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Motherhood and subsistence work: The Tamang of rural Nepal

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Abstract

Minute-by-minute observation of individual women over the period of a year provides a reliable and valuable description of their daily activities. The extent to which Nepalese rural women vary their subsistence responsibilities during pregnancy and lactation is examined by comparing mothers with a non-childbearing sample. The remarkable behavioral similarity between the two groups of women when workloads are high is explained by reference to childcare practices and labor constraints prevailing in the community.

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Panter-Brick, C. Motherhood and subsistence work: The Tamang of rural Nepal. Hum Ecol 17, 205–228 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00889713

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