Vietnamese Mumpreneurs? Middle-class Mothers Negotiating Motherhood and Work in Northern Vietnam
Abstract: This thesis explores the construction of motherhood in Northern Vietnam and how motherhood influences engagement with digital entrepreneurship. The study relies on 10 in-depth interviews with middle-class mothers of young children in urban areas in Northern Vietnam, who are currently running online businesses through Facebook. Existing literature on motherhood in Vietnam has placed motherhood within the context of the family without references to class differences. Drawing on Bourdieu’s class analysis, intensive mothering ideology and the concept of mumpreneur, this study finds that motherhood in Northern Vietnam is constructed as the primary duty of women and as a result, women are expected to mother intensively and perform more than their husbands within the domestic sphere. Being middle-class influences one’s mothering beliefs and practices in important ways, including through providing women the possibility to negotiate their gender roles and work by delegating care work to qualified external institutions. Engaging in digital entrepreneurship for the mothers in the study is a way of doing meaningful work which provides extra income, enriches one’s social circle and helps validate one’s capabilities to family members.
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