The mother of four juggled family life while she completed her PhD and said many women felt like they were starting a “second shift” when they got home.
“All I can say, and what mine and other research shows, is that women continue to carry the burden of child-rearing and domestic duties,” Dr Bosch said.
“It also is clear that many women experience guilt about spending time away from their children and also the cultural expectations around motherhood are such that women perceive there to be an enormous amount of pressure on them and consequently put massively high expectations on themselves.
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READ NOW“The major difficulties centre around childcare and finding appropriate, affordable and available childcare.”
Dr Bosch said she planned to advocate for short-term, on-campus childcare options for parents.
“It is important for mums and their kids to realise they are not alone in their experiences of juggling education with life and family,” she said.
“And importantly for mothers it is important to get the message out there that the benefits of their studies to their children are enormous and far outweigh any negatives.
“I wanted to create a resource that was based on sound empirical evidence so I created the story My Mum Studies – Just Like Me based on my findings.”