FACTORS LEADING WOMEN TO LEAVE THE LABOR MARKET AFTER THE BIRTH OF THEIR FIRST CHILD

Résumé

Women must work, be successful, and cope with multiple journeys. On the other hand, the traditional roles of women still weigh in their daily lives. Facing this scenario, many women have left the labor market and in some cases have left successful careers after the birth of their first child. An exploratory research with in-depth interviews and a survey containing 120 respondents from the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre/RS was carried out. We sought to investigated what are the factors that lead women to leave the labor market after the birth of their first child. Less than half of the respondents considered they had faced dilemmas, and those who did, experienced dilemmas related to the dual role of mother and professional, and doubts about how to return work after the period dedicated to the child. This denotes the importance of dedication and the effective role of the mothers as great influencers of these decisions. It is recommended that future studies include a sample with distinct characteristics that may reveal other information about the reality of working mothers who work and perform double or multiple day’s journey in their roles of woman, wife, mother and professional.