Gendered and cultural moral rationalities: Pacific mothers’ pursuit of child support money

Abstract

To date, much of the analysis of child support has drawn on normative Western understandings of family structures and the organisation and enactment of gender relations within that structure. There has been an absence of an examination of the way that ethnicity interacts with gender to shape the decisions that mothers make about whether or not to pursue child support. Drawing on interviews with nine Pacific mothers eligible to receive child support, this article shows that their decisions involve a complex negotiation and reconciliation of their Pacific cultural values with mainstream gender ideals and practices commonly associated with ‘good’ mothering. The findings from this exploratory project underscore the importance of incorporating ethnicity and culture in research on child support and contribute, albeit in a preliminary manner, to an important gap in the child support literature.