Who Gets to Have a Life? Agency in Work-Life Balance for Single Faculty

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. We offer policy recommendations for institutions to more equitably support all faculty members in negotiating worklife challenges.