The Mapping Project

Scholarship and Caretaking? Possibilities for Faculty with

Family Responsibilities in Engineering and the Sciences

University of Illinois-Chicago

10/30/2003

Robert Drago Penn State University

drago@psu.edu

lsir.la.psu.edu/workfam/mappingproject.htm

The Mapping Project

Once upon a time: 2nd Wave Feminists & the Academy

• Conflict tenure/biol. Clock

• Minimize family

• Deal with it

•Family-responsive workplace

• Working Mother Top 100

• Combine work/family commitments

• Women’s issue?

• Sloan paid leave initiative

The Mapping Project

• Bias against caregiving

• Joan Williams & New glass ceiling

• Bias avoidance

• Narrow form

• Broad form

• Gender – first women & now kids?

• Maybe not…

Heads and Necks of Science PhD Recipients*

*PhDs from 1978-1984 Who Are Working in Academia 12 to 14 Years Out from PhD

Men,Early

Babies

77%

23%

53%

47%

Women,Early

Babies

65%

35%

Women,Late or No

Babies

TenuredProfessors

Second TierPart-Time, 2-YearFaculty, Non-Ten.

Track, Acad.Researchers, andStill Tenure Track

Source: Survey of Doctorate Recipients. Sciences, 1979-1999. Mary Ann Mason & Marc Goulden.

N=2848 N=3057

N=13058

PhDReceipt

GraduateSchoolEntry

AssistantProfessor(Tenure Track)

AssociateProfessor(Tenured)

FullProfessor(Tenured)

Leaks in the Academic Pipeline for Women*

Leak!! Leak!! Leak!! Leak!!

Womenwith Babies

(29% less likely than

women without babies to enter a tenure-track

position)

Women, Married (20% less likely than

single women to enter a

tenure-track position)

Women(23% less likely than

men to become an Associate Professor)

Women(25% less

likely than men to become a

Full Professor within a

maximum of 16 years)

Women PhDsWater Level

Women PhDsWater Level

Women PhDsWater Level

* Preliminary results based on Survival Analysis of the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (a national biennial longitudinal data set funded by the National Science Foundation and others, 1979 to 1995). Percentages take into account disciplinary, age, ethnicity, PhD calendar year, time-to-PhD degree, and National Research Council academic reputation rankings of PhD program effects. For each event (PhD to TT job procurement, or Associate to Full Professor), data is limited to a maximum of 16 years. The waterline is an artistic rendering of the statistical effects of family and gender. Mary Ann Mason & Marc Goulden.

The Mapping Project

Broad Form Bias Avoidance

Men Women

Delayed starting my academic career in order to start a family

4.0% 17.8%

Stayed single because I did not have time for a family and a successful academic career

10.2% 16.0%

To achieve academic success, I had fewer children than I wanted to have

12.6% 25.6%

Had one child, but delayed considering another until after tenure [parent]

9.1% 17.2%

Tried to time new children to arrive during the summer break [parents]

16.1% 46.5%

The Mapping Project:

Narrow Form Bias Avoidance

Men Women

Did not ask for reduced teaching load when needed for family reasons, because of adverse career repercussions

18.9% 32.8%

Did not ask for parental leave even though it would have helped me to take it [parents]

33.1% 32.3%

Did not ask to stop the tenure clock for a new child even though it would have helped me to take it [parents]

18.0% 19.0%

Missed children’s important events when they were young to appear committed to my job [parents]

37.0% 46.2%

Came back to work sooner than I would have liked after new child to be taken seriously as an academic [parents]

14.4% 51.1%

Did not bring children to the office during their school breaks because I worried that other faculty would be bothered [parents]

18.5% 34.0%

The Mapping Project

Bias Avoidance:1. Bias Avoidance slightly more prevalent in Chemistry

(both women and men)

2. Behaviors diverge by Carnegie rankings:1. Delay career for family in Bachelor’s/Assoc.s Inst.s2. Deny children more often in Research Inst.s3. Delay children until after tenure in Research Inst.s4. Come back too soon after new child in Research

Inst.s

The Mapping Project

Bias Against Caregiving

“I… requested that I not have… night classes… and I had a single white male faculty pull me aside and say, “you know you are being difficult, you are asking for accommodations just because you have a child. You’re high maintenance…”

The Mapping Project

Bias Avoidance

“My baby’s sick, my mother-in-law’s dying, and I can’t be at the meeting. And I actually ended up going to the meeting and leaving it in tears…”

“I mean I don’t discuss this stuff with anybody… you know what I mean?”

“I could not have [had children] while the tenure clock was ticking… [I]t would have just sent me over the edge…”

The Mapping Project

Bias Acceptance

“I stopped the tenure clock… and then I moved and lost some more years toward tenure and again when I moved here and I knew I was gonna to lose a few [more] years… I knew we were going to have another child so I was like that's ok because that's the only way its going to work.”

The Mapping Project

Motherhood Norm

[On housework:] “That’s what my husband always says– you just do it a whole lot better than I do…”

[On missing work:] “But when a mom is doing [that,] it’s like “oh, there she goes again, you know, she’s off doing the mom thing…”

The Mapping Project

FOCUS GROUP RESULTS:Common Themes

Workload & Juggling

Cuts across Men & Women

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Workload

“I think a lot of places, departments here, that the philosophy is, as long as you work all the time, we don’t care where you do it.”

[Untenured male:] “I pick up our child in the evening daycare, and after she gets to sleep, that’s when the real work starts, and so I… probably sleep three or four hours a night…”

The Mapping Project

ANSWERS?

[Untenured male:] “I think there's a difference in my workweek B.C. and A.C., and I think B.C. I don't doubt that I was approaching 50, 60 hours a week. I'd be willing to bet that I consciously cut those hours in half. And a lot of that's discipline; a lot of it's learning to say no.”

Cases from UI-Chicago

• New family?

• Family emergencies?

• Lessons for others?

Cases from UI-Chicago

• Family leave

• Staying of Tenure

• Part-time

• Scheduling

• Child care

• Telecommuting

• Climate

• New policies

PROSPECTIVE ANSWERS

Take Family to Work

a. Literally

b. Figuratively

Leaders need to support “whole individual”

PROSPECTIVE ANSWERS

Involved fathers

a. private lives

b. at work

PROSPECTIVE ANSWERS

1. Use Existing Policies

2. Inclusive Processes

3. Expand Existing Policies

Eva and Sophia!