Should I stay or should I go? : The effects of precariousness on the gendered career aspirations of postdocs in Switzerland
Autor/in:
Bataille, Pierre; Le Feuvre, Nicky; Kradolfer Morales, Sabine
Quelle: European Educational Research Journal, 16 (2017) 2-3, S 313–331
Inhalt: The assumption that men are more likely to undertake and succeed in an academic career, because the requirements of professional success in this occupation are compatible with normative gender assumptions, particularly that of fulfilling a ‘male breadwinner’ or main household earner role, implying reduced domestic and care commitments, is discussed. It is suggested that Switzerland offers a particularly interesting case for this study, because of the combination of the specific structure of academic careers, the characteristics of the non-academic labour market and the dominant gender regime. It is shown that, in this particular context, the aspirations of postdocs to remain in academic employment or to look for non-academic jobs are directly related to their position within the domestic division of labour and to their personal and family circumstances. However, this does not necessarily lead to a clear-cut divide between work-committed men, who ‘succeed’ (and hence stay), and care-committed women who ‘fail’ to climb up the academic career ladder (and hence leave). The results suggest that the situation is more complex and requires a subtle distinction between different ideal-types of post-doctoral experiences that do not always cut neatly across gender lines.
‘Publish or perish’ : Family life and academic research productivity
Autor/in:
Callaghan, Chris W.
Quelle: SA j. hum. resour. manag. (SA Journal of Human Resource Management), 15 (2017) 2, 307 S
Inhalt: Research purpose: The influence of work-to-family and family-to-work spillovers is well documented in the human resources literature. However, little is known of the relationships between the pressures faced by academics to publish and the potential family life consequences of being a highly productive academic.
Research design, approach and method: This research sought to investigate these relationships within the context of a large South African university by testing associations between family life variables such as marriage and dependent children against measures of the following specific types of research publication: (1) South African Department of Higher Education and Training–accredited journal publications; (2) Thompson Reuters Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and ProQuest’s International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)– indexed journal article publications; (3) conference proceedings publications; (4) conference paper presentations; (5) book chapter publications; (6) book publications; and (7) gross research productivity, reflecting a volume or quantity measure of research publication.
Main findings: ISI and/or IBSS journal article publication is found to be negatively associated with dependent children, but only for male academics, and to be negatively associated with female gender over and above the effect of family life variables in testing.
Practical/managerial implications: Human resources managers in universities need to be cognisant of the specific pressures faced by staff that are required to produce ever more research publications, in order to help them achieve work–life balance.
Contribution: In a global context of increasing pressures for research publication, and for higher and higher numbers of publications, it is necessary to identify the potential costs involved for high-volume–producing academics, particularly in terms of family versus work.
Keywords: research productivity; family-work life balance
Schlagwörter:Familie; Forschungsproduktivität; Publikation; South Africa; Südafrika; Vereinbarkeit; work-life balance
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Vereinbarkeit Familie-Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Quelle: European Educational Research Journal, 16 (2017) 2-3, S 332–351
Inhalt: This paper addresses the topic of work–life interferences in academic contexts. More specifically, it focuses on early career researchers in the Italian university system. The total availability required from those who work in the research sector is leading to significant transformations of the temporalities of work, especially among the new generation of researchers, whose condition is characterized by a higher degree of instability and uncertainty. Which are the experiences of the early career researchers in an academic context constituted by a growing competition for permanent positions and, as a consequence, by a greatly increased pressure? Which are the main gender differences? In what elements do Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics disciplines differ from Social Sciences and Humanities? The collected narratives reveal how the ongoing process of precarization is affecting both the everyday working activities and the private and family lives of early career researchers, with important consequences also on their future prospects.
Quelle: European Educational Research Journal, 16 (2017) 2-3, S 277–297
Inhalt: This paper discusses results of a research project on equal opportunities between women and men in the postdoctoral phase in German universities. It illustrates how the funding system is organized and whether this contributes to more equal opportunities for men and women, especially concerning the work–life interference. Although the system loses women after the doctorial phase, equal opportunity is not a core issue in the promotion of postdoctoral researchers in Germany. Instead, it tends to be addressed indirectly via an array of different compensatory support programmes. One key finding is that certain programmes, such as ‘coaching’, ‘networking’, ‘mentoring’ or financial support, are not offered everywhere, and therefore many postdoctoral researchers do not have the opportunity to utilize them. Furthermore, we found evidence of a gender-specific demand for support programmes. Another finding was that work–life interferences in scientific careers are not addressed by support programmes. The organization of everyday life is not taken into account. Given the context of uncertain career paths in Germany and the unequal working conditions of women and men in academia in Germany, it becomes clear that equal opportunities cannot be realized by ignoring the informal and gendered handling of work-life-balance.
Academic Excellence and Gender Bias in the Practices and Perceptions of Scientists in Leadership and Decision-making Positions
Autor/in:
Linková, Marcela
Quelle: GV/GR (Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research), 18 (2017) 1, S 42–66
Inhalt: How to assess quality has become one of the central concerns for contemporary research, not least because of the proliferation of research assessment systems around the globe. Concomitant with this has been the growing attention to factors that compromise the credibility of assessment, especially gender, ethnic, racial and geopolitical bias. In this paper I analyse how lab leaders and research managers in the natural sciences specifically construct excellence and relatedly the demands of the research profession, and how gender bias plays out in these imaginaries. The material for the study comes primarily from two highly successful public research institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences and specifically from individual and group interviews with lab leaders and research managers on topics of research governance, assessment, and quality. The focus is on the natural sciences because the discipline has driven the introduction of research assessment in the country as well as research and innovation reforms more broadly since the new millennium. Building on the distinction between the logic of choice and the logic of care developed by Annemarie Mol (2008), I explore the limits of individual choice for conceiving excellence and the gendered outcomes it produces.
Schlagwörter:care ceiling; excellence; Exzellenz; Frauen in der Wissenschaft; gender bias; gendered organization; glass ceiling; leadership; Maskulinität; maternal wall; Matilda-Effekt; Mutterschaft; research profession; Stereotyp
CEWS Kategorie:Vereinbarkeit Familie-Beruf, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
How do you take time? : Work–life balance policies versus neoliberal, social and cultural incentive mechanisms in Icelandic higher education
Autor/in:
Smidt, Thomas Brorsen; Pétursdóttir, Gyða Margrét; Einarsdóttir, Þorgerður
Quelle: European Educational Research Journal, 16 (2017) 2-3, S 123–140
Inhalt: It is suggested that the realization of work–life balance policies at the University of Iceland is compromised by an emphasis on neoliberal notions of growth and performance measurements in the form of new public management strategies. This is sustained by overt and covert incentive mechanisms, which in turn create a range of different gendered implications for academic staff. The results from semi-structured interviews suggest that while this tension field affects all academic staff, it is generally less favourable to women than to men. If women were granted time for the sake of family obligations, they risked a setback in their academic career due to decreased research activity. Women tended to view academic flexibility as an opportunity to engage in domestic responsibilities more so than men; and male interviewees tended to view the prioritization of family as a choice, while women tended to view it as a condition.
Schlagwörter:Gender; Geschlechterunterschied; Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen; incentive mechanisms; Island; neoliberal university; neoliberalism; new public management; Vereinbarkeit; wissenschaftliches Personal; work-life balance
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Vereinbarkeit Familie-Beruf, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Parenthood and productivity of highly skilled labor : Evidence from the groves of academe
Autor/in:
Krapf, Matthias; Ursprung, Heinrich W.; Zimmermann, Christian
Quelle: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 140 (2017) , S 147–175
Inhalt: We examine the effect of parenthood on the research productivity of academic economists. Combining the survey responses of nearly 10,000 economists with their publication records as documented in their RePEc accounts, we do not find that motherhood is associated with low research productivity. Nor do we find a statistically significant unconditional effect of a first child on research productivity. Conditional difference-in-differences estimates, however, suggest that the effect of parenthood on research productivity is negative for unmarried women and positive for untenured men. Moreover, becoming a mother before 30 years of age appears to have a detrimental effect on research productivity.
Understanding gender inequality and the role of the work/family interface in contemporary academia : An introduction
Autor/in:
Dubois-Shaik, Farah; Fusulier, Bernard
Quelle: European Educational Research Journal, 16 (2017) 2-3, S 99–105
Inhalt: This double special issue gathers a series of nuanced critically conceptual and case-study research showing that in the contemporary European context, despite regional differences in gender regimes, political and economic demands and organizational cultures, work/life balance policies and their translation into practice remains a highly ambiguous issue. Although work/life balance policies have undoubtedly entered the university institutional spaces, they are deterred by opposing institutional policy logics and particularly ‘greedy’ logics of the organizing of work that still aligns to outdated work-exclusive masculine organizational culture (outdated because men too are suffering the effects, and because the academic environment is feminized). Moreover, there are lingering gender stereotypes around the value and attribution of home and work duties, which are having a significant impact upon women’s professional and private spheres and experiences in academic work. The gathered research shows how university institutions are still quite far from having addressed the core issues that undermine women’s career advancement and their possibilities to access to academic membership and leadership, still obliging them (and their male counterparts) to align with a work and membership (selection and progression) logic and organization that does not take into consideration parenthood, family and personal spheres of life.
Can Anyone Have It All? Gendered Views on Parenting and Academic Careers
Autor/in:
Sallee, Margaret; Ward, Kelly; Wolf-Wendel, Lisa
Quelle: Innovative Higher Education, 41 (2016) 3, S 187–202
Inhalt: This article is based on data from two qualitative studies that examined the experiences of 93 tenure-line faculty members who are also mothers and fathers. Using gender schemas and ideal worker norms as a guide, we examined the pressures that professors experience amid unrealistic expectations in their work and home lives. Women participants reported performing a disproportionate amount of care in the home while simultaneously feeling unable to take advantage of family-friendly policies. In contrast, men acknowledged that, although their partners performed more care in the home, they felt penalized for wanting to be involved parents.
Schlagwörter:Elternschaft; familienfreundliche Hochschule; Geschlechterunterschied; Mutterschaft; USA; Vater; wissenschaftliches Personal
Wandel der Wissenschaft und Geschlechterarrangements : Organisations und Steuerungspolitiken in Deutschland, Österreich, Großbritannien und Schweden
Autor/in:
Aulenbacher, Brigitte; Binner, Kristina; Riegraf, Birgit; Weber, Lena
Quelle: Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung, 37 (2015) 3, S 22–38
Inhalt: Die universitäre Wissenschaft befindet sich in einem tief greifenden und weit reichenden Umbauprozess. Eine dominierende Entwicklungstendenz ist die Ökonomisierung, die sowohl das Verhältnis zwischen Organisation und Profession, als auch zwischen Staat und Markt neujustiert. Daneben lassen sich weitere Entwicklungen feststellen, etwa die Standardisierung der Studiengänge im Rahmen des Bologna-Prozesses, die Implementation von Gender Mainstreaming und Diversity Policies, sowie Auditierungen und Zertifizierungen, welche Universitäten eine neue Familienfreundlichkeit und Geschlechtergerechtigkeit bescheinigen. Diese Prozesse berühren die Geschlechterarrangements in der Wissenschaft. Der Beitrag fragt, wie die verschiedenen Entwicklungen einander beeinflussen und wirken. Er zeigt, dass die Gewichtung der verschiedenen Tendenzen, ihr Zusammenspiel und die Folgen für die Geschlechterarrangements länder- und organisationsspezifisch variieren.