Women Academics and Work–Life Balance: Gendered Discourses of Work and Care

Abstract

This article examines how discourses of work–life balance are appropriated and used by women academics. Using data collected from semi‐structured, single person interviews with 31 scholars at an Australian university, it identifies and explores four ways in which participants construct their relationship to work–life balance as: (1) a personal management task; (2) an impossible ideal; (3) detrimental to their careers; and (4) unmentionable at work. Findings reveal that female academics' ways of speaking about work–life balance respond to gendered attitudes about paid work and unpaid care that predominate in Australian socio‐cultural life. By taking a discursive approach to analysing work–life balance, our research makes a unique contribution to the literature by drawing attention to the power of work–life balance discourses in shaping how women configure their attempts to create a work–life balance, and how it functions to position academic women as failing to manage this balance.

Precarity, gender and care in the neoliberal academy

“…A similar process has been observed in other high‐skilled workplaces where part‐time work jeopardized the opportunity to close the gender pay gap and secure women's career progression (O’Hagan, ; Smithson, Lewis, Cooper, & Dyer, ). Thus, within the new managerial regime, most women and primary carers in families hit a ‘care ceiling’ as they defy organizational ‘shapes’ (Lynch, ; O’Connor, ; Raddon, ; Toffoletti & Starr, ).…”

“…The ideal academic worker is one ‘… with no interests or responsibilities outside of work’ (Bailyn, , p. 141). Women who move, living up to the masculine ideal, risk marginalizing their affective and relational lives, and often have to postpone indeterminably the choice of having a family (Stalford, ); the alternative option is to live with the responsibility of being a ‘failure’ in their own eyes and that of colleagues (Toffoletti & Starr, ).…”

Do Single and Married Females Have the Same Standard of Work–Family Balance? Case Study of Frontline Employees in Macau

“…Given the special need of employees to balance and integrate their family needs and career requirements, research on the work-family interface has increased substantially over the past decades [2,4]. The findings indicate that work-family relationship is a major concern in society.…”

“…WFB is a phenomenon that is ideally observed in a work-family relationship and has led to the emergence of a new research stream. Research on WFB can be characterised as being organised along competing positive and negative perspectives [2][3][4]. Previous studies have assumed a 'win-lose' relationship between family and work by focusing on the work-family conflict based on individuals who have limited time and resources to allocate to their many life roles [5].…”

“…Previous studies have assumed a 'win-lose' relationship between family and work by focusing on the work-family conflict based on individuals who have limited time and resources to allocate to their many life roles [5]. Other studies [3][4][5][6] have reported that WFB is pursued to resolve the work-family conflict, which can be regarded as the opposite of WFB.…”