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Center of Excellence Women and Science

Family-Friendly Academia

Research Overview

The academic world has historically been characterized by a culture of carelessness, in the words of Kathlyn Lynch (2010). According to this, academic work requires us to free ourselves from emotions and feelings. In Western modernity, this separation of rationality and emotionality corresponds to the binary and dualistic system of gender, in which emotions 'disrupt' rational, objective knowledge and are attributed to women, while rationality is attributed to men. In Western societies, this culture of carelessness in academia is closely interwoven with the ideal image of a male scientist (ideal worker norm). The demands of academic work promote a certain careless lifestyle: international mobility, flexibility in terms of time and freedom from caring responsibilities towards family members, and the ability to perform and be ready for action at any time. In this way, the academic lifestyle and career were, for a long time, more of a privilege for heterosexual people who identified as men, who were relieved of the worries of everyday life by female relatives. In contrast, concepts of femininity are closely linked to care and care work and care professions and activities are feminized.

In recent decades, in addition to gender equality concepts, the issue of reconciling an academic career with family life has become increasingly important in the context of excellence competitions in Germany. It can be observed that, at the same time as the competition for excellence has intensified and academia has opened up, the focus on family-friendliness has increased. At German universities, the topic of 'family-friendliness' now plays a significant role as a competitive factor in attracting 'excellent' staff and students and must be seen against the background of the previously rather 'unfriendly' infrastructure of the conservative German welfare system.

Recommended further readings:

  • Binner, Kristina; Weber, Lena (2022): Excellent and Care-less? Gendered Everyday Practices of Early-Career Scholars in Germany and Austria. In Fiona Jenkins, Barbara Hoenig, Susanne M. Weber, Andrea Wolfram (Eds.): Inequalities and the Paradigm of Excellence in Academia. London: Routledge (Routledge research in gender and society, 99), pp. 228–243. DOI: 10.4324/9780429198625-16.
  • Bomert, Christiane; Leinfellner, Stefanie (2017): Images, ideals and constraints in times of neoliberal transformations. Reproduction and profession as conflicting or complementary spheres in academia? In European Educational Research Journal 16 (2-3), pp. 106–122. DOI: 10.1177/1474904116682972.

Reference:

  • Lynch, Kathleen (2010): Carelessness: A hidden doxa of higher education. In Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 9 (1), pp. 54–67. DOI: 10.1177/1474022209350104.

Find more literature on the topic of reconciling academic work and family in our database Lit@CEWS!

After WWII, although gender equality was already enshrined in Article 3 of the German Basic Law of 1949, the addition that the state should actively work towards gender equality was not yet consensual. At the same time, marriage and family were under the special protection of the state (GG, § 6, para. 1), reflecting a "normative indecision" on the part of the West German state.

In recent times, regarding family policy, two quite opposing models have been supported by welfare state institutions in Germany: on the one hand, the breadwinner and housewife marriage (male breadwinner model) and, on the other, the two-earner model (adult worker model).

The criticism of the West German welfare state model and its gender-equal effects has been sufficiently documented by the work of feminist welfare state research (Lewis 1992; Ostner/Lewis 1995; Marten/Neyer/Ostner 2012; Pfau-Effinger 2005; 2012; 2011). Since the post-war period in West Germany, the welfare state model of the male family breadwinner has developed, which is still supported today, for example, by the spousal splitting in the tax system (“Ehegattensplitting”). For a long time, women were only able to access public benefits, such as child benefits or child-raising allowance, through their working husbands. Also, the facilities of public childcare and care for the elderly are poorly developed (unlike in East Germany), so that care work was and still is provided primarily within the family and predominantly by women. Legislation to ensure gender equality is primarily limited to the public labor sector, as enshrined in the Federal Equal Opportunities Act (BGleiG 2001).

Since the mid-2000s, however, a "family policy turnaround" or a parallel model has been emerging in the German welfare state, which is increasingly orientated towards the adult worker model (Lewis 2004). Adults and parent couples should both be able to participate in the labor market and provide for themselves (Pfau-Effinger 2012: 536), accompanied by an expansion of public childcare (Tagesbetreuungsausbaugesetz 2005) and, since 2007, a new Parental Leave and Parental Allowance Act.

There are few current studies on the lifestyles of female academics in Germany. Previous studies have shown that female professors are more likely to live in dual-career or two-earner partnerships or live without a partner (20 % vs. 3 %; Zimmer et al. 2007: 147 f.). Compared to their male colleagues, they are less likely to have children, as motherhood and an academic career seem to be mutually exclusive (Zimmer et al. 2007: 149). Findings show that motherhood can have a detrimental effect on an academic career, which is discussed internationally under the term "motherhood penalty" (Correll et al. 2007). German male scholars are more likely to be married (91 % vs. 66 %) and are more likely to live the 'breadwinner model', in which they are relieved of household chores and childcare by their unemployed or part-time working wife (Zimmer et al. 2007).

In Germany there is a certain vivid discussion about motherhood in academia (Czerney et al. 2020; 2022) and during the pandemic a considerable number of studies investigated the specific situations of “academics, who mother” (Guy/Arthur 2020; Minello et al. 2021; Kasymova et al. 2021). Life as a dual-earner or dual-career couple requires juggling and organizing two careers that have to be reconciled with family work and other demands. All of this was already known before the pandemic and, similar to the rest of society, studies on the situation in academia have found that it was mainly women who absorbed childcare due to closed schools and daycare centers (Dunn et al. 2022: 8; Parlak et al. 2021; Eslen-Ziya/Yildirim 2021; Yildirim/Eslen-Ziya 2020; Kasymova et al. 2021; Deryugina et al. 2021).

Recommended further readings:

  • Lind, Inken (2008): Balancing Career and Family in Higher Education - New Trends and Results. In Sabine Grenz, Beate Kortendiek, Marianne Kriszio, Andrea Löther (Eds.): Gender Equality Programmes in Higher Education. International Perspectives. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 193–208. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-531-91218-9_14.
  • Rusconi, Alessandra; Solga, Heike (2007): Determinants of and Obstacles to Dual Careers in Germany. In Zeitschrift für Familienforschung 19 (3), pp. 311–336. DOI: 10.20377/jfr-285.

References:

The competition for family-friendliness has become more relevant in Germany, particularly against the backdrop of the conservative welfare state, competition for excellence and the simultaneous increase in the importance of gender equality policy. Since 2001, German universities have been able to apply for the 'family-friendly university' audit as part of the 'berufundfamilie' audit, which was originally designed for commercial enterprises. berufundfamilie GmbH, which was established by the foundation, carries out the audit and holds the Europe-wide rights to this procedure, which other countries can acquire. During the same period, the first Excellence Initiative was launched in Germany and the gender equality goal was included in the Higher Education Framework Act, which contributed to a special starting position.

Combining competition for excellence with gender equality goals, as has happened in the German academic landscape, has certainly had a catalyzing effect, with the result that universities that have so far hardly stood out for their family-friendly structures now find themselves called upon to develop childcare facilities and dual career services in the competition for 'excellent' staff, which could gradually contribute to a cultural change. However, most of the measures to date are still aimed at professors as a target group and less at students or academics in the earlier career phases.

In the UK, there are separate markets and service providers for childcare and nurseries, such as daycare facilities or nannies, rather than publicly funded facilities. The limited family-friendly commitment of British universities, for example, in the form of flexible childcare provision or family-friendly working hours, is framed by the British anti-discrimination approach rather than progressive gender equality policy. Public employers such as universities are required to actively combat discrimination, for example, through campaigns and formalized fair application procedures. Public employers are not obliged to actively promote gender equality. Universities, therefore, fulfil - if at all - the minimum of legal requirements, e.g. for parental leave, which is supplemented with financial allowances depending on the university's financial situation.

At Swedish universities, there is little explicit focus on reconciling academic and professional life, too. In contrast, it is explained by the strong expansion of welfare state facilities such as kindergartens, schools and generous parental leave, so universities do not have to cover it. The state's family and social policy is also reflected at the university level in the form of a relaxed attendance culture, which certainly recognizes the need to take care of family matters in the afternoon.

Recommended further readings:

  • Dietrichson, Susanne (2022): Fewer gender equality measures in academia in Finland than in Norway and Sweden. In Kilden genderresearch.no, 2/11/2022. Available online at https://kjonnsforskning.no/en/2021/02/fewer-gender-equality-measures-academia-finland-norway-and-sweden, checked on 10/25/2024.
  • Lundqvist, Åsa; Roman, Christine (2010): The Institutionalization of Family and Gender Equality Policies in the Swedish Welfare State. In Janet Fink, Åsa Lundqvist (Eds.): Changing Relations of Welfare. Family, gender and migration in Britain and Scandinavia. Farnham, Surrey, England, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. 65–85. DOI: 10.4324/9781315571270-4.

Gender-neutral family policies sound good at first, but what exactly does this mean? In this context, gender-neutral means that gender should have no bearing on access to a family policy measure. All parents, regardless of whether they are fathers or mothers, should have access to parental leave and parental allowance or have their employment contracts extended. However, there is still a clear need for political and legal revision here, as different realities of life are not recognized equally, as the phrase "gender-neutral" suggests. For example, it is left to local interpretation at universities as to how the family component is granted, for whom and for what period (the same period for all parents across the board or only for the parent and the parental leave actually taken; biological parents or also adoptive, foster and social parents; for parents in homosexual marriages equally as for married heterosexual couples?)

A field of research that has so far been less explored in the German-speaking context deals with the devalued activities in academia that are referred to and feminized as "academic care work". The term "academic care work" has not yet been precisely defined: roughly speaking, it refers to activities that are less visible but necessary to maintain academic operations, e.g. supervising students, writing reports, preparing and following up on teaching, exchanging ideas with colleagues, providing emotional support, organizing Christmas parties. Sometimes also the terms “service work”, “pastoral care” or “academic house work” are similar used.

What these tasks have in common is that they tend to discourage research activities, can be time-consuming (if done well) and receive little appreciation. They are structured in a similar way to traditional care work in private life. In an international context, for example, the distribution of the workload, i.e. the different activities of female scientists, is being analyzed. Results show that female academics are disproportionately more likely to take on academic care work such as supervising students, promoting junior researchers and time-consuming administrative tasks and that this is also more likely to be expected of them (Barrett/Barrett 2011; Locke/Bennion 2010; Hanasono et al. 2019; Heijstra et al. 2017; Guarino/Borden 2017; Briken et al. 2018: 333). 

Recommended further readings:

  • Castelao-Huerta, Isaura (2022): Beyond the neoliberalized academy: caring and careful practices of women full professors. In Gender and Education, pp. 1–16. DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2022.2147148.
  • Docka‐Filipek, Danielle; Stone, Lindsey B. (2021): Twice a ‘housewife:’ On academic precarity, ‘hysterical’ women, faculty mental health, and service as gendered care work for the ‘university family’ in pandemic times. In Gender, Work & Organization 28 (6), pp. 2158–2179. DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12723.

References:

  • Barrett, Lucinda; Barrett, Peter (2011): Women and academic workloads: career slow lane or Cul-de-Sac? In Higher Education Management 61 (2), pp. 141–155. DOI: 10.1007/s10734-010-9329-3.
  • Briken, Kendra; Blättel-Mink, Birgit; Rau, Alexandra; Siegel, Tilla (2018): "Sei ohne Sorge". Vom Vermessen und Un/sichtbarmachen akademischer Sorgearbeit in der neoliberalen Hochschule. In Sabine Hark, Johanna Hofbauer (Eds.): Vermessene Räume, gespannte Beziehungen. Unternehmerische Universitäten und Geschlechterdynamiken. Berlin: Suhrkamp (suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft, 2244), pp. 311–339.
  • Guarino, Cassandra M.; Borden, Victor M. H. (2017): Faculty Service Loads and Gender. Are Women Taking Care of the Academic Family? In Research in Higher Education 58 (6), pp. 672–694. DOI: 10.1007/s11162-017-9454-2.
  • Hanasono, Lisa K.; Broido, Ellen M.; Yacobucci, Margaret M.; Root, Karen V.; Peña, Susana; O'Neil, Deborah A. (2019): Secret service. Revealing gender biases in the visibility and value of faculty service. In Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 12 (1), pp. 85–98. DOI: 10.1037/dhe0000081.
  • Heijstra, Thamar M.; Einarsdóttir, Þorgerður; Pétursdóttir, Gyða M.; Steinþórsdóttir, Finnborg S. (2017): Testing the concept of academic housework in a European setting: Part of academic career-making or gendered barrier to the top? In European Educational Research Journal 16 (2-3), pp. 200–214. DOI: 10.1177/1474904116668884.
  • Locke, Wiliam; Bennion, Alice (2010): The Changing Academic Profession in the UK and Beyond. Research Report. Edited by Universities UK. Open University.