The McKinsey and Company study identified one of the obstacles for women in management positions as being their inability to be available “anytime, anywhere” due to family responsibilities (cited in Desvaux, et al., 2010). While their research was conducted in the business world, my analysis indicates that women academics too perceive themselves as being constrained by their relative lack of mobility and availability due to family responsibilities.
In response to the questionnaire closed question on factors that support or constrain career development, 43% rated family responsibilities as a constraining factor. When questioned on factors that advantaged or disadvantaged them due to their gender, 52% of the questionnaire respondents rated feeling disadvantaged by family responsibilities due to the fact that they were women. When asked to elaborate on their earlier choices
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some respondents said they had deliberately chosen family above career, and sometimes this was done in order to allow their partners to pursue their careers. These are some illustrative comments related to family responsibilities as constraints to career development:
My family responsibilities have constrained my career development. That is completely self-imposed. I have had all the support I have needed from my family, but have chosen to be completely involved in my children's lives and schools and to support my husband. Someone needs to play the support role and I CHOSE to do that. (Participant N5)
I do feel that family commitments (especially having very young children) hinder my career development. Having said that, I wouldn’t change the fact that I had kids, just wish I didn’t feel so guilty with not spending more time with them or extra time at work. (Participant N9)
Being a parent of 2 small children, with a husband who has only just finished his PhD means that I have tried to allow him to succeed more, attend more, have more time for research, while I have had to work with the children, and all free time is for running the house. (Participant N21)
One interviewee noted that as a single mother she had made a deliberate choice to focus on her family responsibilities rather than pursue career advancement.She said:
I know that promotion will mean taking on more responsibility. I know that I can’t take on more expectations so I’m going to stay where I am until he [her child] finishes high school. (Sandra)
Poulos (2011) found that with RU women who were mothers, academic productivity, and in particular research productivity, suffered. Some comments from my data that illustrate family responsibilities as a constraint to research productivity are:
The reality is family responsibilities are a major disadvantage as it is very difficult to remain competitive and cutting edge if you have to prioritise your family. (Participant N2)
The main thing that has affected my research productivity (read lack of!) are my family commitments. This is by my own choice. (Participant N13)
It was my choice not to go further (e.g. not do a PhD) because of quality of family life and my own time. (Participant N1)
Being a mother and a wife takes up a lot of time, energy and commitment and it is difficult to balance the competing demands with work and unfortunately research seems to be the thing most neglected. (Participant S1)
94 Having two children shortly after being employed as a full -time lecturer left little time to pursue my own research to the extent that I would have been able to had I not had children. (Participant S6)
I've found family commitments the hardest to juggle in terms of career and that certain single-mindedness and determination and unbroken periods of time in which to develop focus and continuity. (Participant S48)
It is difficult to start a family not too long after you have started working as an academic. It interrupts the flow of things, and limits the time you have outside of work hours. It also makes it very difficult to think about starting a PhD yet.
(Participant S37)
Family responsibilities that impact on research activity may not be unique to women. Some men, particularly single men with children probably experience similar constraints, as noted by a male professor who felt his family responsibilities impacted more on his research than on the teaching or administration aspects of his career. Remarking that this may not be the norm with other male academics, he said:
Being a single parent has undoubtedly impacted on other aspects of my professional life as I have on several occasions turned down invitations to participate in specialist workshops, conferences and research [trips] as these events clash with key events in the children's lives. No doubt this has impacted on my standing within my field of research. I suspect that some of my male colleagues also find this approach difficult to comprehend. (Pers.comm., 15/4/12) One of my interviewees felt that childbearing for most women equated to a reduction in research activity. Her personal support structure enabled her to continue working when her child was young. She said:
I can imagine if I was trying to deal with that by myself, it would have been a hammer blow because you need to be so energetic mentally to turn out good
research and you can’t do it when you are tired. (Carol) Another interviewee described how at RU, her perception is that the women researchers
are those who are single and childless while the married women with families tended to gravitate towards teaching. She said:
It seems to me when you are in academics and you are a woman, you need to make the choice whether you are going to do teaching and research or teaching and your family. In [my] faculty, there is no woman who has got the balance.
(Ann)
Maurtin-Cairncross (2003) suggests that women may choose the role of teacher and nurturer over the role of researcher. Data from my research confirms this, for example, one of my questionnaire respondents wrote:
95 The amount of teaching commitments constrained my career, but I am happy for it to be that way at the moment - I love my teaching and since I don't have time for research I am happy to take on extra teaching to allow the active researchers in the department to have more research time. (Participant N13) Prozesky (2008) claims that attendance at international conferences early in an academic’s career is an enabling factor to career success, and women who have young children are constrained both by the difficulties of travelling to international conferences and by not being free to take up postdoctoral studies internationally. Women in my case study appear to be dealing with similar issues. Some participants reported that family responsibilities meant limited mobility which resulted in not being able to travel to conferences thus curtailing their access to supportive disciplinary networks which could contribute positively to their research productivity. Conference attendance was perceived by 74% of the respondents as contributing to enabling conditions for career development. One participant noted that mothering her young children has been ‘detrimental in participating in conferences or establishing a network of support in my field’ (Participant S6). Another participant mentioned that ‘men find it easier to get away and travel to conferences, which I can't do since I am breastfeeding, and probably wouldn't want to leave my children while they are so young anyway!’ (Participant N14).
The perception that lack of mobility is constraining for some women academics is at odds with the international conference attendance statistics of the Institution. The Travel and Subsistence (T & S) Committee is an Institutional structure at RU that supports conference attendance. Academics may apply for one international conference per year but approval of applications is based on the research productivity of applicants (T & S Guidelines, 2011). Over the past three years, on average the same percentage of women (31%) attended international conferences as men (32%) supported by the T & S Committee. Possible reasons for the perception that women are constrained by lack of mobility are:
The lack of mobility is not a real constraint, only a perceived constraint.
Men may be funded through other channels that women do not have access to and the number of international conference attendance for men may be higher than the statistics from the T & S Committee.
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In recent years, the mobility of women has changed perhaps due to changing attitudes and shared parental responsibilities but the perceptions that women have remain that they are constrained by their family responsibilities.
Women who could not attend conferences during their childbearing and rearing years may make up for it later on in their careers. It is possible that men may have reduced their conference attendance in the later stage of their careers.
While the above reasons are suppositions, it is possible that the overall perceptions of immobility due to family responsibilities constraining women academics may not apply to all women over the duration of their careers but only to some women at a particular stage of their careers. Research has indicated that international conference attendance is particularly beneficial to academics in the early stages of their careers, and has less impact on more established academics (Prozesky, 2008). It is possible that if some women are only able to attend international conferences later on in their careers, they may be constrained by not having the head start that perhaps their male colleagues at the same stage of their careers may have benefitted from. Further research is required to acquire a better understand of this phenomenon.
In addition to the perception that family responsibilities limit mobility, it seems that family responsibilities, such as childbearing and rearing may lead to interrupted career paths that can affect women academics’ self-confidence. One participant wrote:
After the time at home it took a long time to build up my self-esteem. In fact, it is only now when I am in the later stages of my career (I am now 52 years) that I feel confident that I have something to contribute. (Participant S23) I discuss self-esteem in more depth in section 4.4.3.