...to post a shameless begging thread?

[HermioneWeasIey]

For ideas of course, not money.

There's a TLDR at the bottom, but some backstory:

MN has helped me so much over the past five years - empowering me to leave my abusive exP, giving me advice when my tax credits stopped causing me to be suicidal yada yada.

But the time when this community really went above and beyond was when the data collection for my dissertation ended up completely useless due to a uni admin error and over 200 of you lovely people did my survey in 48 hours and I ended up getting an unbelievable grade for it, thanks to you guys saving the day.

A year later, I've just started my MSc in Organisational Psychology and I think I might need you all again. Most of my fellow students are planning on doing their research projects within their workplace. But I have a horrible job, which I'm desperate to leave. I've got a couple of interviews lined up, but security clearance will take a couple of months and my proposal is due in December.

And actually, I want to study something I'm really interested in. And I'm interested in women, especially mothers (particularly women who are/ were young and/ or single mothers), and class, and how this affects career opportunity, attainment, self-confidence, barriers to career success etc.

So I suddenly thought today... maybe this is one that MN might help me out on too? I think qualitative research would be better for these themes, and I'm just researching whether this is really an option online. It seems it is, though I don't know whether my lecturers would think so. So I guess my question is twofold.

1. Would you (please ) think about taking part in a qualitative study online like this? I guess I could try to offer a £50 voucher or something as a prize to one participant to entice.

2. [TLDR] if you were going to research (or choose to read some research on) a topic relating to work, and people in the workplace, what would you choose?

Oh dear.. even my goady thread title didn't attract replies

Attitudes to women when returning from maternity leave. The different ways women and men are treated as parents- not in the legal sense, but socially and in promotion prospects.

Hi, I'm a young and mostly single parent. I'm 23 and live alone with my DS.

But what I want to know more about by far is the 'motherhood cost' in the workplace. Why should women's opportunities be fewer because she brought a life into the world? Why do men not have to sacrifice employment for their child? Why is it just accepted that because I had my son, when/if I return to employment my male colleagues treat maternity leave like a holiday?

Sorry for the mini rant, it's a topic I think about a lot.

I was reading this Guardian piece about shared parental leave today and thinking how said/weird/wrong it is that so few men are taking it up and how crap it is that perceptions about it are negative - especially given the very positive knock-on effects in terms of involvement with family life etc that go with shared leave. So I'd choose that.

Do you have an MSc project supervisor? If not, find a supervisor asap. The university should give you a list of potential supervisors. Look them up on google scholar or the uni website and see who has research interests similar to yours. And don't be afraid to contact supervisors within the uni who aren't on the list or who have not written your topic on the official list. Supervisors normally like to hear from motivated, interested students.

Once you have a supervisor, that person can help you set up a good project and recruit participants etc. There are a lot of academics on twitter and that can also be a good place to get participants, if you can tweet a link to your survey.

No ideas but bumping as interested to see how this turns out for you OP! All the best with your research. 😁

Do ask MNHQ if you want to conduct some research using their website and they'll advise you of the protocol.

I would be quite interested to know how much work the part timers with kids do compared to the childless/free full timers. I don’t know whether people would/could be honest about it though.

I'd be interested to know about parental attitudes to work- in particular levels of guilt between mothers and fathers and how this impacts on career progression.

I would happily participate
Please feel free to PM me
I was brought up working class
Ended up as a lone parent
Have really struggled through life n career but now feel confident and mostly successful
I would be happy to disseminate your survey through my professional links and on social media

I would happily participate without an incentive. I was a young single mother and, thinking about it, probably have quite a useful story. I'm assuming the data would be presented anonymously?

I would definitely participate. I am working class, brought up in foster care for more than half my childhood, I am now a single parent with a degree. I have suffered with judgements due to where I come in the social pecking order from being very young, and that has ultimately had an impact on my self confidence, but I have been in therapy for quite some time to work on this.

I'd be interested in the outcomes of trade union activity supporting women / parents / carers in the workplace. I've got some slightly outdated knowledge of what can be done, but how much of a difference are we making?

*Do you have an MSc project supervisor? If not, find a supervisor asap. The university should give you a list of potential supervisors. Look them up on google scholar or the uni website and see who has research interests similar to yours. And don't be afraid to contact supervisors within the uni who aren't on the list or who have not written your topic on the official list. Supervisors normally like to hear from motivated, interested students.

Once you have a supervisor, that person can help you set up a good project and recruit participants etc. There are a lot of academics on twitter and that can also be a good place to get participants, if you can tweet a link to your survey.*

I've only just started. Abstracts are due in a month or so, and that's why I get matched to a supervisor who's research interests, and specifically preferred methodology, matches my project most closely.

I've just emailed the programme head asking her if it's feasible to do online qualitative study. I don't know if quantitative study would be best matched to these complex themes.

But it's early days, and I'm just contemplating my options really.

Do ask MNHQ if you want to conduct some research using their website and they'll advise you of the protocol.

Of course. I was surprised nobody reported my thread last year tbh, which started off at me just freaking out having no dissertation data. Then ended up having hundreds of posts of people saving the day. I was waiting for MNHQ to move it to the correct section, but I guess nobody felt it necessary to report it to them. I really appreciated that kindness.

How about 'imposter syndrome'? And is it true that many women end up in career cul de sacs after the 2nd child, not the first?

I wouldn't need much of an incentive to participate either, it's mainly a question of remembering to do it!

Thank you to everyone saying they would participate! My ethics form won't be granted until January earliest, so this honestly isn't a thread directly asking for participants. I was just floating the idea, tbh. Doing a qualitative study will likely take longer than the 5 minute closed question survey people did for me last year, so I wanted to see if there was a possibility that people would do that online for little reward.

Very grateful to hear some people would.

Everybody's research thoughts are really interesting, too. Thank you for sharing. I wish I was super high up in a huge company like a lot of my fellow students are, so I could think about doing a study comparing men/ women in some of the areas suggested. One day, hopefully (or even better, I can fight the discrimination from within)!

Oh, and any study would absolutely be anonymous.

Od be interested why so few women want to give you 'their' maternity leave to share paternity leave with their partner. Though this doesnt really fit with your single parent I guess. Just whenever there is a thread about it none of the arguments make sense to me. For example 'women need time to heal' - yes but the vast majority are healed before 12 months. 'Most couples couldn't afford it due to the gender pay gap'. But 25pc of couples the women earn more and there must be a high percent earning roughly equal and anyway the gender pay gap doesnt really kick in as much til average child rearing age. 'It interferes with breastfeeding' again not really relevant as most people dont breastfeed over 6 months (and myself and the only other couple I know who shared paternity leave both breastfed) and 'my husband can have paternity leave when he has given birth' ie I've earnest, but then these people complain when their husband cant look after their baby alone etc. I'd be interested in if certain sectors took it up, how much it links to salaries being skewed in the woman's favour, if companies can take actions to increase the takeup, if it is linked to class, and the effects of it being shared eg does this have any correlation with the father working flexibly afterwards to do his share of childcare, how does it affect sharing of chores at home, relationship with children etc.

What is TLDR?

I think it would be possible to do qualitative online but you would get a certain kind of person with a certain level of education who is able to express themselves well in writing. It may be better to do recorded (with permission obv) phonecalls. But then, you do need to get people's phone numbers. Skype is annoying but also possible. I think you have some good suggestions for topics above although some of those would be more quant based.

Merry - too long, didn’t read, put at the end as a sort of summary. OP, sounds like a really interesting theme, I’d imagine there would be quite a few people interested in this area. Good luck.

I’d be interested in a study on whether it is harder to remain in work full time once a child goes to school. And also how this changes at secondary age when all the after school care disappears. I’ve seen a lot of women go part time after school starts and personal experience is secondary age is much harder for after school hours/holidays particularly for children with additional needs who don’t fit the criteria for support in the holidays.

I would be willing to participate in your research as a single mother in a professional and I know a number of other mothers in similar circumstances who would also participate.
Good luck!

@GettingABitDesperateNow I would also love to see that! DH and I found that tons of women in the office would praise him for taking 3 months shared parental leave, whilst the SAME WOMEN would say to me that I was bonkers for giving up some of my leave for DH.

I breastfed, and DS had tummy troubles which meant I had to express at work for him for 3 months. It was a faff at times, but it was SO worth it when I see how much more hands on DH is than friends' partners. Being a primary carer for several months is not an experience you can learn through other means. The mental load, the loneliness, the sheer weight of responsibility - it's not comparable if the most you've ever done alone is a few hours or a day or two.