Work vs. Family in Academia: home
Introductory Remarks
Kari Olson
As I prepared for the AAA meetings, my three year-old daughter climbed into my lap many times, laid puzzles and books at my feet to tempt me away from my work, and occasionally feigned attacks of illness or pain to get my attention. Meanwhile, my eight-year old sprawled on the floor doing her homework and periodically whined in frustration that she needed my help. I let them watch way too much TV and eat way too much junk food to buy myself work time during the intense crush of activity before the AAAs. This year that included preparing for my defense two weeks ago, preparing an academic paper presentation, preparing for this panel and other SMA meetings, and preparing to talk to schools about potential job opportunities. I was exhausted and guilt-ridden by the time I got here.
And I am not alone. A recent study conducted by researchers from UC Berkeley (Mason and Golden 2002) analyzed the persistent gap between men and women who achieve tenure, despite the steady increase since the 1970s of women who finish PhDs and who work in academia. Comparing men and women who are twelve to fourteen years post-PhD, most women remain in “non-ladder-rank” positions, such as adjunct and lecturer. They found that while systemic discrimination against women plays a role, having kids may be the biggest factor. Women who have babies during graduate school and within five years after they get their PhDs are much less likely to be in tenure-track jobs and to achieve tenure than are men who have children within a similar period. Twelve to fourteen years post-PhD, 62 percent of women who are tenured in the social sciences and humanities do not have children in the household compared with 39 percent of men.
The authors of the study provide concrete recommendations for academic institutions to address this problem. For tenure-track faculty, they suggest that institutions provide leave policies, stop the tenure clock for a maximum of two children, establish a part-time tenure track option and accommodate two-career couples. For “non-ladder-rank” faculty who support so many institutions in their teaching of undergraduate courses, and who are mostly women, the authors suggest the provision of full benefits and job security.
The authors of the Berkeley study conclude that, “[r]aising children takes time and only an accommodation to that basic fact can ultimately allow women to achieve their career goals” (Mason and Goulden 2002:6). But if the problems of merging childbearing and childrearing with academic careers continue to be focused only on women, family friendly policies will continue to be stigmatized within academia. Last year a New York Times article reported that “at the University of Michigan, considered a model for family-friendly campuses, only 14 percent of faculty members take modified duties and 12 percent stop their tenure clock.” Most people felt that it was “career suicide” to do so (Cohen 2002).
As anthropologists, we are uniquely situated to challenge the cultural assumptions underlying these disturbing trends. We need to be pioneers in broadening this discussion to include both women and men, and we have some brave panelists up here today to do just that. A majority of academic women are married to academic men, and the problems of childrearing usually fall on both partners as they try to attain their career goals and stay afloat financially in the meantime. So let me stop here so that we can hear from several of our colleagues with experience in these matters.
References
Mason, Mary Ann and Marc Goulden.
2002. “Do Babies Matter? The Effect of Family Formation on the Lifelong
Careers of Academic Men and Women” Academe Online, November-December
2002. Accessed on-line at: http://www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/02nd/02ndtoc.htm
Cohen, Hal
2002 “The Baby Bias” The New York Times, August 4,
2002. Accessed on-line at: http://nytimes.com/