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Flexibility Sacrifice and Insecurity A Canadian Study Assessing The Challenges of Balancing Work and Family in Academia
Flexibility Sacrifice and Insecurity A Canadian Study Assessing The Challenges of Balancing Work and Family in Academia
To cite this article: Shauna Wilton & Lynda Ross (2017) Flexibility, Sacrifice and Insecurity: A
Canadian Study Assessing the Challenges of Balancing Work and Family in Academia, Journal of
Feminist Family Therapy, 29:1-2, 66-87, DOI: 10.1080/08952833.2016.1272663
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Semi-structured interviews (N=21) were conducted with faculty academic; gender equality;
working at a small liberal arts campus in Western Canada during work and family balance
the summer of 2015. The research explored faculty's perceptions
of balance between their roles as academics and as parents, as
well as similarities and differences between men's and women's
experiences. Three dominant themes emerged: flexibility, sacri-
fice, and insecurity. Ultimately, our research demonstrates that
although male and female faculty members experience similar
challenges in balancing family with an academic career, women
tended to sacrifice more and experienced more stress and pres-
sure stemming from both the academy and socially imposed
norms around motherhood.
“Justin Trudeau celebrated his 11th wedding anniversary three days early last week,
taking a day off in Japan [emphasis added] before his first G7 summit. He was
leading by example, he said: ‘This is the kind of work-life balance that I’ve often
talked about as being essential in order to be able to be in service of the country.’”
(Kingston, 2016)
Introduction
Although changes in the social, political, and cultural landscapes from the
19th century onwards have affected women’s many roles, including their
rights to, and their participation in, education and employment, we have not
yet seen a parallel shift in gender ideologies, particularly those informing
women’s and men’s caregiving roles. Ironically, contemporary mothers in
Western societies spend more time raising children today than was ever the
case in the past, regardless of whether they are single or partnered, stay-at-
home mothers or working full-time outside of the home. Mothers are giving
up work, sleep, and relaxation in order to engage in intensive mothering
practices (Wall, 2010). In addition to child care responsibilities are the hours
needed to maintain households. Although the amount of time spent in
household labor has declined over recent years, more of the housework is
still being done by women (Milan, Keown, & Urquijo, 2011).
The scholarly literature on balancing work and family suggests that a good
balance is difficult to find within academia, particularly for female faculty
members (Conley & Carey, 2013; Mason, Goulden, & Wolfinger, 2013; Wolf-
Wendel & Ward, 2012). The combination of a job that never really stops and
the increasing expectations for parents (particularly mothers) to be actively
involved in every aspect of their child’s life makes it difficult to negotiate
between the roles of professor and parent. Understanding how academics
balance their professional and personal lives can provide insights that will
benefit all individuals attempting to balance family and work responsibilities.
This research explored faculty’s perceptions of balance between their roles as
academics and as parents. Similarities and differences between men’s and
women’s experiences were explored to isolate strategies used by each group
to achieve a sense of balance.
Canada, 2011). Even in the most egalitarian couples, attitudes about who is
best suited to be the primary caregiver tend to shift following the birth of a
child and men’s and women’s beliefs about gender roles become more
traditional when they enter into parenthood (Green & Groves, 2008; Liss &
Erchull, 2012; Liss, Shiffrin, Mackintosh, Miles-McLean, & Erchull, 2013).
Methods
This qualitative research employs a feminist perspective in order to explore
and evaluate the similarities between men and women balancing work and
family in academia. We aim to connect the struggles they face with broader
forms of gender inequality in society and the restrictions that come with
gender roles and norms within both work and family.
Participants
This research was conducted at a small, undergraduate, liberal arts campus in
Western Canada. This campus has a strong emphasis on teaching, with
teaching responsibilities comprising a minimum of 60% of the workload.
There is also a strong emphasis on service and community engagement. Over
the past decade, research expectations have risen significantly, particularly for
tenure and promotion. Only members of the faculty with children (n = 39)
were sent an e-mail inviting participation in the study.
JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 71
Although the sample size for the interviews is relatively small (n = 21),
they comprise 36% of the total faculty and over half (54%) of the faculty with
children employed at the campus. The gender division of respondents was
proportionate to the gender composition of faculty; 57% (12) of interviewees
were male, while 43% (9) were female. Of the 21 participants, 76% were
married with an average of two children each. Although we did not assess the
age of participants in our study, the children of our group of participants
ranged in age from 10 months to 18 years of age.
Self-of-the-researchers
The interviews were conducted by the first author, and by a research assistant.
The first author is an associate professor of political studies at the campus where
the study was conducted. The research assistant who helped with the interviews
is a third year undergraduate student. The second author is a professor of
women’s and gender studies at a different university in the province, thus, in
contributing to data anlysis, provided an “outsider” perspective. Both authors
are also mothers; SW is a single-mother of a pre-teen daughter and LR is
married and the mother of two adult children. We have both experienced at
various times and in varying degrees the competing demands of parenting and
academic work which often made difficult finding balance between the two.
Data collection
Six faculty were interviewed in person, while 15 responded to the questions
via e-mail. Each in-person interview took between 45 to 90 minutes.
Interviews were conducted in various locations, depending upon the prefer-
ence of the participant (e.g., participant’s home or university office; inter-
viewer’s university office; coffee shop).
Interviews began by stating the researchers’ openness to all ideas and experi-
ences and with assurances that we had no preconceived expectations about how
faculty members should answer the questions posed. The interview protocol
was divided into five sections. The first set of questions garnered background
information pertaining to the participant’s academic position (e.g., What is
your position? How long have you held it?) and family structure (e.g., How
would you describe your family?). The second set of questions focused on
decisions to become a parent in relation to employment status (e.g., Was this
something you discussed with your employer?). The third group of questions
concentrated on factors surrounding child care (e.g., How was the process of
finding/arranging child care?). The fourth and largest group of questions asked
participants about their experiences with balancing work and family (e.g., Do
you feel that you are able to balance the demands of family and your career?
Have you ever felt that one has interfered with or taken away from the other?
72 S. WILTON AND L. ROSS
Can you describe an average work week during the fall and winter terms?). The
concluding set of questions asked participants to discuss challenges, successes,
and failures in balancing family and career (e.g., What are the greatest chal-
lenges you face in balancing your career and your role as a parent?).
Data analysis
Data was analyzed using critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, Graham,
Lemke, & Wodak, 2004; Wodak & Meyer, 2015). In particular, the responses
were grouped in categories by topic, dominant discourses and themes were
identified and contradictions within the responses were explored. This resulted
in a rich body of data, from which we have begun to draw some conclusions.
The findings presented here focus on presenting an overall picture of work/
family balance on the campus and an exploration in depth of three recurring
themes that emerged in the interviews: flexibility, sacrifice, and insecurity.
Finding balance
The scholarly literature identifies two main ways in which to define the
achievement of a balance between work and family: “the ability of individuals
JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 73
to pursue successfully their work and non-work lives without undue pressures
from one undermining the satisfactory experience of the other” (Noon &
Blyton, 2007; cited in Raiden, Räisänen, & Caven, 2012, p. 274), and, as
“achieving satisfying experiences in all life domains, [requiring] personal
resources such as energy, time, and commitment to be well distributed across
domains’’ (Kirchmeyer, 2000; cited in Greenhaus, Collins, & Shaw, 2003, p.
512; emphasis added). These definitions are interesting because the terms
“successfully” and “satisfying” are obviously quite subjective. When faculty
were asked whether they felt they had achieved a good balance between work
and family life, 52.4% of these faculty stated yes. Yet, the description of the
average work week may appear to contradict that. The majority admitted to
working more than 40 hours per week (and often significantly more during
stressful periods of the academic year); 76% stated that they regularly work in
the evenings, and 72% regularly work on weekends. Thus, while most of the
interviewees started off by saying they felt that had good balance between
their work and family life, their later responses indicated that they had
serious challenges in achieving or maintaining this balance.
A number of the interviewees described the problems they had achieving
balance. For example, one male professor’s comments reflected the difference
between having a balance and having a good balance when he said, “Yes, I
am able to balance them. But the important question is how well I feel I’m
doing it, and I do not think I am doing it well. I have a hard time weighing
the two, and making conscious, medium-term decisions that would allow me
to balance these demands better” (Interview 7). While a female faculty
member, in comparison, reflects on the struggle to achieve balance, stating
“you don’t find the balance because the factors keep changing . . . I think in
my head, I just keep doing the best within what I can do . . .” (Interview 9).
Finally, another male faculty member reflected more on the systemic issues
associated with achieving balance, rather that his individual choices. He
stated, “the system is designed for people to not have a balance, I mean we
are into a monastic structure where it wasn’t a job, it was a lifestyle. And then
to push back and say, ‘well, no I need to have this structure’ is not something
that the system would reward you for” (Interview 18). Thus, while the
definition of a “good” balance and the choices can differ between individuals,
we need to consider the systemic or common challenges that are likely to lead
to failure or success, both within the academy and within the home.
everything, even family. “[T]his model, which includes 60-hour work weeks,
required travel, and relocation, prohibits participation by women with family
responsibilities” (Fothergill & Feltey, 2007, p. 8). Competitiveness in the
workplace necessitates total commitment from the individual, reducing the
time available for other activities, such as family life, child care, and house
work. The ideal worker is generally seen as male, particularly in professional
careers, such as academia, where the job is built “around men’s normative
paths and assumes freedom from competing responsibilities, such as family,
that generally affect women more than men” (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2004, p.
238). These ideas are reflected in the comments from faculty. In particular, as
seen in Figure 1, they identify self-imposed pressure, work events outside
regular hours, the demands of work, feelings of not doing enough, and
unclear expectations as barriers to achieving a good work/family balance.
The ideal worker can also be understood in contrast with the “ideal”
mother. Current social norms around motherhood assert the importance of
a mother’s presence, especially during the early years, as a mother’s nurturing
love is seen as necessary for the proper emotional, physical, and intellectual
development of the child. This over-emphasis on the role of the mother
makes her a scapegoat for anything that goes wrong and puts tremendous
pressure on mothers to achieve unattainable levels of perfection (e.g.,
Douglas, 2005; Mintz, 2014; Thurer, 1994). As Walvarens (2011) notes:
Whether they work, stay at home, or do both, they are judged for not living up to
their potential; those who focus on career are criticized for not fulfilling the role of
a traditional mother; those who stay home to raise children are criticized for
‘opting out’ and not pursuing their professional goals; those who juggle part
time work and motherhood are seen as doing a mediocre job in both areas (p. 1).
Number of Responses
Similarly, Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2012) argue that the general narrative
“suggests that both faculty life and parenthood are all consuming and
irreconcilable, and that only a fool would attempt to balance a tenure-track
academic career with the desire for children and a family” (p. 1). This point is
reiterated by one of the male interviewees, who reflects:
I’ve never received any comments from my colleagues about my family, but I do
think there is a divide between those academics who decide to have kids and those
who don’t. The modern academic seems to have realized that a university career
and kids do not mix. I have had several tell me that. You’re simply not ‘on’ all the
time as an academic when you have kids, and it becomes very easy to fall behind in
your field, or to get disconnected from your academic networks. (Interview 16)
Number of Responses
Enjoying work
Extended family near by
Sabbaticals and summers
Children getting older
Stay at home partner
Supportive partner
Flexible schedule (partner)
Flexible schedule (self)
One Child
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
the roles the partner plays” (Interview 7). These comments, however, should
not be read as an endorsement of the traditional family or the stay-at-home
mother, but rather as revealing of the conditions of work and the pressures
associated with performing well. In fact, they suggest that it is very difficult to
find a balance between an academic career and family. This difficulty
becomes more apparent when we focus on the responses from female faculty
where only one female faculty member had a partner who stayed at home to
care for the children. She stated that “The only reason I could perform the
way I did was because I could count on him at home. I had no feelings of
guilt since my children were with their father when I was not home”
(Interview 3).
Another factor that helped faculty members achieve balance, particularly if
their partner worked outside the home, was the presence of extended family
who provide a significant amount of child care. As one male faculty member
noted, “Since we knew that we wanted to have children, being close to our
own families . . . was highly desirable” (Interview 8). While others, wished
that they did have family close by. As one female faculty member expressed
it, “if my family was close by, they would likely babysit, it wouldn’t be an
issue. It would actually be a huge relief” (Interview 5).
Regardless of their family circumstances, virtually all of the people
interviewed recognized that having children did change the way they
viewed themselves and/or their careers. As one female professor stated,
“Now that I have children, what I do and who I am are still merged, but
my career can no longer dominate my life because the needs of my
children also play a dominant role in my life” (Interview 15). While a
male faculty member stated that “I have less time for my career. The
objectives of academia and its achievements now seem a bit empty, at
times, when I feel frustrated about the amount of time they demand”
(Interview 7). At the same time, this change often requires sacrifice. For
some, sacrifice appears to come willingly; for others with a struggle. As
one woman said, “I have had to give up all of my personal time that could
be spent on hobbies or fitness and I resent this” (Interview 15). As the
above discussions on finding balance suggests, flexibility, followed by
insecurity and sacrifice, play a major role in determining how male and
female faculty balance work and family and their feelings about the
balance they achieve.
Flexibility
As mentioned above, flexibility was the most often mentioned benefit of
working in academia when it came to balancing the needs of the family with
the demands of work. This was conveyed in three main ways: first, the ability
to shift working hours in order to spend important times with family (e.g.,
78 S. WILTON AND L. ROSS
school events); second, the flexible nature of the work itself; and, third, the
flexibility to have different kinds of career paths. These three points are
interconnected. Faculty need to be present and available during teaching
times, office hours, and for various meetings and service requirements, but
the majority of the week is theirs to schedule. This can be very beneficial in
allowing faculty to prioritize home and family at times, but it has also been
described elsewhere as the flexibility to never stop working (e.g., Mason et al.,
2013).
Similarly, faculty often decide what they will research, how much research
they do, and determine their own career goals, although these decisions are
made within the context of tenure and promotion, and regular performance
assessments. These decisions, in turn, can lead to different faculty taking
different career paths. Flexibility is a recurring theme within the scholarly
literature, however, it is not clear from the literature, or from these inter-
views, whether the academy rewards those who make less traditional career
choices. In fact, more of the literature points to a penalty for faculty who take
time off to have or raise children (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2012) and the trend
within universities is increasingly towards a higher emphasis on research
outputs, often at the expense of other aspects of the job, such as teaching and
service (never mind family; Mason et al., 2013; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2012).
Within our interviews, it is unclear at this point how the choices of the
people interviewed will play out over the course of their careers. However,
while all faculty interviewed commented positively on the flexibility of the
job, the ones who stuck most closely to set work hours (e.g., 9–5) had the best
self-declared balance and some of the most productive, “fast track” careers.
The benefits of flexibility are clearly articulated by one male faculty
member, who stated, “For me, given the demands of the job and that of
my partner, flexibility is better than a set end time. I appreciate the flexibility
because I can take care of tasks during working hours (meetings/appoint-
ments related to children’s needs) and still get my work done” (Interview 4).
Similarly, another male colleague summed up the sentiments of many of the
interviewees when he said:
This means that I can easily be at home for more hours when my children are
awake, and then do more of my work on my laptop after they have gone to bed or
before they get up in the morning. This time flexibility is one of the most valuable
aspects of my job. While it means I rarely have evenings or weekends when I am
not engaged in at least some work, it also means I get to spend much, much more
time with my family that those who have ‘9–5’ jobs.. . . On the flip side, I recognize
that my work is never ‘done’ and that I bring work home with me much more than
many of [my friends]. (Interview 8).
Others also recognized the challenges that come with flexibility. As one
female faculty member reflected, “I say I don’t work in the evenings but I’m
always doing my e-mail in the evenings and I wasn’t including things that
JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 79
really should be part of our work, like reading” (Interview 20). The idea that
the work is never really done is a common theme that runs through the
interviews and ties in with the theme of insecurity.
Insecurity
With tenure, a job in academia is one of the most secure positions a person
can hold. The lifetime employment that comes with tenure is rare outside of
the university and can potentially provide faculty with a tremendous ability
to balance work and family. The challenge for many faculty, particularly
women, is that their biological clock and child bearing years tend to coincide
with graduate school and the early, pre-tenure years of their career (Ward &
Wolf-Wendel, 2004). Conley and Carey (2013) note that since the pre-tenure
years tend to correspond with the childbearing years for women, this leads to
high workload demands at home and at work, with women struggling to
juggle their responsibilities and goals in both spheres. This timeline has also
been linked to women’s increased likelihood of holding part-time, non-
tenure track positions compared with men (Trepal & Stinchfield, 2010).
Similarly, Wolfinger (2013) notes that women with small children or babies
are “35% less likely to get tenure-track jobs compared with married fathers of
young children” (p. 3).
The insecurity associated with the pre-tenure years or with contract
appointments leads to increased difficulty in balancing family with career
demands as these faculty are far more vulnerable and less able to say no.
This insecurity can be exacerbated by a lack of clarity around expectations
for tenure and promotion. The lack of institutional clarity around expecta-
tions regarding research, in particular, combines with self-imposed pres-
sure and the very high personal expectations that faculty tend to have in a
way that is not conducive to achieving a successful balance between family
and work.
Many faculty commented on the lack of clear expectations about their
work. For example, one female professor in our study reflected, “[The job
is] flexible. [But] because there is not a lot of structure or there’s not a lot
of questions about how much time am I supposed to dedicate to these
different areas . . . that could make it a little bit challenging. It would be
nice if there was a little bit of more clarity about expectations” (Interview
5). Another stated, “That’s the thing with academia, which is no one will
tell you when it’s enough . . . it’s a competitive system and it’s scary”
(Interview 17). One male interviewee pointed to the systemic nature of
the problem, stating “I think an academic must consciously push back at
‘the institution’ or it will eat you up. ‘The institution’ does none of this
destructive activity consciously. However, it is multifaceted, and all its
demands taken together can be soul-destroying. A sane faculty member
80 S. WILTON AND L. ROSS
needs to remember that he or she has to impose some kind of balance that
the institution will not offer” (Interview 14). But a significant number of
others recognized the role they play in the workload dilemma as well,
stating that the stress over expectations is self-imposed. In addition, many
pointed to the culture of the university and the pressure to publish in top-
notch journals at the expense of more community oriented research and
service. This is succinctly summarized by one male faculty member who
argued that:
The culture of academic life, I would venture, is ever more cutthroat and compe-
titive, and thus does not foster successful family life any better than in the past . . . I
don’t think that most academics would admit to such feelings for fear of being
categorized as weak or ‘not cut out for the job,’ or being labelled as ‘not a real
academic.’ Busy-ness has replaced righteousness as a virtue in academe. If you are
not always busy, creating a ‘product,’ there must be something wrong with you. If
you make time to reflect, explore, play, or contribute outside the university, you
are treated as a lesser being. (Interview 14)
Sacrifice
This leads to the question of what faculty are sacrificing in order to succeed
at work or to be there for their families. To be clear, sacrifice does not imply
that the faculty interviewed regret the choices they made. In most cases, the
participants were comfortable with the sacrifices they made especially in
regards to their careers. However, almost all faculty, male and female, felt
they had made sacrifices—particularly with regards to research and work
related travel for conferences and research.
The most obvious sacrifice related to work for women was taking the time
off to have children. Women’s career paths experience more interruptions
that men’s, which tends to result in long term consequences for salary and
status (Lovejoy & Stone, 2012). There is an ongoing need for more effective
policies aimed at enabling women to better balance work and family, includ-
ing better paid maternity leaves, affordable quality child care, and social
supports. Similarly, Madden (2004) argues that when milestones are rigid,
women are more likely to forgo families than men and women not in their
career position. When milestones are flexible, women are less likely to forgo
having a family but are still disadvantaged when compared to men. However,
“women, regardless of family status are disadvantaged relative to men in their
likelihood of success. And within these fast-track jobs, mothers feel greater
stress than fathers in balancing their careers with their families” (Madden,
2004, p. 12). Often this stress is associated with the increased role that
mothers play at home. As one female faculty member in our study commen-
ted that “My home life requires not only a double shift, but a triple shift. I
have adjusted my courses and my research to try to combine my needs, but
JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 81
this study provides a unique perspective on changing (or the lack of change
in some cases) gender norms in families and the academy, but more research
is needed to broaden the sample size and enable us to make concrete
recommendations.
Clinical implications
Like other researchers, we assumed the term “balance” in our study reflected
participants perception of and satisfaction with the ways in which they were
able to manage varied demands associated with their multiple roles as
parents, academics, and other important responsibilities in their lives
(Brown & Duan, 2007). We appreciate that balance is perhaps a value
laden term that may represent for some individuals “another measure of
success in professional work and motherhood [or fatherhood]” (Tajlili, 2014,
p. 255). Various researchers and clinicians have replaced “balance” with
terms such as “integration”; others with phrases specifying directionality,
such as “work-to-family conflict” and “family-to-work conflict”; still others
use directionality with words that insinuate a positive interaction between
work and family roles, such as “work-to-family facilitation” and “family-to-
work facilitation” (Whiston & Cinamon, 2015). Family or couples therapists
working with clients experiencing stress related to work-life balance should
be familiar with all of the different ways in which the literature describes and
theorizes the phenomenon. It may also be important from a therapist’s
perspective to understand the nuances of labeling and the role labels might
play in helping academic clients to reframe role conflict in an attempt to help
reduce the stresses and strains resulting from tensions. However, it was clear
from the findings in our study that participants fully understood the concept
of “balance” and were able to articulate some of the negative mental and
physical health outcomes resulting from their failed efforts to achieve
balance.
As for all workers, achieving a real sense of balance for the faculty in this
study, was complicated by the age and number of children in the family, by
relational status, by the availability of social support, and to a large extent, by
gender. The notion of balance for faculty was further complicated by the
specific teaching, research, and service demands of academic work, by
expectations regarding productivity that are both self and institutionally
imposed, and by a career progression that often intersects and competes
with stages of family development. Although women in our study appeared
to be struggling more with balance issues compared to their male colleagues,
our findings, particularly in relation to younger faculty, support the idea that
generally men and women are equally committed to their academic work and
to their family (Brown & Duan, 2007; Evans, Carney, & Wilkinson, 2013).
From these perspectives, family therapists who work with academic clients,
JOURNAL OF FEMINIST FAMILY THERAPY 83
Conclusion
In conclusion, this research aimed to explore the challenges and under-
stand how male and female faculty at a small, undergraduate, teaching-
intensive campus balanced the demands of their careers with the needs of
their families. Some of the issues identified by faculty as problematic are
foundational to the academy: tenure and promotion, faculty evaluations,
84 S. WILTON AND L. ROSS
and the increasing focus on high profile research. Other issues point to the
continuing gender inequality within the home and the higher expectations
for women to take on more of the responsibilities for caring for the family.
Although women continue to sacrifice more and have less of a feeling of
achieving an acceptable balance, men are experiencing similar tensions
between having a family and a successful career. As gender roles continue
to change, this may become a more widespread problem. However, as
Mason (2013) notes, “family formation negatively affects women’s, but not
men’s, academic careers. For men, having children is a career advantage;
for women, it is a career killer” (para. 3). In addition, the research findings
presented here suggests that academic careers are particularly unfriendly
for families headed by single parents, those who are geographically
removed from their extended family, or where the partner does not have
job flexibility. This raises questions about how we as a society and as
workplaces can improve on this or help people in these situations.
Ultimately, we need to recognize that while faculty make choices about
how much to work and how to manage their work, the responsibility for
achieving reasonable workload that allows for a life beyond the academy
does not just lie with individual faculty members. The institution—if it
wants happy and healthy, well-balanced employees—also needs to take
responsibility for creating a work environment in which balance is not
just possible, but readily achievable.
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