Presidential Address: The Faculty Time Divide

Parental Leave Usage by Fathers and Mothers at an American University

“…Childbearing is a major factor behind why women faculty are more likely than men to leave the academy, shift to contingent positions, and take longer to be promoted (Goulden, Frasch, & Mason, 2009;Jacobs, 2004;Mason & Goulden, 2004a;Wolfinger et al, 2009). Research suggests that faculty fathers are privileged in the academia, able to advance professionally while facing few obstacles to family formation aspirations (Drago & Colbeck, 2003;Mason & Goulden, 2004aWolfinger et al, 2009).…”

Male Scientists’ Competing Devotions to Work and Family: Changing Norms in a Male-Dominated Profession

“…Such an arrangement means that workplaces, including academia, assume employees will be “ideal workers” who fully devote themselves to work without the burden of household chores or family obligations (Mason et al, 2013). Academics may be more susceptible to this devotion to work demand than other workers, as they average longer hours than most professionals (Jacobs, 2004; Misra et al, 2012). For example, previous work on academic scientists’ work lives at elite research universities reveal that both men and women work upwards of 55 hours a week (Ecklund & Lincoln, 2011).…”

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“…Thus, Jane Jacobs concludes, based on her study, that provided that the chances of staying "on the professional periphery" are inversely proportional to time resources that academic staff dedicate to work, the amount of time spent on work becomes the most important factor of intraprofessional differentiation [Jacobs, 2004]. Jeffrey F. Milem, Joseph B. Berger and Eric L. Dey use the results of a national teacher survey to report a considerable change in the structure of time budgets of US university teachers (except for two-year colleges) between 1972 and 1992: the proportion of time allocated for research increased, contrary to the proportion of time spent on teaching and out-of-class communication with students [Milem, Berger, Dey 2000].…”