Child Care Behaviours of Professional Mothers in Accra

Generally, lack of material resources for child care among low income or poor households has been emphasized in both research studies and policies that seek to address poor child nutritional and health status. But female time poverty resulting mainly from occupational and maternal role conflicts has also been identified by a number of studies as a factor associated with suboptimal child care. The present study examined the structural and institutional conditions that undermine the positive benefits of maternal education and occupation and the associated care behaviours among highly educated professional mothers in the city of Accra. The findings show that location of work place was a major factor associated with the ability of the mothers to combine child care activities with work. Long hours of travel to and from work due to heavy vehicular traffic prevented some from even enjoying fully the half-day work benefit for lactating mothers. Child care tasks are delegated to inexperienced house helps. It is recommended that policies that can reduce maternal and occupational role conflicts should be adopted to improve child care behaviours and outcomes among professional women in Accra and Ghana as a whole.