Late motherhood practices of working and non-working women in the context of new motherhood trends

The thesis "Late Motherhood Practices of Working and Non-Working Women in the Context of New Motherhood Trends" is constructed around family, gender, women, and social change. Gender, which emphasizes that being a woman and a man has a socio-cultural meaning in addition to its biological meaning, is a cultural phenomenon that changes with social change. Moreover, gender roles and responsibilities are acquired during the socialization process. In this context, the study emphasizes social change and the family with changing roles and responsibilities, the transformation of the family in Turkey, the changing position of women in the historical process, and the role of women in and out of working life. Gender roles, defined as a set of socio-cultural values that form the social roles that distinguish men and women in all societies, reveal the phenomenon of motherhood, especially when considered in the context of women. The increase in the age of first motherhood with the prolongation of women's education process leads to a focus on the phenomenon of "late motherhood." While aiming to discuss the changing aspect of motherhood in society, the phenomenological method is utilized as one of the qualitative research methods. This study is based on the experiences of the participants on many issues, such as the prolongation of women's education process and increase in the level of education, active participation in working life, change in their perspective on marriage, postponement of marriage, postponement of the age of first motherhood, transformation of the parent-child relationship, and tries to justify how these experiences are made sense of and how these experiences affect them in line with the findings obtained. The phenomenon of "late motherhood," one of today's motherhood trends, was addressed within the scope of the thesis, and in the light of the "how" question, in-depth interviews were conducted with women who gave their first birth at the age of 35 and above. Late motherhood was defined as a phenomenon. The findings obtained from the interviews with working and non-working mothers will be analyzed within the scope of themes. The themes include the preference for late motherhood, the necessity of late motherhood, the search for work and the prolongation of the education process, gender roles, the sociological view of rituals, changing motherhood practices, and intergenerational relations. The objective is to compare the motherhood practices of working and non-working women, focusing on specific themes. This aims to assess the evolving trends in motherhood practices in this context and to juxtapose the findings of the field research with data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TSI) and the Turkish Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS). Keywords: Family, Gender, Women, Social Change, Motherhood, Late Motherhood, Phenomenological Method