August 17, 2006
Home, career balance: Research shows changing climate
There’s an old joke among university scholars and researchers that they have great flexibility in their jobs — they can work any 80-hour week they want.
It’s funny because it’s true, or often feels that way for graduate students and faculty, especially women, trying to balance the often competing challenges of a happy, fulfilling home life and a rich academic career.
A lot of faculty are supportive when colleagues have family issues that take time and attention away from their work, but not all are that open-minded. Many seem to retain the view that to succeed in academe it’s best to avoid such digressions as children and parenting.
But that climate may be changing. Research done by Kate Quinn, who in June earned her doctorate in the College of Education’s Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program, hints that today’s graduate students might have a more open attitude toward this age-old conundrum.
To study these evolving attitudes, Quinn sent out a survey to all 10,635 graduate students on the UW-Seattle campus this past year. From that total sent out, she got 1,190 replies, a response rate of about 11 percent.
“So many indicated they would support a colleague, I was very encouraged,” said Quinn, noting that such changes could be beginning to create “a culture of support that is conducive to increased job flexibility.”
Quinn’s study explored four basic questions.
- Are issues of work and family relevant to graduate and professional students?
Here, the response to Quinn’s research survey seems clear: such issues do appear to be relevant to graduate and professional students. “The factor selected most frequently by both genders as being important in career selection is the ability to balance work and personal life — 80.2 percent of men and 85.5 percent of women responded so. Also, of those responding, 55.8 percent of men and 65.1 percent of women predicted they would have to provide eldercare at some point in their careers.
- Does a bias against flexibility in faculty careers exist among graduate and professional students or future faculty?
Few respondents appeared to hold such a bias. Only 11.1 percent of the men and 6.9 percent of the women disagreed with the statement “Faculty who use family leave are equally committed to their careers as faculty who do not.” Only 3.2 percent of women responded that faculty careers are already flexible enough, compared with 10.5 percent — nearly three times as many — of men responding that way.
- Do graduate and professional students perceive that such biases do exist?
Here, the responses were less clear. Asked if they would be “afraid of using a family-friendly policy,” 13.7 percent of men and 18.8 percent women replied yes. Asked if there was an “unwritten rule” against using such policies about half disagreed mildly or strongly — but then, 16 percent agreed midly or strongly to this, also.
Asked if faculty who put jobs ahead of family are looked on unfavorably, results were mixed, with about 30 percent agreeing and about the same percentage disagreeing. “It appears that respondent opinions on these statements vary considerably,” Quinn wrote in her summary.
- Does the perception of bias relate to whether a graduate or professional student plans to pursue a career in adaceme?
In a sense, Quinn said, this question assumes that graduate and professional students “get a chance to look behind the curtain” at the job climate they might enter, and hence might change their minds if they perceive bias against flexibiliy. She said that, frankly, she expected to find this connection, but did not.
Still, respondents who indicated a change of careers away from the academic world tended to report a higher perception of bias than do other respondents. So, it seems Quinn did find a connection there, but not necessarily a causal one.
Quinn said she was encouraged, too, by the strong response to a question asking simply if respondents agreed that “Flexible career options for faculty would help improve gender equity in academe.” The response, she said, was a “landslide” of yes votes.
A subgroup of respondents also gave Quinn some hope. The vast majority of those identifying themselves as “future faculty” indicated they feel balancing work and personal life is important in career selection. Respondents in the subgroup also indicated they’d be supportive of a colleague who had to provide care to a sick or elderly parent.
Quinn presented part of her findings to the UW Regents in June, and said that the research material, including about 50 interviews with graduate students, might well hold enough information for a book some day.
She said that, ideally, she’d like to see her findings “influence graduate education and the structure of academic careers — beyond choosing which 80 hours a week they want to work.”
