THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF WORKING MOTHERS IN TUNISIA

Abstract

Arab working mothers are an understudied population with complex experiences. Tunisian working mothers navigate a complex intersection of cultural expectations, institutional shortcomings, and professional aspirations. This qualitative study examines how Tunisian mothers construct and negotiate their dual identities as caregivers and professionals within a socio-cultural context shaped by intensive mothering ideologies and limited structural support for working parents. Drawing on 14 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, the analysis explores how participants discursively manage contradictions between ideal mother and ideal worker norms and how they make sense of these tensions through applying four response strategies illustrated in relational dialectics theory. While participants internalized dominant discourses of maternal devotion, they also rearticulated work as a form of care and agency. The study illustrates how cultural values are negotiated and transformed through everyday communication practices that both reinforce and resist dominant ideologies.