Religious ideals shaping the understanding of work amongst Pentecostal Charismatic Christian women in South Africa

Abstract: In South African Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (PCC) the workspace is regarded as a highly spiritualised place in which believers are called to fight evil force and evangelise the non-believers. This study found that PCC religious constructs of gender and work strongly shape women’s understandings of themselves as career women, but less so their negotiation of the work-childcare balance. When socio-economic factors were in conflict with religious ideals members most often made decisions in line with their structural constraints and this was most evident amongst mothers who returned to work after childbirth, which is contrary to their churches’ teaching