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Work-Life Integration and Management

The ability of faculty members to integrate their personal and professional lives is critical for maintaining faculty success and well-being. This reference list contains research on how work-life conflict is experienced differently by faculty members of different ranks, identities, and appointment types, and also lists the strategies units can use to enhance work-life integration

Authors: Culpepper, D.

Dual-career academic couples, or faculty members who are married or partnered to other faculty members, make up a critical mass of the professoriate in the United States. Women faculty members are more likely to be in these kinds of relationships. Thus, many institutions have implemented dual-career support policies to increase the number of women in the academy. Though a few studies have examined the rates at which these policies are used, less research examines the way using (or not using) said policies can impact each partner’s ability to advance toward their professional goals.

Authors: Zábrodská, K., Mudrák, J., Šolcová, I., Květon, P., Blatný, M., & Machovcová, K.

This study examined both direct and indirect associations of faculty burnout with psychosocial work environments, using the job resources-demands framework. A sample of 2,229 faculty members (57.1% male) throughout public universities in the Czech Republic completed a questionnaire comprising measures of burnout and psychosocial work environment characteristics from the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II.

Authors: Denson, N., Szelényi, K., & Bresonis, K.

Very few studies have examined issues of work-life balance among faculty of different racial/ethnic backgrounds. Utilizing data from Harvard University’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education project, this study examined predictors of work-life balance for 2953 faculty members from 69 institutions. The final sample consisted of 1059 (36%) Asian American faculty, 512 (17%) African American faculty, 359 (12%) Latina/o faculty, and 1023 (35%) White/Caucasian faculty. There were 1184 (40%) women faculty and 1769 (60%) men faculty.

Authors: Culpepper, D., Lennartz, C., O’Meara, K., & Kuvaeva, A.

Faculty members with families face well-documented challenges in managing the demands of work and life. However, we know less about the experiences of single faculty members. Using agency as a theoretical framework, we assessed whether faculty members have different experiences in enacting agency in work-life balance based on their partner status, gender, and rank. We found single faculty members, particularly single, women associate professors, felt less agency in their ability to balance work and life than their partnered peers.

Authors: Culpepper, D. K., & Blake, D. J.

The COVID-19 pandemic has refocused higher education on issues of work-life conflict among faculty members with children. This study draws from interviews with 13 heterosexual couples (26 participants) who were employed as faculty members and who cared for at least one child during the pandemic. Using the theory of perceived organizational support, we considered how institutional actions shaped the extent to which academic couples who parent felt supported in managing pandemic-related work-life conflict.