Indonesian female academics and the pandemic: the challenges of COVID-19 and academic work

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to higher education. This paper explores the challenges Indonesian female academics encountered during the pandemic in which the boundaries between home and work were further blurred. Accordingly, the gender gap was further widened as unpaid and unacknowledged academic and domestic work disproportionately affected women. This paper draws on data gathered from survey, diary studies and in-depth interviews with female academics in the social sciences and humanities. It examines how Indonesian female academics juggled domestic and professional work at home, caring duties both at home and work, and shouldering administrative workloads. In addition, findings reveal that female academics found new meanings in their academic work and the importance of caring and collective solidarity, especially in a crisis such as the pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• Female academics
• pandemic
• care
• productivity
• Indonesia

Acknowledgement

The third author (Inaya Rakhmani) would like to thank PRIME SOCIAL that supported her participation in this study for synthesising, analysis and dissemination.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government [2021AGSR2-120]