The academic life course, time pressures and gender inequality

Abstract

In this paper we examine time pressures facing faculty members in the USA, especially assistant professors. We consider whether the strategy of sequencing life events, specifically ‘tenure first, kids later’, is a viable strategy for faculty today. We draw from the 1998 National Survey of Post‐Secondary Faculty, which includes data on over 10,000 full‐time professors in US universities. We examine the amount of time faculty work on a weekly basis. We then consider the ages of assistant professors. We also document the prevalence of dual‐career marriages in academia. Next we document the patterns of parental responsibilities among assistant professors, and examine the impact of marital and parental status on time devoted to professional responsibilities. We also discuss the impact of time pressures on job satisfaction. This analysis is designed to highlight the challenges of designing more family‐friendly professional positions without recreating or reinforcing gender disparities in earnings and professional status.

En este artículo, examinamos las presiones de tiempo que se les plantean al profesorado de las universidades en los Estados Unidos, especialmente a los profesores adjuntos. Consideramos si es viable o no para la facultad de hoy la estrategia de ordenar las circunstancias de la vida, específicamente ‘primero la titularidad, despues los hijos’. Recurrimos al 1998 National Survey of Post‐Secondary Faculty, que incluye datos de mas de 10,000 profesores de tiempo completo en universidades de los EEUU. Examinamos la cantidad de tiempo que los profesores trabajan cada semana. Después consideramos las edades de los profesores adjuntos. También documentamos la preponderancia en el mundo académico de matrimonios donde ambos tienen carreras profesionales. Luego documentamos los patrones de responsabilidades de los padres entre los profesores adjuntos, y examinamos el impacto de la condición matrimonial y paternal/maternal sobre el tiempo dedicado a las responsabilidades profesoriales. También debatimos el impacto de las presiones de tiempo sobre la satisfacción laboral. Este análisis intenta poner de relieve los retos involucrados en estructurar puestos profesionales que son mas favorables a la familia sin recrear or reforzar disparidades relacionadas a género de ingresos y estatus professional.

Keywords:

• Keywords working time
• work–family conflict
• academic careers
• job satisfaction
• academic productivity
• Palabras clave hora laborable
• conflicto de la trabajar–familia
• carreras académicas
• satisfacción profesional
• productividad académica

Notes

The operant definition of ‘faculty’ for the NSOPF includes instructional faculty, non‐instructional faculty, and instructional personnel without faculty status.

The lion's share of faculty working time is devoted to their main position, with outside consulting representing a minor fraction of total work effort. Both men and women full‐time faculty report working about four hours per week doing other work, including unpaid work outside their home institution and compensated extramural activities such as consulting. The balance — 50.5 hours per week for men and 49.2 hour per week for women — is devoted to their principal position. Among full‐time faculty, a sizeable minority of men (34.4 per cent) and women (27.0 per cent) do some paid consulting work. The average number of weekly hours consulting is 5.2 for men and 4.7 for women.

The conclusion regarding increased time on the job during the 1990s may not be right, since 1998 was restricted to faculty whose academic position was their primary job, while the 1992 survey did not allow for such a restriction.

It should also be noted that delaying childbearing as long as many faculty do increases the ‘sandwich generation’ problem, that is, having young children and elderly parents to care for at the same time.

NSOPF does not ask directly about children. Thus, the analyses presented here construct parental status through answers to questions about marital status and the number of individuals living with the respondent.

We sought to determine whether the hours reports from the census were similar to those from the NSOPF data. The average workweek for full‐time male post‐secondary teachers obtained from the census data was 46.7 hours (43.9 hours per week for females). (Since the census data did not include an indication of whether the position was classified as part‐time, we defined full‐time for this sample as those working 35 hours per week or more.) This is lower than the NSOPF data partly because it includes those working at two‐year as well as four‐year institutions. Our census sample is also restricted to married couples. When we broadened our NSOPF sample to approximate the census definitions as closely as possible, the results matched very closely for men and came reasonably close for women. The 1992 average NSOPF hours for men were 46.7 and 39.1 for women. Another unfortunate limitation is that it is not possible to restrict the census data to assistant professors.