This study explores how faculty at one research-intensive university spend their time on research, teaching, mentoring, and service, as well as housework, childcare, care for elders, and other long-term care. Drawing on surveys and focus group interviews with faculty, the article examines how gender is related to time spent on the different components of faculty work, as well as on housework and care. Findings show that many faculty report working more than 60 hours a week, with substantial time on weekends devoted to work. Finding balance between different kinds of work (research, teaching, mentoring, and service) is as difficult as finding balance between work and personal life. The study further explores how gendered care giving, in particular being a mother to young children, is related to time spent on faculty work, controlling for partner employment and other factors. Men and women devote significantly different amounts of time to housework and care giving. While men and women faculty devote the same overall time to their employment each week, mothers of young children spend less time on research, the activity that counts most toward career advancement.KEY WORDS: children; faculty jobs; gender; work-family conflict; working time; working parents. INTRODUCTIONWomen remain underrepresented as faculty members relative to their representation among doctorates, and are less likely to attain tenure and promotion or gain access to leadership positions relative to men of their cohorts (Currie et al., 2002;Gatta and Roos, 2004;Glayzer-Raymo, 2001; Mason and Goulden, 2004a,b;Monroe et al., 2008). Relative to men, faculty women also earn lower salaries, receive fewer discretionary funds, and receive fewer internal grants (Roos and Gatta, 2009 In this article, we explore how faculty at one research-intensive university spend their time on research, teaching, mentoring, and service, as well as housework, childcare, care for elders, and other long-term care. Drawing on surveys and focus group interviews with faculty, we examine how gender is related to time spent on the different components of faculty work, as well as on housework and care. We further explore how gendered care giving, in particular being a mother to young children, is related to time spent on faculty work, controlling for partner employment and other factors.All faculty recognized that research productivity is most highly valued by the university; however, research time was most likely to be sacrificed by mothers of young children. Care responsibilities appear to play a role in women faculty members' allocation of time. While heavy care responsibilities are usually short in duration, as with preschool children or with elderly parents in their final years, care responsibilities may have lasting effects on faculty careers. THE GENDERED ORGANIZATION OF FACULTY WORKAcademic employment requires long work weeks for most full-time faculty, even though these hours tend to be more flexible than other careers (Bailyn, 2003;Gatta and Roos, 2004;Gunter and Stambac...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.