Perceptions of Institutional Support for Work-Life During the Pandemic for Dual-Career Academic Couples With Children

• In Event: Exploring the Nuanced Impacts of COVID-19 on Stakeholders in Higher Education: Faculty, Staff, and Students

Abstract

The final set of presenters includes a postdoctoral fellow whose research focuses on issues of equity and diversity in the academic workforce; and a research assistant professor whose research and practice examines equity-minded organizational change in faculty careers and graduate education.

Overview: Although there has been a push for institutions to acknowledge work-life challenges faculty face during COVID-19 (Gonzales & Griffin, 2020), relatively few institutions have come up with ways to support faculty. Within this context, academic couples, or faculty members who are married/partnered to other faculty members (Blake, 2020), encounter unique experiences. On one hand, when both members of a couple are in a high-demand profession, work-life conflict can rise (Montaudon-Tomas et al., 2020). Academic couples may encounter particular strain related to negotiating pandemic-related caregiving and be reliant upon their institutions for providing support (Culpepper, 2021). They may also encounter stress if their institution is under financial strain, as many are (Anderson et al., 2020). On the other hand, the flexibility of academe (Sallee, 2013) may enhance the extent to which they have weathered the pandemic.

With these issues in mind, this study draws from interviews with 13 academic couples at 11 universities. Using the theory of perceived organizational support (Kossek et al., 2011; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2001), we consider how academic couples with children navigated work-life during COVID-19. We pay particular attention to the extent to which participants perceived that their institutions valued their work and cared about their well-being. We found that some couples perceived that institutional resources or work-life accommodations were made on an ad hoc basis outside of any official policy. This reflected the overall message that institutions cared very little about the work-life challenges faculty encountered. We consider the implications of these findings for faculty equity and well-being as well as for future policy-making.

Authors

• Daniel Blake, Georgia State University

• Dawn Culpepper, University of Maryland