‘If you put pressure on yourself to produce then that's your responsibility’: Mothers’ experiences of maternity leave and flexible work in the neoliberal university

Abstract

Women remain underrepresented in senior positions within universities and report barriers to career progression. Drawing on the concepts of Foucault and Bourdieu, with an emphasis on technologies of the self, this article aims to understand mothers’ academic career experiences. Interviews were conducted with 35 non‐STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine) academics in Scotland and Australia, to reveal the gender dimensions of parents’ academic careers, in neoliberal university contexts. The data suggest that there are tensions between organizational policies, such as maternity leave and flexible work, and the contemporary demands of academic labour. New managerial discourses which individualize and make use of moral systems are particularly effectual in driving women to take up marketized research activity and compromise leave entitlements.

Balancing academia and family life

“…Consequently, WLB discourse usually resonates at the personal level and coping strategies are predominantly individually driven. For both groups of academics, their options of coping strategies are also constrained by the structural conditions of their work, such as escalating job demands no longer bound by time or space, and changing organisational working culture which encourages the competitive production of research outputs as evidenced in both our study and existing studies (see Huppatz et al, 2019). Fierce competition in academia, sophisticated technology and challenging research projects, along with time constraints in managing the three-fold academic functions of teaching, research and services (Ismail & Rasdi, 2007) is particularly evident in the British context.…”

“…Men tend to have more sources of household support which benefits their career, largely due to women's greater commitment to parenting and housework even when holding full-time jobs (Gaskell et al, 2004;Leonard, 2003;Morrison et al, 2011;Nikunen, 2012;Thompson & Dey, 1998). As revealed by Huppatz et al (2019), the family context can exacerbate women's experience in academia and academics who are also mothers in particular struggle to cope with the competing demands of work and home. To achieve career success, more women than men choose to minimise or conceal family commitment through behaviours such as delaying childbirth, prioritising work once they have children, and discounting organisational WLB options (Bardoel et al, 2011;Drago, 2007;Fujimoto et al, 2012).…”

“…However, the role of gender in the assessment of WLB and its effects on academic careers has had less attention. Indeed, the literature that examines the changing academic work is largely de-gendered (Acker & Armenti, 2004;Huppatz et al, 2019). Secondly, both male and female academics are highly likely to experience WLB issues, but female academics have cited family-related challenges that male academics generally do not, and women have reported to sacrifice more than men do (see Beddoes & Pawley, 2013;Fox et al, 2011;Huppatz et al, 2019;Morrison et al, 2011;Thompson & Dey, 1998;Wilson, 2003).…”

Rethinking gender equity in the contaminated university: A methodology for listening for music in the ruins

“…Zooming in on the institutional context of academia, plentiful research can also be found within feminist organization studies (e.g., Contu, 2020; Fotaki, 2013; Harding, Ford, & Fotaki, 2013; Huopalainen & Satama, 2019; Pullen, 2018; R. Lund & Tienari, 2019; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2013). Much of the existing literature on gender in academia in Gender, Work, and Organization focuses on how gender inequality is produced and reproduced through the structures and policies, practices and discourses of management and leadership, quality assessment technologies, divisions of labor, precarity, time‐use and ideal career paths, and also in gender equality programs (Bailyn, 2003; Benschop & Brouns, 2003; De Coster & Zanoni, 2019; Huppatz, Sang, & Napier, 2019; Ivancheva, Lynch, & Keating, 2019; Lund, Meriläinen, & Tienari, 2019; Rafnsdottir & Heijstra, 2013; Savigny, 2017; Tzanakou & Pearce, 2019; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2012; Vayreda, Conesa, Revelles‐Benavente & Ramos 2019). While an intersectional analytical perspective on organizing and organizational relations (Holvino, 2010) and a much needed tuning in to white privilege and sanctioned ignorance in research practice (Swan, 2017), has been encouraged, only a few have explored intersecting social relations in academia.…”

Career Development and Progression of Early Career Academics in Political Science: A Gendered Perspective

“…Others have documented the change from universities as public goods to commodities in much more detail (Barcan, 2016; Collini, 2012). The increased precarity, time stress, metricization and surveillance in university life have led to ‘a profession stretched to breaking point’ (Gill, 2014: 20) and privilege a certain type of labourer – one who is often male, White, able-bodied, wealthy and not a primary caregiver (Bhopal, 2018; Huppatz et al, 2018). This article first reviews the literature on the topic of gender and career development.…”