Gendered Engagement in International Research Networks: The Implications of Family Obligations
Amy Lubitow, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Sociology, Northeastern University Kathrin Zippel, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Northeastern University 1
Submission for the American Sociological Association 2011 Annual Meetings. Draft: please do not cite or circulate without the expressed permission of the authors. Please direct correspondence to Kathrin Zippel, k.zippel@neu.edu
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This research is supported through the National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Grant #0811170. PIs Sara Wadia-Fascetti, and Co-PIs Luis Falcon, Jackie Isaacs, and Graham Jones are gratefully acknowledged for their support.
Abstract: Women in science and engineering remain underrepresented at all levels of the academic career ladder. Researchers have identified various barriers to women’s advancement ranging from subtle or overt discrimination to a lack of mentoring and limited social networks that contribute to unequal access and inequalities in career opportunities. This paper contributes to this literature by focusing on how globalization of scientific work affects gender relations in science and engineering. International collaboration and some forms of mobility are increasingly a characteristic of researchers’ job requirement, which amplifies some of the already existing barriers and burdens for women. Academic institutions assume the norm of a universal, internationally mobile individual without relationships or care responsibilities interfering with time and mobility. Those in dual career couples as well as parents with primary care responsibilities for children face challenges in establishing and maintaining international research networks. Our findings suggest that while women and parents are invested in pursuing international research projects, familial obligations may pose hurdles that require strategic planning in order to be successful. Suggestions are made as to how academic institutions can best support parents with primary care responsibilities who are pursuing international research programs in STEM and social science fields. -----
Introduction Given the internationalization of many fields of academic research, demands are routinely placed on faculty to be more internationally mobile (Ackers 2005; Engels and Ruschenberg, 2008; Jappe, 2007). As work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields is frequently conducted with international collaborations, faculty may be required to travel or be geographically mobile for certain periods of time. The need to share expensive equipment, specimens, and laboratory space often drives scientists to seek out research projects and collaborators overseas (Stefaniak, 2001). Women academics often face greater limitations to their mobility than men do (Ackers, 2005; Morrison, Rudd, Chi and Nerad, 2010; McBrier, 2003; Kulis and Sicotte, 2002), suggesting that the increasingly global nature of academic work may mean different things to women and men. Because international travel, research and collaboration may often be more time-consuming and resource intensive than domestic research (Mclachlan, 2007), this article explores the gender-specific barriers faculty face and how faculty succeed in their international research efforts, particularly when they seek to balance work and family life. We argue that practices and policies around international networking and collaboration assume the normative, universal, academic who is disembodied, independent, and able to move freely around the world unencumbered by caregiving responsibilities and relationship commitments. Drawing on Acker’s (1990) notion of gendered organizations, we find that the organization of international research is gendered, because gender-specific barriers to participation exist in research networks and collaborative work. In particular, the prevailing gendered division of labor and the higher likelihood that women are in dual career couples than are men pose challenges that have gendered implications. The private nature of family life belies a situation in which institutional practices require faculty members to develop individual solutions for these challenges. Our findings suggest that both women and men faculty with family obligations are successfully
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participating in international research efforts. 2 Women, however, report having to do more planning and strategizing in order to be internationally mobile even for short periods of time than men faculty. The creative negotiations reported by faculty demonstrate how faculty balance work/life issues and provide insights as to how institutions could support the ongoing work of international research collaborations. Such pathways for institutional support will be discussed in our conclusion. Women in dual career couples still shoulder more care-giving responsibilities than do men in such couples (Mason and Goulden, 2004; Shelton and John, 1996; Hochschild, 1989). This disparity suggests that women faculty with children may face significant obstacles in their effort to maintain international research agendas as this type of research requires time, mobility and financial resources. However, despite findings that women faculty spend more time caring for children than men faculty, social science literature has demonstrated that women faculty with children remain as productive as men. 3 This finding suggests that women faculty who remain in academia might be particularly adept at balancing competing demands from the “greedy institutions” of work and family. These literatures do not consider the challenges that are emerging with the internationalization of academic work. This paper seeks to contribute to the literature on work/life balance in academic careers by considering how faculty participation in international research settings may be gendered while also discussing specific ways in which faculty with children negotiate increased demands for international research efforts. Although international collaborations are increasingly mediated via electronic communication technologies, collaborations outside the country present unique challenges. Traveling to attend conferences and spend time with researchers in other locales may create significant barriers for faculty with children. While there is some research suggesting that mobility is gendered in academic careers, 4 much of this research has examined mobility solely in a national context, yet we expect that
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For this study, we defined international research collaboration broadly to include a range of activities, including maintaining relationships with foreign scholars in order to coauthor grants or publications; exchanging equipment, data, or students; attending conferences or workshops; and communicating with international scholars through online media. 3 Such findings suggest that there may be some selectivity in these data; women who choose to partake in both “greedy institutions” (Coser, 1974) may be better able to handle a range of demands on their time and energy and may have certain supports in place than women who opt of the academic lifestyle. 4 For example, married men with children tend to be more likely to travel for work than are married women with children (Tharenou, 2008; Gustafsson, 2006).
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international mobility poses additional challenges. We seek to address this gap in the literature by exploring how expectations and necessities of international mobility are gendered and might have different meanings for women’s and men’s academic career trajectories. We first review the relevant literatures, including work on theories of organization, women in science, gendered mobility, and work/life balance. Then we discuss the barriers that faculty with family obligations face in building and maintaining international research collaborations. We examine the specific strategies that faculty with children relied upon to make their research efforts a success. We conclude with suggestions about specific university and funding agency supports that may enable faculty with families to succeed in international research settings. Literature Review This study draws on the literature on gendered organizations (Acker, 1990; Connell, 1990; Martin, 2003), while also bringing together a number of theories on gender and faculty experiences in the academy. Exploring the ways family obligations inhibit collaboration and mobility is important because the ability to overcome family-related barriers is likely gendered; men and women face different challenges in negotiating personal family commitments. Women in Science In recent decades the percentage of women earning doctoral degrees in the STEM and social science fields has increased dramatically. However, increases in the doctoral pool have not necessarily translated into increased numbers of women joining the faculty of academic institutions (National Research Council, 2009; Committee on Maximizing, 2007; Xu, 2008; Frehill et al., 2006; Nelson and Rogers, 2006). Family obligations (Ward and Wolf-Wendel, 2004), a lack of mentoring and access to networks (Realff, Colatrella and Fox, 2007), a lack of access to resources (Xu, 2008; Nelson and Rogers, 2006; Roos and Gatta, 2009), and an inhospitable climate for women (Settles et al., 2006) have all been identified as factors in women scientists' decisions to leave academia, and in the continued inequity in tenure and promotion rates for men and women. In addition, some argue that younger women today may be less willing to consider academic tenure track positions when they perceive that 3
they will be unable to combine family and successful careers in STEM fields. Gendered Organizations Academic institutions are not gender neutral entities but gendered organizations that have practices and policies whose assumptions about men and women can result in differential treatment and subtle biases and make it difficult for women and caregivers in general to succeed (Acker, 1990, 1992). Institutions orient their practices and rules toward an individual worker whose caregiving responsibilities and relationship commitments do not interfere with the 60+ hour work week. This “ideal worker's” sole commitment is to knowledge and the academic profession (Gatta and Roos, 2004; Bailyn 2003; Ward and Wolf-Wendel, 2004; Williams, 2000). This notion is based on stereotypical beliefs about men and women that have become institutionalized in such a way as to privilege the masculine “unencumbered” worker with a spouse at home to care for children. Where this notion persists, women faculty may be disadvantaged; the assumption of the primacy of academic pursuits inherent in the “ideal worker” creates an environment in which other obligations or priorities are delegitimized or devalued. Academic institutions are gendered in that they may have tenure and promotion policies that are more appropriate for the career patterns of this universal academic and for rewarding masculine behaviors (e.g., directly asking for raises, resources, funds) (Roos and Gatta, 2009). Our research adds to our understanding of what these organizational practices and policies mean for gendered participation in international collaborations. Researchers argue that these institutionalized barriers and burdens cannot be overcome by individual solutions; instead in order for women to thrive in academic settings, institutional practices must shift to be more transparent and more inclusive of women’s preferences and needs (Committee on Maximizing, 2007; Roos and Gatta, 2009; Fox and Colatrella, 2006). Yet this research has so far only considered “nationally” organized academic work. With the increasing need for international work in many scientific fields, it is important to understand how concerns that impede women’s advancement in the academy in a national setting may be exacerbated by additional geographic and time constraints and issues related to cultural divides. 4
Work/Life Balance in Academic Careers Dual career couples are increasingly common, with approximately 65 percent of the national workforce estimated to be in dual career relationships (Wolf-Wendel, Twombly and Rice, 2004). Among academics, women are more likely than men academics to be in a dual career academic couple; 40% of women and 34% of men reported being partners with other scholars (Schiebinger, Henderson and Gilmartin 2008). This reality contradicts the notion of the ideal worker, as fewer and fewer academic parents have a spouse at home to care for the children. Faculty who take on parenting roles may find they face significant obstacles in the academic world as they seek to negotiate the demands of their home and work lives. Despite some promising shifts in the division of household labor (Halrynjo, 2009), working women still often take a lead role in household and family obligations (Mason and Goulden, 2004; Shelton and John, 1996; Hochschild, 1989); even in dual career couples women tend to handle more household work than do men (Thebaud, 2010; Ledin et al., 2007; Corley, 2005). Steffen-Fluhr (2006) argues that some women find the task of juggling family and career demands too great, leaving “academic careers much more frequently than men do, taking jobs in business and industry where there is no tenure clock to create conflict with the biological clock and where family-friendly policies and resources make it somewhat easier to have a balanced life� (2). Although some women choose to leave faculty positions for more flexible industry jobs, Fox (2005) finds that women faculty with children who remain in academia are as productive as their colleagues who are men, suggesting the importance of social selectivity (or stamina for and commitment to research) and time management skills in the careers of women with children. Our research adds to the understanding of how women with children seem to be able to keep pace with men in international research, where demands on time and travel may be greater than for domestic research. Understanding how women negotiate demands on time and energy in the international context can provide insight about how institutional supports might expand faculty’s international research agendas and increase the success of faculty with children in this setting. It is particularly important to clarify how faculty who are 5
parents develop and maintain relationships and networks in a global setting, when such developments require travel, financial resources, and time away from home. Gender and Mobility The practice of international travel raises questions about the gendered nature of mobility. Ledin et al. (2007) have suggested that women who are part of an academic couple are more likely to defer to their spouse’s career needs, noting that “women more frequently put their own careers in second place” (985). Similarly, Tharenou (2008) found that women with children and/or partners were less willing to expatriate for a job than men, and that family barriers negatively predicted women’s international job searches but not men’s; a 2009 National Research Council report found that women were more likely than men both to turn down positions and to cite family responsibilities as an important factor in selecting their current positions (National Research Council, 2009). Recent research on mobility among academic faculty consistently reports that women, particularly those with small children, face greater challenges to mobility than do men (Morrison et al., 2010; McBrier, 2003; Kulis and Sicotte, 2002). Two studies found that the age of children influenced mobility patterns for women: one study found that women with children between ages 7 and 12 were 39 percent less mobile than men with children the same age (Shauman and Xie, 1996: 464), while a second study found that having young children (under age 7) had a significant negative effect on short-term mobility (travel) for women but not for men (Gustaffson, 2006). While these studies suggest that mobility is gendered, they have not examined the demands of international mobility on academics to understand the opportunities and challenges mobility poses for those with care giving responsibilities. Our research explores how gendered organizational structures contribute to the creation of barriers to international collaboration, also describing how faculty overcome gendered barriers to be internationally active scholars. Methods This research is part of a larger study that used a multi-method approach using qualitative interviews and focus groups as well as document analysis. Interviews and focus groups were conducted 6
with 83 faculty and administrators at a large, private research university between October 2009 and April 2010. Overall we conducted 56 interviews (31 faculty members and 25 chairs and administrators), and 8 focus groups with 27 faculty members. The sample entails primarily STEM departments; participants were representative of rank and institution, though women were slightly overrepresented. The interviews were loosely structured and followed an open-ended guide of general topic areas including previous collaborations, barriers to international research, family obligations, institutional incentives or disincentives to collaboration and specific needs related to international research. The interviews, which lasted between forty-five minutes and one and one half hours, and the focus groups, which lasted two hours, were audiotaped and transcribed. We used five steps to analyze the interview and focus group data: (1) examining the transcript data for logical relationships or themes; (2) sorting the relevant data into these emergent categories; (3) rereading the initial transcripts and discussing trends in the data to confirm or disconfirm the relationships that were emerging; (4) organizing general themes into cohesive groups; and (5) reviewing each interview again to determine how data fit into themed categories. From this process, a variety of themes emerged that told a story of faculty experiences and efforts to engage in international research collaborations. Themes included the importance of international networks and conferences; the importance of institutional flexibility in enabling international work; and numerous themes related to barriers to such research efforts. We focus on the concept of family obligations as a barrier in this paper. The themes related to family obligations and international research are as follows: 1. Both children and academic partners were recognized as barriers to international research. 2. Faculty who successfully engaged in international research developed a variety of ways by which to negotiate their work/family lives. Family Responsibilities as Barriers to International Research Faculty experience the demands of international research in gendered ways. Our findings suggest that both children and spouses/partners can present challenges to international research agendas 7
and that women and men faculty experience these challenges in different ways. In what follows, we (1) discuss how family responsibilities (both children and spouses/partners) in academic careers remain gendered; and (2) examine how faculty in our study negotiated family barriers in order to engage in international research. Family barriers are indeed gendered, and men and women faculty report different experiences in relation to family obligations. Faculty choosing to start families often have to spend a significant amount of time and energy balancing their dual roles as parents and academics (Kennelly and Spalter-Roth, 2006; Armenti, 2004; Mason and Goulden, 2004). 5 Women reported not only a great deal of time spent in caretaking roles, but also children as a barrier to some international research efforts. In addition, women respondents discussed ways their partners could often create obstacles to their international research plans. Children as Barriers: Women as Primary Caretakers International collaborations require travel, whether attending conferences to report research findings or network with other scholars, using expensive equipment in other research labs, or simply having face time to get to know the local lab conditions to enhance collaborative work; for scholars engaged in international collaborations some travel is essential. International conferences are a key site of social network creation and maintenance. Because international travel is often a component of international collaborations, having a partner, children, or parents 6 to take care of limits the ability even for short term mobility and collaborations. The burdens that international collaborations place on faculty may be exacerbated in an academic environment where the experience of motherhood or child rearing is marginalized. For example, several participants explained that while some national conferences now provide child care, many international conferences and especially smaller specialized workshops do not have onsite care. Thus, faculty who take on parenting roles may find that they are not supported or accommodated in this 5
Perna (2001) estimates that only 31 percent of current women faculty have non-adult children.
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Participants did not consistently report that they were responsible for caring for parents or that this was a barrier, but the absence of this response does not mean that it is not a significant barrier for some faculty.
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world. A number of faculty members reported that they felt that the demands of raising young children and trying to remain productive as scholars reduced their capacity to engage in international collaborations. Women faculty consistently reported that they took on significant caretaking responsibilities, even when they were married or partnered. This burden reduces women’s capacity to engage in time intensive international projects while simultaneously allowing some men who are not in dual career couples to benefit from traditional gender roles. One junior faculty member exemplifies the experiences of many women in this study who felt it was their duty to take on most of the child care, even if it meant reducing academic work or travel, There is the piece of trying to work in the family stuff and last year I didn’t do a ton [of research] because I had a newborn…when you have a partner who has a job that is also extremely demanding, I can’t count that he’s going to be home for a week, and especially since he’s working out of state right now, I’m literally taking care of the kid on my own and seeing him on weekends… I can’t sort of drop everything and go tomorrow if something interesting pops up. This faculty member took on the role of primary caregiver in her family and, as a result, she reported reducing her work load. This dynamic highlights how, even in dual career couples, women may take on more of the burden of child care than men, and commuting relationships can exacerbate these challenges. While women in our study tended to highlight family obligations as barriers to international work, some men respondents downplayed family obligations as a barrier for them, while recognizing that women tended to take more responsibility for family care. An associate professor noted that course flexibility in his teaching schedule was most important to his international research plans. He said, “More than family, I would say that scheduling the course schedule is a difficult thing.” Similarly, a focus group member, during a discussion on family and international research, offered that for him “teaching is the real constraint.” In contrast, women repeatedly reported that children were the biggest barrier to their participation in international conferences or research trips. They tended to bring up the topic early in interviews and to talk at length about their children and the various ways they managed their roles as 9
mothers and academics. One associate professor reported that, in managing an international collaboration, her “children were an issue, a huge issue”; she pointed out that as her children were getting older, she was able to travel more readily. Another woman faculty member who had older children, when asked what advice she would give young faculty seeking to balance an international research career with being a mother, said “don’t get pregnant,” because of her experiences trying to maintain her international research travel while a parent. Men faculty, when discussing their families, noted that they tended to benefit from the caregiving work of their partners, a practice that gave them more flexibility or freedom in their work life. But this “advantage” for men also comes at a price. One faculty member noted that he had difficulty taking on parenting roles and was working on better supporting his family. His comments illustrate the deeply gendered nature of family care work: I’m on my second marriage and my first marriage failed because I didn’t take care of those types of things like I should have. I tried to take care of the house things, but clearly, because of my travel, I didn’t do what I probably should have done… I still see the women doing a major amount of the child care and taking care of the house. Another man reported his observations as a father: Now, I’m not saying that women have less time than men [to do academic work] or vice versa, but, I think, in general when you are talking about faculty having other responsibilities, as a dad I’m learning recently… the responsibilities tend to unfortunately often fall on the woman. One respondent noted that there were different expectations for men and women faculty; he noted that “Family issues [don’t] affect men as much ‘cause they’re not the nurturing part of the family.” Finally, one full professor noted his observations of the differences between his and his wife’s views on negotiating parenting and traveling: I wouldn’t have a problem with my mom coming down to watch my kids for a week and my wife is like, "I don’t want to leave my kids for a week." She actually feels a stronger pull as a mom to be home and able to take care of the kids when she’s not working than I am. I’m just wired that way. He expressed his willingness to rely on others’ help but recognized that his wife felt a different sense of responsibility in their family. These responses suggest that cultural differences often persist in relation to parenting roles, with women still taking on a lead role and major responsibilities in child care. 10
There were exceptions to this type of response on the part of men faculty. One man noted that the division of labor in his household was such that he took care of chores while his spouse, who is currently a student, took responsibility for child care. He noted that there was some flexibility in his ability to travel, but that he also was willing to pick up the slack when his wife needed to travel, saying “when I go on a trip somewhere, the biggest issue is who drops off the kids at daycare, who picks them up… so when I go, she takes over and when she goes, I do.” Another faculty member, who does not have children, reported that when his collaborator who lived overseas had a child, he did all the traveling to accommodate her and her new child. His efforts signified his desire to support and accommodate her dual roles. Although exceptions such as those noted above were reported, the gendered nature of care work clearly places constraints on women’s careers. These mothers have less discretionary time, which can lead to stress or burnout, and as they are more likely to be the primary caretakers of children, they may have less capacity to travel overseas. Both administrators and faculty believed that families affected men and women faculty in different ways. One administrator commented on two women faculty members in the same department, suggesting that the one with a child was less mobile and more limited in her capacity to do international work. His comment highlights the assumption that women faculty are likely to make career sacrifices for family needs: Even if you compare Becky and Sharon, I mean Sharon is having a family, has kids, Becky doesn’t. Becky is traveling and engaged in a lot more international collaboration… I think that’s a major reason the two of them are different on that score right now. So Sharon I think tries to keep that up, but if you’re not able to travel in the same way, it’s harder. Becky fits the picture of the unencumbered worker, and from this administrator's response it is evident that he views children as an impediment to international travel. Such assumptions have implications for women’s international research careers; if administrators or department chairs do not see parents as able to engage in international research, they may be less likely to provide the opportunities, support or encouragement faculty may need to succeed. This may be particularly true for women faculty who are still facing myths and stereotypes about mothers in STEM fields, where women in general remain 11
underrepresented. Limited Mobility due to Child care Responsibilities For women faculty who identified family as a barrier to their international collaborations, they reported that (1) they often decided not to travel; (2) that they stopped travel while their children were very young; or (3) that they limited the duration of their travels because of their families. These practices again support the notion that women faculty with children are often still primary care givers. As a result these women are less likely to take extended or impromptu international research trips. Forgoing International Travel Some senior women faculty members explained that they ended international research relationships in favor of developing a career closer to home, where they could balance career and family demands more easily. Prioritizing family responsibilities over international work meant for one focus group respondent that she decided not to pursue international work in favor of being able to be with and take care of her family. Another noted similar experiences of choosing nationally situated rather than international work in order to manage her family: I wish, in a certain sense, I could have gone to Europe…[but I decided] that’s not going to happen, I’m married and I’m going to have a family. I did not get married to leave him alone and to go Africa, so that’s not going to work out. Another faculty member reported that she made a specific decision to take a sabbatical within the U.S. because she saw traveling abroad as too much of a burden for her family: I would have loved to go to Europe and do my sabbatical next semester instead of in the United States …, but it’s hard to do, because of my family situation and my children and I’m not taking that opportunity this year. Maybe next time my sabbatical comes in seven more years, I may be able to then spend some time in Europe doing that. In these examples, women see the being both parent and internationally active researcher as too demanding. Although the desire to conduct research abroad and engage with international collaborators exists, they have less individual capacity to balance the two roles successfully. Institutional supports that could alleviate some of the challenges posed by international research would be highly beneficial to overcome these burdens. Putting Off Travel While Children Are Young 12
While some women reported forgoing international research altogether, others differentiated between short-term and long-term engagement. They planned to continue their international research agendas, but put them on temporary hold until their children were older. Women faculty noted the difficulty negotiating international conference attendance and child care because they did not feel that they could leave their children at home in order to travel; this was particularly the case for those with young children. One negotiation strategy they adopted is to stop or reduce traveling for the period of time when they feel an obligation to their families that takes precedence over their careers. A woman faculty member explained: Before my son was born, [the number of international conferences I went to] was dramatically more… and now I have to limit it because I can’t leave my son because he’s only three. My husband’s really not available, he’s a scientist…I think after my son is 12 or 13, and independent, I will go back to attending more conferences a year. This sentiment was echoed by a number of women with small children who were part of a dual-earner couple where their spouse or partner had an equivalent or more prestigious job than theirs. Although these women intend to return to their international work at a later date, a hiatus may affect their ability to build or maintain the networks and relationships that will support future work. Limiting Duration of Travel Women faculty also noted that they limited their time away from home to ease child care burdens and alleviate the “mother guilt” they felt about leaving home. Limiting travel in this way may reduce the time women can spend networking or collaborating and potentially have negative implications for career advancement. One respondent noted her conscious effort to reduce her time away from her child and spouse. She predicted that in a few years she would be able to do more traveling and bring her child with her: When I only had a significant other it was much easier than today. I have a small child, and it is a completely different situation. But when I only had a significant other…when I went to [city in Europe] for two months, he didn’t come with me.…With a small child it’s much more difficult….I don’t do this, going for months at a time somewhere. I cannot do that anymore at this stage of my life. One administrator reported that he had recently realized that women with children actively limited their travel. He offered, “I’ve been hearing from my female colleagues that they have a rule, not 13
more than two nights away. So that’s a rule for sure. But men don’t have that rule. They stay four days, five nights, and all that stuff. So I think it goes back to family. The main family set up here.” The potential drawback for women with family responsibilities is that they might be seen as less interested in international travel, and may in turn receive fewer opportunities to engage in research internationally. Importantly, different patterns emerged also among women faculty in married or committed relationships without children. They tended to note their partner’s ability to travel with them and/or their partner’s support to travel. One respondent in a focus group noted that she has more flexibility in her life to travel than the women in the group with children: I don’t have children. When I was [a postdoc abroad], I was single. Now, I have a husband, and he also travels internationally a lot, so I don’t have these decisions: do I go or do I not go? It’s usually I do go, unless I have too much work to do and I can’t go. But family wise, I don’t really find that as a major problem for me. Despite the fact that the majority of faculty in our study who reported restricting travel due to family responsibilities were women, there were indications that younger men were more cognizant of the needs of their partner’s careers and were willing to be more flexible in their family commitments. As one assistant professor explained, because his wife--also an academic--traveled frequently, he was willing to take on extra family obligations and balance his career needs with hers: She knows that I’ll manage and she knows that I would support her to go wherever she needs to go…but I think it’s pretty clear, in terms of, I don’t like to go on business travel because I don’t like straining her because she has all these pressures, the same kinds of pressures I have. I don’t like it when she dumps it on me and I don’t like to dump it on her for the same reason. Similarly, one untenured man whose wife was completing her doctoral degree noted that he was working very hard to maintain his career and contribute to the care of his family. He offered, I’m trying to get tenure, she’s trying to get her degree, by necessity we have a pretty even split in terms of how we manage the family. And so, when I go on a trip somewhere, the biggest issue is the child care and figuring out how to handle that. Although there is reason to suspect that younger generations of men faculty may have different understandings of what it means to be part of a dual career couple, such patterns are not yet entirely clear or obvious from this study. It is important to recognize that international travel practices affect those in dual career couples differently from those in more traditional relationships where one partner 14
works with reduced hours or takes care of children full-time. Because women faculty are more likely than their men colleagues to be in a dual career couple, and women in dual career couples remain more likely than men to take on a disproportionate share of child care within their families, we do suspect a gendered pattern in these limitations to international travel. Our findings confirmed this as women reported that they often limited or stopped international travel. Despite slowly shifting gendered norms among faculty, the gendered nature of care giving reduces mobility for women and--we suspect--can have lasting implications for the establishment or development of international networks and research relationships. Partners as Barriers Because international research is frequently interpreted as “extra” effort not necessary for academic career advancement, we suspect that women in dual career couples might also be less likely than men to take advantage of these opportunities for “extra” advancement Ledin et al. (2007) have suggested that women who are part of an academic couple are more likely to defer to their spouse’s career needs, that “women more frequently put their own careers in second place” (985). Similarly, Tharenou (2008) found that women with children or partners were less willing to expatriate for a job than men, and that family barriers negatively predicted women’s international job searches but not men’s. One respondent discussed her arrangement for negotiating international sabbaticals with her husband, reporting that because she relocated in order for him to take a prestigious position, she now was able to choose where they took sabbaticals together. Despite this agreement, she still experiences constraints when she makes sabbatical decisions: He’s at the more prestigious university …so he’s had that choice and those responsibilities, and I get the choice, the final say, for sabbaticals. So what we usually do is we’ll put together a list, I’d like to go to these six or seven or eight places and he’d like to go to those six or seven or eight places and what’s on the list together. And when there isn’t anything together, then I get the pick. So that’s how we have compromised on that one. This example demonstrates the subtle ways a partner’s needs or expectations can influence career decisions for women in academic couples. 15
As noted earlier, women faculty still reported taking on the larger proportion of child care in their families. The result of this arrangement is that men may inadvertently benefit from the care work women are responsible for; men faculty may be more able to prioritize work responsibilities than are women with children, potentially resulting in differences in productivity or mobility. One faculty member in a dual career academic couple described her experiences negotiating international travel with her husband. Because she was regularly responsible for taking care of their children, she felt obligated to make arrangements for her family when she attended international conferences. This included scheduling babysitters, planning meals, and making all the arrangements for her husband to care for the children without her. She noted how exhausting this pre-planning made her experience of traveling and that, by the time she made it to the conference overseas, she “just wanted to take a nap.� In this case, her family obligations affected not only impacted her ability to travel but her physical readiness for attending a conference. Partners/spouses, although they can be vital to the success of academic careers and fulfilling lives, can also serve as a barrier to international research productivity. Faculty with children and with spouses/partners who are less able to handle child care demands may feel obligated to stop or limit their international travel plans. Negotiating Family Barriers to Collaboration: How Faculty Balance Competing Demands The above findings suggest that expectations for and practices of international research collaborations have gendered implications, particularly for faculty with children. Despite the fact that women reported that family obligations routinely influenced their ability to pursue international research negatively, we also found that many women and men developed negotiation strategies for balancing the demands of their families and their international research goals. The most common strategies were (a) bringing family on international research trips; and (b) relying on spousal or family support to facilitate travel. Bringing Family on International Trips For faculty who were interested in developing or maintaining international academic careers, 16
one common solution to family constraints was to bring family members along during international conferences or research trips. This often required a great deal of effort, but was a highlight of both their academic careers and their children. Some parents emphasized the positive aspects international travel would offer for their children. One assistant professor noted, “I have a kid, and I’m a single mom, so I take him. I take him if I can. I took him to [Europe] before…if I can afford it I see it as an opportunity for my son to see other places and meet other people and to see himself as a person who can function in other contexts.” An associate professor noted that he prioritized taking international trips during his children’s vacations so that his children would gain international experience and he would be able to help his wife, who would accompany him, take care of them while also working in international labs. This practice of taking children abroad is part of middle-class child rearing practices to expose children to other cultural contexts. As another woman stated, she looked forward to her international travel plans the most when she brought her family, “Sometimes you get to bring them all. Now that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing about international travel…I was invited to go to the university in [European city] and I had a conference in [Capital of a European country]… so I did take the entire family, for the kids to see something, to see the world.” In these instances, faculty saw their ability to bring family on international trips not only as a means of facilitating their own research, but as a perk of their job and an opportunity for their children’s growth. For some faculty, research-related travel allowed for leisure time or activities, but such activities again required additional planning and arrangements. Despite this frequently mentioned strategy for handling family obligations, planning such trips often fell to women faculty members, creating further demands and obstacles to career advancement. Although faculty who managed to take their families along on sabbaticals or research trips noted that doing so was fulfilling, the work to make such a trip happen further illustrates the gendering of family relations. One woman faculty member noted that she was able to have her husband join her after her conference participation, but that it was unlikely that he would join her during the work-related portions of her trip. She also noted that she preferred to avoid juggling family and work obligations when at a conference, 17
My husband doesn’t want to take vacation time and go to a conference for me to go work… it doesn’t make sense for him to use his two weeks of vacation time, which is what he gets, like that. And so, if I go to a conference, I want to do my thing. I don’t want kids pulling at me so even if there was day care set up and so forth, I wouldn’t, I don’t know, I think I would rather my kids stay home. In noting the practice of taking children along on sabbaticals, one woman reported how much work it took for her to arrange for her spouse and children to join her on sabbaticals, It’s not that we didn’t do sabbaticals before that [having young children] but we had everything carefully timed and we had a rental property that we had to take care of before we went, the kids had to be enrolled into day care or something of that sort before we went. And we had to get physicians for the kids, pediatricians before we went we had to have all of that figured out. Planning, planning, planning, planning, planning, planning. The ability to take children or spouses on international research trips is important to many of the faculty in our study. Although doing so often required extensive planning in terms of locating housing, schooling, or child care (when taking sabbaticals abroad), the benefits of being able to engage in international research while having family close were important for both men and women. Despite the promise of sharing international travel with children and partners, our findings suggest that a gendered division of labor exists in relation to planning international trips. In addition, faculty who wanted to travel with their families usually used personal funds to bring family along during international work. Family Support For many faculty members with partners or children, the support of a significant other or family members was often an important element in determining whether one would engage in international travel or research. The gendered nature of family responsibilities was again visible as there were differences in whom men and women faculty relied on for support. One faculty member noted that his wife stopped working for a period of time when their children were young, and that this flexibility on her part enabled his research: The real reason [I was able to travel] was—I think—60 to 70 percent [was due to] my wife’s work… for small things like this and that, you know my family is accommodating, they don’t have a problem with [me traveling]. One full professor noted that he was able to attend international conferences when his child was young because his wife was able to stay home, “Well, my wife was able to watch our young child at the time. 18
So I was away for about ten days or two weeks. But see that’s kind of a normative thing for us.” These reflections demonstrate the gendered nature of family caregiving and suggest that those with flexible and stay-home partners were able to travel nationally and internationally. Because partnered men more often can rely on their partners this way, they might have more access than women faculty to short-term mobility. Importantly, women interviewees who reported that their spouse facilitated or supported their international travel often did not have children. One senior faculty member whose spouse had a demanding travel schedule explained that their decision not to have children meant that she “didn’t really find family as a major problem” when considering international research. Not having child care responsibilities meant for another woman professor that she had fewer limits to her mobility. This associate professor reported, “I’m married, but I don’t have children. And my husband is completely happy for me to go wherever.” While men faculty were likely to report relying on their partners to help provide the flexibility required to engage in international research, women faculty with children were more likely to report relying on extended family members to support their efforts. We found gender differences in whom women and men faculty relied on for taking care of the children when they themselves were absent. One junior faculty member reported that, because her husband lived in another city, she had to rely on her parents for support when she needed to travel. She offered, “Thankfully I have good child care in terms of my parents who can help out so [traveling] is doable.” Long-distance commuting relationships place an extra burden on faculty when the absence of the partner turns them into de facto single parents, a situation that is again likely more common for women than for their men colleagues. Another faculty member reported that she brought her parents along to a long distance research conference so that they could care for her children while she attended the conference and her husband stayed behind at home to work. An associate professor reported bringing her mother abroad to help take care of her two small children while she attended a conference, but noted that it was a highly complicated endeavor as her mother was a “panicker” when it came to traveling with children in foreign 19
countries. In these cases, grandparents were more mobile than partners in dual career couples. These strategic negotiations, while allowing women and men with children to engage in international research, also underscore the notion that family obligations are gendered; men faculty were often able to rely on spouses or partners to take on additional child care duties, while women tended to have to look to other family members for support. This reality points to the notion that individual-level negotiations within the family often remain gendered, with women, and often men, feeling that women should be more responsible for child care. As one full professor reflected on her role as a parent and a academic, she noted how strongly the “expectations that a woman carries with her, the expectations that her husband has, the expectations that her parents have, and the expectations that the community imposes on her” influenced her priorities and left her feeling that she had to fulfill a specific image of a working mother. Both women and men carry these expectations or assumptions about family life. One man reflected on his own experience as a spouse, reporting that he felt that his efforts as a caregiver should be rewarded, and that such expectations frustrated his wife, [My wife and I] get into this argument all the time--I feel like I want to be thanked for doing the laundry, but I never say "thanks" for watching the kids. I feel like, for whatever reason, that I’m doing something extra…and she feels like, this is just what we do, this isn’t anything special that you’re doing. This is what you should be doing, damn it. In these examples culturally significant gendered expectations are observable within the family. The expectations men and women may have of one another may be incompatible with a balanced work/family life as there may be significant differences in the amount of time men and women are expected to contribute to their families. O’Laughlin and Bischoff (2005) found that spousal support in academic career couples is fundamentally important to women’s careers and their reported levels of stress; the more spousal support they have, the less stress they report. The authors note, however, that institutional interventions into family life are limited at best, implying that individual-level or cultural changes may be vital to the success of women in academia. In support of this notion, one senior faculty member noted that a primary issue in handling family commitments was the lack of institutional or cultural norms about how dual-earner couples should negotiate their obligations, 20
I had a feminist husband long before the word was even used…. It’s an important point-- that you have to work this out case by case. That’s how they deal with it. There is no normative, there is no collective, there is no expectation. Everybody has to figure it out themselves. And that’s why it’s so time consuming. That’s why it’s so burdensome. Because there are no rules for this. Although individual level changes in the realm of the family are necessary, institutions can play an important role in supporting the family needs of faculty members. Institutions that help support faculty members in balancing work and family demands (e.g., including employment services for spouses to aid dual career couples in pursuing careers) could alleviate some of the pressures that arise from gendered family dynamics at both the individual and cultural levels. These findings demonstrate how faculty members with children succeed in their international research efforts. When children are present, the faculty who are most mobile and able to engage in international conferences and collaborations are those who have support when they are traveling, or who are able to creatively develop a plan for bringing their families along on trips. It is evident that many faculty with children are successfully managing their international research engagements, however, such strategic efforts tend to mediated by gendered patterns of family care giving. Other Strategic Negotiations Faculty adopted a variety of other strategies to maintain international research collaborations despite familial obligations and resource limitations. Some faculty altered their teaching schedules (e.g., doubling up on course instruction in one semester to have a subsequent teaching free semester) to meet family demands and engage in international travel or research. Many faculty with young children sent graduate students or postdoctoral researchers to international conferences to present research and maintain relationships with colleagues. Finally, where travel was not practical, many faculty members increased their use of technology to continue working, often replacing face to face research with email or online video conference calls. Conclusion As academic work increasingly involves international cooperation and engagement, faculty are often required to look to colleagues overseas for ideas, support, and partnerships. Our findings 21
demonstrate that both men and women faculty are committed and enthusiastic about international research collaborations. Yet, despite the desire of many faculty members to broaden their research networks, faculty who carry the primary responsibility for children may face greater challenges in developing international research programs than faculty who do not have children or have partners who take care of the children. In our study women faculty with children, in particular, are likely to face barriers to international collaborations due to the continued gendered division of labor within the family. This study reveals that family barriers to international collaboration are gendered in many ways; universities and funding agencies are oriented toward the norm of the universal academic who is independent and can travel abroad because this individual either has no caregiving commitments or else benefits from a spouse or other family member taking on child care, household needs, or travel plans. Instead, women faculty reported taking on a significant child care responsibilities and discussed how they had reduced or stopped their international travel because of family responsibilities. Familial obligations limited both the frequency and duration of international trips, which is likely to have ramifications for the women's ability to build and maintain international collaborative research relationships. Although some faculty members chose to bring children or spouses along on some international trips, in practice this required more planning time and money to accomplish. Our main point is that attention to the family needs of both women and men in dual career couples and of parents in general should not be used to reify the myths that women with children are unwilling or unable to travel internationally. Rather, we found a range of strategies that did work for women with children to combine international research and family responsibilities. Such strategies suggest possibilities for further institutionalized supports that could enable faculty with children to be more internationally mobile. Instead of trying to solve these complex issues through individual solutions, we suggest that a variety of institutional supports can contribute to international research career success for faculty with children and partners. Given the reality that women still tend to take on a larger proportion of child care than do men, it is important to support women with families to promote equity between women and men. Institutions 22
can facilitate international collaboration by recognizing and seeking to support faculty with children. Supporting the needs of faculty in relation to children can have far reaching implications; if faculty had institutional support and recognition of their family roles, they might be more able to take risks in their research work and be more willing to travel to establish or maintain research relationships. Given the strategies employed by faculty in our study, specific institutional interventions to facilitate these activities are important to the success of all faculty members who are parents. We recommend that universities and funding agencies consider increasing flexibility for faculty that would allow them to combine teaching and research abroad. Sabbatical supports continue to be important for faculty to be able to engage in collaborations. Finally, academic institutions, universities and funding agencies could enable women with caregiving responsibilities and families to engage internationally by developing supports such as encouraging faculty to bring family members on international short-term stays. Institutional supports might also include financial resources and aids for travel, improving technology that might facilitate international collaboration without requiring travel, and supports for bringing scholars and their students to U.S. institutions rather than merely funding the U.S. side of collaborations. Finally, family friendly policies including tenure flexibility, attention to dual career issues, and child care provision will ease the burdens on those with care obligations and enable them to tackle new challenges in an increasingly globalized academic scientific world. One limitation of our study was that due to the sample size and composition we were not able to systematically explore differences in the experiences of women and men from underrepresented minority groups, including same sex and racial/ethnic minorities and individuals with disabilities. We would expect that marginalized groups may experience the family and academic pressures in different ways from some of the respondents we interviewed (Laden and Hagedorn, 2000). Future research should examine marginalized groups and make specific attempts to consider how different family dynamics may influence faculty engagement in international research.
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