Intersection of family, work and leisure during academic training

Abstract

For advanced academic trainees (i.e. doctoral students and postdoctoral trainees), success in the academy often involves stepping away from an ordinary ‘9 to 5’ working environment and into a space where workaholic tendencies are largely encouraged. While the daily care and nurturing of a family can be demanding (and itself represents a form of unpaid, often gendered, labour), evidence suggests that children can offer positive emotional benefits for parents, help curb workaholic tendencies, and offer a reason to step away from work and have fun with the family through leisure. This conceptual paper examines the realities of managing family and work lives for academic trainees, a group that has been largely under-recognized in published literature. Issues such as the current work-related expectations for academics (and the ways these expectations can influence leisure), the gendered experience of the academy and family life among academic trainees and the potential benefits of family to academic pursuits will be discussed. Specific strategies that could be implemented to assist academic trainee families, including enrolment and work schedule flexibility, increased institutional support policies and more family-friendly trainee leisure opportunities will also be explored. This conceptual work suggests that academic trainees may face unique challenges with regard to work/family management and, thus, require specific consideration by the research community and academic administrators.

Keywords:

• student parenthood
• academic training
• benefits of family
• work/life management
• feminist
• gender

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Diana Parry (Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo) and my dissertation committee members Dr Troy Glover (Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo) and Dr Toni Serafini (Sexuality, Marriage and Family Studies Program, St. Jerome's University) for their assistance with this work. This work has been supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributor

Stephanie Chesser is a doctoral candidate in the Aging, Health and Well-being programme at the University of Waterloo. She holds a Master of Public Health degree and diploma in Health Services and Policy Research from Lakehead University. Her research interests focus largely on gender and well-being and often involve the intersection of these issues with the concepts of family and leisure. Her dissertation work looks specifically at the factors that influence family planning among couples where one or both partners are enrolled in doctoral or postdoctoral training.

Notes

1. I would like to recognize that while coursework is a common component of doctoral degrees in North American countries, many doctorates completed globally (in countries such as the UK, New Zealand and Australia) provide research-only programmes of study. As a result of these alternate degree expectations, trainees may experience differing workload stresses and, thus, may need to utilize diverse coping strategies to manage academically and in their personal lives.