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The New STEM Faculty Profile: Balancing Family and Dual Careers

Patricia Wonch Hill

Mary Anne Holmes

Julia McQuillan

Gender Transformation in the Academy

ISBN: 978-1-78441-070-4

Publication date: 6 October 2014

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter contrasts “ideal worker” with “real worker” characteristics among STEM faculty in gendered organizations. The gap between the two reveals the need for academic institutions to revise the notion of and the policies for typical faculty members.

Design

All STEM faculty at a Midwestern research intensive university were asked to participate in a mail and web-based survey to study faculty experiences within departments. The response rate was 70%. Faculty were then categorized by their employment, education, and parent status, and by the work status of their spouse/partner, to assess how closely the faculty matched the ideal academic worker: a faculty member with a full-time home-maker partner.

Findings

Only 13% of the surveyed STEM faculty resemble the “ideal worker” by having a partner who is not employed and who ensures all family care giving. The vast majority of STEM faculty are men with an employed partner who is more likely to have a professional (33%) rather than a nonprofessional (22%) degree.

Research limitations

Only one, public, research-intensive institution in the Midwest United States was surveyed and therefore findings cannot be generalized to faculty at other research intensive institutions or to other types of institutions.

Practical implications

Rather than adding policies to attract women into academia, we find an urgent need make academic institutions rethink to match the reality of most faculty. Increasing flexibility in the academic workplace is not a “women’s issue” but a “faculty issue.”

Value

This paper provides evidence that supports institutional change to accommodate the new academic workers, most of whom are part of dual career couples.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

This research was supported in part by The National Science Foundation ADVANCE-IT Award # HRD-0811250. The data reported in this chapter are tabulated in the Supporting Online Material.

Citation

Hill, P.W., Holmes, M.A. and McQuillan, J. (2014), "The New STEM Faculty Profile: Balancing Family and Dual Careers", Gender Transformation in the Academy (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620140000019001

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited