Exploring African women's roles and experiences as co-breadwinners and homemakers: a work–family entanglement perspective

Purpose This paper examines how professional African women experience work–family entanglement and the strategies they employ to manage their intertwined roles as co-breadwinners and homemakers. It aims to extend work–family entanglement theory beyond low-income contexts by foregrounding the lived realities of middle-class professional women across multiple African countries. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative approach, drawing on semi-structured interviews with 29 women across Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Tunisia. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to recruit participants across diverse industries. Thematic analysis was employed to identify patterns of entanglement and coping strategies. Findings The study reveals that work–family entanglement is shaped not only by cultural expectations but also by weak institutional supports, inflexible organisational structures, and patriarchal employment relations. Women reported emotional conflict, embodied stress and career compromises, as well as several coping strategies adopted to mitigate work–family entanglement issues. Practical implications The study highlights the inadequacy of employer-driven flexibility without structural supports such as childcare provision, equitable leave, and gender-responsive HR policies. Organisations must address entanglement as a systemic, institutional issue rather than an individual challenge. Originality/value By centring professional African women's experiences, we reconceptualise work–family entanglement as an employment relations issue shaped by human resource (HR) systems, organisational cultures and weak social infrastructures, rather than an individual boundary-management problem.