Faculty perceptions of work-life balance: the role of marital/relationship and family status
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Faculty perceptions of work-life balance: the role of marital/relationship and family status Nida Denson 1 & Katalin Szelényi 2 Accepted: 1 November 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
This study examined correlates of work-life balance perceptions for faculty from various marital/relationship and family statuses, using data from the multi-institutional survey of faculty from the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) project at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. Indicating lower work-life balance among single (rather than married/partnered) faculty, our findings call for colleges and universities to directly address the work-life struggles of single faculty members with and without children. Our findings also underscore the central importance of institutional support for making personal/family obligations and an academic career compatible for all faculty, supports that are correlated with better faculty work-life balance at the level of both individual faculty and the institution. In addition, we argue that institutional supports are particularly important for early-career faculty, who assessed their work-life balance consistently lower than faculty at higher ranks. Keywords Faculty . Work-life balance . Relationship/marital status . Family status In recent years, work-life balance has become a significant focus of conversations concerning faculty well-being in higher education (Sallee and Lester 2017). The majority of this literature has focused on the work-life experiences of faculty mothers and, to a lesser extent, faculty fathers, along with studies on the organizational and policy environments that support or hinder their work-life balance (Denson et al. 2018; O’Meara and Campbell 2011; Sallee 2014; Sallee and Lester 2017; Sallee et al. 2016; Szelényi and Denson 2019; Ward and Wolf-Wendel 2004; Ward and Wolf-Wendel 2012). Although understanding and promoting the work-life balance of faculty parents remain of paramount importance, virtually no studies have investigated the work-life balance of faculty from a wider variety of marital/relationship and family statuses, including single faculty and married faculty without children. As Sallee and Lester
* Nida Denson [email protected]
1
School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia
2
Higher Education Program, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA, USA
Higher Education
(2017) noted: “scholarship and accompanying policy implications, particularly in higher education, has tended to focus exclusively on the needs of individuals navigating parenthood” (p. 357). This omission in the higher education literature is in stark contrast with studies in other fields, highlighting the enormous importance of examining the work-life experiences of single individuals and those married without children (e.g., Ashburn-Nardo 2017; Blackstone and Stewart 2012; DePaulo 2006; DePaulo and Morris 2006). In fact, for a number of years, it has been clear that the workplace
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