the first obstacle – access to ART. Elsewhere there are also moral, technical as well as financial barriers to access to ART. Include the situation of other countries/continents to better understand the situated experience of solo mothers by choice in the UK and Spain. For example, the paper highlights age discrimination to access to ART on their national health services, but compared to other countries, it is a luxury that age mainly is the barrier – and consequently money. Still, women in some countries are fighting for reproductive rights (abortion) which are not granted. Therefore, a broader situation of the problem around the world would benefit the paper to understand the particularities of this case. Solo mothers elsewhere (in terms of their access to conceive and ART) are far from the described in the paper.

The article states that “Reproductive freedom or procreative liberty is essentially the individual right to have or avoid having children and to have the information and means to do so” (p.8). Access to health services and reproductive rights are yet not granted in many places around the world. In contrast, obstacles two and three are shared by many solo mothers worldwide (by choice or currently on their own), which may be easier to connect with the situation of a variety of readers. (2) I would emphasize the number of solo mothers (beyond by choice or not) in these countries and worldwide to enhance that the reality showed is more relevant in terms of a growing trend that is invisible and underestimated, as well as showing changes in family formation. 

The data is recent and rich. The paper is relevant to discuss family models and care policies. 

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The author has sufficiently addressed my concerns.