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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

C

TOWARD AN INTEGRATED FAMILY-EMPLOYMENT
MANAGEMENT THEORY: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF
FEMALE FACULTY MEMBERS WORKING IN HIGHER
EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

presented by

KARLA M. DAMIANO TEIXEIRA

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for the

PhD degree in Family EcologL

 

 

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V /

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T033
THEORY

 

TOWARD AN INTEGRATED FAMILY-EMPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT
THEORY: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF FEMALE FACULTY MEMBERS
WORKING IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS
By

Karla M. Damiano Teixeira

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Family and Child Ecology

2003

TIIEO

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that tart; j.
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ABSTRACT
TOWARD AN INTEGRATED FAMILY-EMPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT
THEORY: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF FEMALE FACULTY MEMBERS
WORKING IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS
By

Karla M. Damiano Teixeira

The interface and transactions between the roles individuals need to perform in
their family and employment environments are a source of both positive and negative
stressors for women, their employers, and family members. The purpose of this study was
to examine how female faculty members in different age groups manage the
employment-family interface. The Family and Job Environments Transactions Model
(FJET Model) is presented and its usefulness was tested. In this model, female faculty
member is the organism of analysis as a source of inputs to and linkage between the
family and employment environments. This model helped in the analysis of the
transactions between the organism’s environments and their effects on the organism’s
management processes and stresses.

The study was cross-sectional in nature, and its context was female faculty
members working in three types of higher education institutions in Michigan: small-,
medium-, and large-sized institutions. They represented two age cohorts (39 years old or
less, and 40 years old or more). A two-stage approach was employed in the process of
data collection, and interviews were used during both of these stages. During Phase 1,
individual qualitative interviews with six female faculty members working at each

selected institution were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of female faculty

 

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members’ perspectives on the management of different and conﬂicting roles. During the
time of the interviews, participants answered a questionnaire containing demographic
information. In Phase 2, the researcher interviewed two female administrators of each
selected institution to help in the understanding of the sources of support at each campus.
It also helped in the triangulation of the data.

The ﬁndings of this study support the idea that female faculty members’ current
employment-household stress management is inﬂuenced by past decisions. In addition,
the complexity of their family and employment careers positively and negatively
inﬂuences their lives. Female faculty members tend to rely on the immediacy of their
environments as sources of help, and they do not seek formal networks of support.
Results of this study indicated that female administrators were aware of the problems
female faculty members face in the workplace, at home, or when managing both sides of
their life. As for the programs offered by the institutions, all of the interviewees were
proud of the existing programs and how helpﬁil they are for faculty in general or for
female faculty member in particular. The integration of different theories in the FIET
Model helped in the understanding of how female faculty members manage different and

conﬂicting demands.

Copyright by
KARLA M. DAMIANO TEIXEIRA
2003

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation was made possible because of the full cooperation and
participation of female faculty members and female administrators of higher education
institutions in Michigan. They gave their valuable time and insights to this study. Without
them, there would be no study. I give my deepest gratitude to all of them.

Many people have helped to make this study possible. First and foremost, I must
thank Dr. Dennis Keefe for his continuous support. He helped me to start developing a
critical and ecological thinking. More than my major professor, he is my mentor. His
contribution will never be forgotten, and will guide my steps during my career and my
life.

My deepest thanks go to Dr. Barbara Ames for her support, guiding and useful
insights since the ﬁrst course I have taken in the PhD program. My sincere thanks go to
Drs. Mary Andrews, Robert Griﬂ‘ore, and Collette Moser for their valuable suggestions
for this study. I must also thank Dr. Ames, Dr. Andrews, and Dr. Moser for sharing their
experiences as female faculty members, helping me to build a more critical view of life in
academia.

I must acknowledge and thank Dr. Cynthia Fridgen for her prompt help and
suggestions during the research process. I am very thankful to Dr. Linda Nelson, who
kindly reviewed and edited this dissertation.

I must thank Ruth Sedelmaier, graduate secretary, for her precious support

throughout these years. My sincere thanks go to Stephanie Parente, librarian, for her

 

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valuable suggestions regarding the literature review. I must also thank Mary Falcon,
secretary, for her help throughout these years.

I cannot forget those persons who gave me encouragement to seek my dreams. To
my colleagues and friends at the Federal University of Vicosa (UF V), Brazil, Nanci dos
Santos Lauro (M.S.), Nen'na Aires Coelho Marques (PhD), and Neuza Maria da Silva
(PhD), my sincere gratitude. This dissertation would not have been possible without the
ﬁnancial support of the Capes Scholarship (Brazilian Ministry of Education) and the
Federal University of Vicosa, Brazil.

My deepest gratitude goes to the most important people in my life, my husband
R6bson and my son Ricardo. I thank them for their patience, love, and support during the
endless hours I was studying and working to reach my goal. They helped me to manage
the employment-family demands. Rebson, I thank you for your encouragement and
continuous support. Ricardo, you are a constant reminder to me of what is most precious
in life.

Last, but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to my mom, Antonia G. Damiano,
who, although being distant during these years, is always a present person in my life.

Mom, thank you for believing in me.

LIST OF T.‘

 

LIST Of flt’

CHAPTER I
IRTRODL'C
Intro-i--
Stateme
Objem
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CHAPTER II
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ...........................

Introduction ...............................................................................
Statement of the Problem .................................................................
Objectives .................................................................................
Research Questions ......................................................................
Signiﬁcance of the Study ................................................................

CHAPTER H
REVIEW OF LITERATURE ...................................................................

Employment-Family Interface and Employment-Household Management .........
The Measurement of the Employment-Family Interface .....................
Positive Outcomes of the Employment-Family Interface ....................
Negative Outcomes of the Employment-Family Interface ..................

Human and Family Development ......................................................

Academic Life ..............................................................................
Faculty Appointments ...........................................................
Academic Life and the Employment-Household Management ....................

Summary ...................................................................................

CHAPTER HI
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................

Theories Used in Studies of the Employment-Family Interface

The Bubolz and Sontag Family Ecosystem Model

The Deacon and F trebaugh Ecological Framework for Family Resettrce

Management and Decision-Making .......................................................

The Social Exchange Theory .............................................................

The Bates and Harvey Model for the Structure of Social Systems ................

The Family and Job Environments Transactions Model (FJET Model) .........
Introduction ........................................................................
Theoretical Assumptions ..........................................................
Women as Organisms/Environed Units ..........................................
The F amily/Household: One Near Environment for a Woman ..............
The Workplace: A Second Near Environment for a Woman ................
The Far Environment as a Source of Inputs ....................................
The Family and Job Environments Transactions Model (FJET) ............

vii

ix

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14
20
22
23
25
27

29
29
33

34
35
37
38
38
41
44
47
51
52
54

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CHAPTER IV
METHODOLOGY ..............................................................................
Research Design ..........................................................................
Population and Sample ....................................................................
Preparation for the Study
Data Collection and Procedures ........................................................
Data Analysis ..............................................................................
Employment-Household Management .........................................
Employment-Family Interface ...................................................
Decision-Making Process .........................................................
Degree of Difficulty ...............................................................
Sources of Help/Stress ............................................................
Demographics ......................................................................
Reliability and Validity ..................................................................
Limitations of the Study .................................................................

CHAPTER V

RESULTS OF THE STUDY ..................................................................
Employment-Household Management ................................................
Female Faculty Members’ History of Management of Experiences .......
Decisions made in the past. ................................................
Past support network. ......................................................
Summary. ....................................................................
Employment-family management: Current experiences
Recent decisions made. ....................................................
Current support network. ..................................................
Summary. ....................................................................
Future aspirations and concerns. .................................................
Summary. ....................................................................

Female Administrators’ Perceptions of Female Faculty Members’ Issues
Summary. ....................................................................

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................
Conclusions ...............................................................................

The Transactions Between the Family and Employment Environments
Female faculty members’ management of experiences. ...............
Sources of help. .............................................................
Female administrators’ perspectives. ....................................
Discussion and Suggestions .............................................................
Outreach and Policy Development .............................................
Future Research ....................................................................
Theory Development ...............................................................
Final Remarks .............................................................................

viii

60
60
61

66
71
72
72
73
73
74
74
75
76

 

    

APPEVDIIT
Are“

Appendix B: Informed Consent Letter .................................................. 163
Appendix C: Consent to Use Direct Quote 165
Appendix D: Questionnaire —— Demographic Information ......................... 167

Appendix E: Female Faculty Members: Interview Protocol . .. 170

Appendix F: Demographics of Female Administrators ............................. 174
Appendix G: Female Administrators: Interview Protocol ......................... 176
Appendix H: Coding Scheme ........................................................... 179
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................. 183

ix

 

Table I I}

Iabiel E

 

 

 

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Demographics of Female Professors in the Study

Table 2. Brief Review of Selected Demographic Characteristics

Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.3.

Figure 3.4.

Figure 3.5.

Figure 3.6.

Figure 4.1.

LIST OF FIGURES

The Family and Job Environments Transactions Model (FJET
Model): The relationships between the different roles performed by
individuals .......................................................................

FJET Model: The family/household as one of a woman’s near
environments ..................................................................

FJET Model: The workplace as one of a woman’s near
environments ..............................................................................

FJET Model: The changes and transactions of the different
environments through time

FJET Model: The changes and transactions of the family and
employment systems through time, having a woman as the organism
of analysis .....................................................................

FJET Model: A focus on the results (outputs and outcomes) of the
management process ...........................................................

Sampling Design ...........................................................

xi

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Chapter I

Introduction and Statement of the Problem

This chapter introduces the intent of this study. The objectives and research

questions are presented, as well as a discussion of the signiﬁcance of the study.

Introduction

More women are employed than ever before, and they are faced with the
problems of juggling their employment and family/household roles, making their
personal, family/household and paid work goals compatible, and ﬁnding respect and
opportunities in their employment. A signiﬁcant proportion of these women are wives
and mothers whose employed status demands an essential change in their pattern of
activities, obligations, and responsibilities (Nichols, Wanamaker, & Deringer, 1995).
This transformation of women’s roles creates stress (positive and negative) at their work
sites, for their families, and perhaps most acutely, for the women involved who have to
manage both sides of their lives. This requires a continuous need to assess and alter the
balance among the many roles women play. Although men and women are both
vulnerable to stress when they are employed and have household responsibility, women
are at greater risk because they perform the bulk of household tasks (F erber, O’Farrel, &
Allen, 1991). Family life has been found to have a signiﬁcant inﬂuence on employment
behavior, particularly for women.

The goal of this study was to use an ecological perspective, rooted in the notion of

the organism-environment transactions and the distribution of inputs, to better understand

 

 

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how women who are faculty members in higher education institutions in Michigan
manage both sides of their lives. This is different ﬁ'om traditional studies in the ﬁeld of
family ecology because the woman, not the family, is being considered as the organism
of analysis. With this perspective, a woman is the source of inputs to her systems, the
manager of her transactions with her environments and the related stresses associated
with accomplishing different goals in her life. Female faculty members were chosen as
the unit of analysis to develop an understanding of the dynamics of a particular
profession, rather than to survey several occupations. It is hoped that this study will be
extended to other occupations and other societies in the future.

Since it is known that the complexities of employment complicate the
management process at home, female faculty members working in three different kinds
of higher education institutions were studied: a large-sized institution, which has the
triadic missions of education, research and outreach; a medium-sized institution, in wln'ch
some research is developed, although the main focus is on education; and a small-sized
institution, in which the mission is primarily education. While the demands of a particular
employment position may have an inﬂuence on what female faculty members carry back
to their homes, there may be some differences in the way those working in different kinds
of higher education institutions manage their lives. For example, the age of a worker may
have an inﬂuence on a woman’ 3 management process. Therefore, two age cohorts were
studied: 39 years old or less, and 40 years old or more. To achieve the goals of this
study, a qualitative design was employed. Interviews with female faculty members and
the use of a questionnaire containing demographic information (Phase 1), and interviews

with female administrators (Phase 2) were conducted.

Statement of the Problem

This study intended to respond to two gaps found in previous studies. First, the
literature on employed women focuses on how the families-—regardless of household
arrangement—ﬁnd themselves faced with special circumstances, mainly when their lives
have to accommodate different situations (e.g., employment, family/household, personal,
and community demands). Most approaches developed to study this issue have
investigated either how employment life affects family life (Carlson, Derr, & Wadsworth,
2003; Small & Riley 1990; Repetti 1994), or conversely, how family life affects
employment life (V oydanoff & Donnelly, 1999). There have been some attempts to
connect them, such as the works developed by Bowen and Pittman (1995), F rone,
Russell, and Cooper (1992), Frone, Yardley, and Markel (1997), and Voydanotf (2002),
but no attempts have been found to develop an ecological model to study the
employment-family interface. The ecological approach is very useful for helping
professionals gain an understanding of the complex and changing nature of the family-
employment transactional processes that occur over time. For this reason, a model that
provides an ecological view of the employment-family interface, as well as of the
management and transaction processes that occur when the organism has to balance the
demands and goals of both environments, may help in better understanding this interface.

The second gap is related to the focus of current studies on the employment-
family interface. Most of the studies on the employment-family interface have focused on
the conﬂict issue—family-to-employment conﬂict or employment-to-family conﬂict. Due
to the dominance of the conﬂict perspective, few studies have attempted to understand

not only the conﬂict or negative stresses, but also the positive outcomes of this interface.

 

   
   
  
 

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This study seeks to understand ecologically the positive and negative outcomes of the
employment-household management. The analyses provide information on
family/household and employment dynamics, on management processes, and on the
transactions occurring between and among female employees and their environments.
The ﬁndings derived from this study are intended to contribute to the
understanding of how female faculty members link family/household and employment
environments, as well as how the transactions between the organisms’ environments
affect the organisms’ management processes and stresses. A related goal of this study is
to help lay the groundwork for the development of more standardized and deﬁnitive

sample surveys of employment-family interfaces.

Objectives

The overall purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a model for the
study of female faculty members as the organism of analysis—as a source of inputs to
and linkage between the family/household and employment environments—and to learn
how the transactions between the organism and her environments have affected the
organism’s management of her employment-household demands. An analysis of the
useﬁrlness of this model was done by achieving the following speciﬁc objectives of this
study:

1. Investigate how the personal histories of management experiences of women
with their employment-family interfaces have affected their current management of the

employment-household demands.

 

 

 

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2. Investigate how the complexity of women’s careers in their family/household
and employment environments affects their management of employment-household
demands.

3. Investigate the effects on female faculty members of sources of help and stress
in their management of employment-household demands.

4. Examine how female administrators of institutions of higher education perceive
female faculty members’ management of employment-household demands.

5. Develop and evaluate a theory with a complementary conceptual model as a

support for these inquiries in an integrated manner.

Research Questions

At the outset of this study the following question was asked: How do female
faculty members manage the stresses inherent in their ecosystems brought on by the need
to accomplish different goals in their lives? The following questions were used to guide
the interviews in the study:

1. How have the personal histories of management experiences of women with
their employment-family interface contributed to the complexity of their current
employment-household management?

2. How does the complexity of women’s careers in their family/household and
employment environments affect their management of employment-household demands?

3. What are the effects on female faculty members of sources of help and stress in

their management of employment-household demands?

4. How do female administrators of institutions of higher education perceive
female faculty member’s management of employment-household demands?

5. Does the new theory with a complementary conceptual model act as a support
for these inquiries in an integrated manner?

Hopeﬁrlly, the answers to these questions will provide support for understanding
how female faculty members’ family/household life demands accommodate their
employment demands, how their employment life accommodates their family/household
demands, and what their feelings are regarding life management. These questions also
helped to gain insights into the attitudes of female administrators of higher education

institutions concerning female faculty members’ issues.

Signiﬁcance of the Study

This study does not examine a broad sampling of occupations nor every facet of
life for females and their interfaces between their families and their employment as
faculty members in the academy. However, it was important to initiate this study for
several reasons.

The model proposed in this study attempts to connect the works developed by
Bubolz and Sontag (1993), Deacon and Firebaugh (1988), and the theory of social
exchange (Nye, 1979). To integrate these approaches, the Bates and Harvey model
(1975) was used. The model proposed addresses how the systems interface may disturb
or enhance employed women and their family/household lives. The aim of the new model
is to provide the necessary tools for understanding the complexities of the transactions

between the family/household and the employment environments, but with the woman,

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i not the family, as the organism of analysis. It is also important to acknowledge that
: external roles of family/household members affect the process of throughput, and are
extreme importance to the understanding of family/household functioning. Its strength
5 in the attempt to analyze, in the same model, the two-way interface between
nily/household and employment environments, since it is not possible to manage one
,e of life in isolation ﬁ'om the other. Although in this study the proposed model focuses
the woman as the organism of analysis, it can be used to study any individual who
ks systems, making it possible to change the organism of analysis according to the goal
the research, i.e., children linking family/household and the school systems, and
litary personnel linking the military and the family/household sides of their lives.
Human ecologists need to understand the complexities of this issue in order to
prove programs designed to assist human relations professionals and policy developers
well as neighbors, friends, and relatives as they try to help families reconcile the many
essors and contradictions in this increasingly complex family-economy-society
)system. At the same time, it is also important to help families take advantage of
portunities to increase the quality of their lives. More work needs to be done to learn
w to help women and their family/household members manage the inputs, waste
man and non-human), and opportunities in their lives, along with their accompanying
asses. According to Keefe (1994), this means helping families and employers to
tieve their goals, while at the same time providing for their health and maintenance.
For those university administrators concerned with faculty members’ issues, this
tdy is important because it gives insights into how human service professionals can

lp families and their members balance their different activities in order to achieve more

 

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employment productivity and a better quality of family/household and personal life. This
is especially important because females make up 31% of all faculty members at doctoral
level institutions in the United States, and this percentage is increasing (AAUP, 2002).
Also, the characteristics of female faculty members’ employment-family interfaces may

be similar to other employees either in the same or in different occupations.

   
  

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Chapter II

Review of Literature

The review of literature is organized into three sections. The ﬁrst section
discusses the employment-family interface and employment-household management,
with an emphasis on the measurement of the employment-family interface, and on studies
related to the positive and negative outcomes of this linkage. The second section reviews
studies in human and family development. The third section includes selected studies
about academic life, with an emphasis on faculty appointments and issues faced by

women working in academia.

Employment-Family Interface and Employment-Household Management

Understanding how individuals and families balance employment and family lives
has been a topic of heightened interest in recent years, mainly because of the increasing
number of female employees, and because of men’s declining wages (Perry-Jenkins,
Repetti, & Crouter, 2000; Rowland, Dodder, & Nickols, 1985). Most of the studies on
life management have been focused on the predictors of household task allocations, such
as cultural norms and beliefs, relative earnings of husbands and wives (Coltrane, 2000;
Lavee & Katz, 2002), and the presence and/or number of young children in dual-earner
families (Ehrenberg, Gearing-Small, Hunter, & Small, 2001; Voydanoff & Donnelly,
1999).

At the same time, most of these studies in life management have investigated the

impact of either employment pressures or family pressures on employment-family

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conﬂict. Some studies have looked at the joint effects of speciﬁc employment and family
pressures, but few studies have attempted to understand not only the negative stresses that

result from this interface, but also the positive ones.

The Measurement of the Employment-Family Interface

The employment-family interface is generally measured empirically (Tolbert,
Valcour, & Marler, 2002). For example, Grennhaus and Beutell (1985) established that
there are three dimensions to this conﬂict, which are: strain-based (i.e., psychological
demands in one domain that affect an individual’s ability to perform their roles in the
other domain), time-based (i.e., competing demands on an individual’s time), and
behavior-based (i.e., transfer of behaviors and values from one arena that are
incompatible with expected behaviors and values of the other). When categorizing
studies according to these dimensions, most researchers have been interested in
investigating role strain, which refers to the fact that there are more costs than beneﬁts
associated with managing multiple roles. In other words, the more positions a person
acquires and the more roles in which he or she is expected to engage, the more complex it
becomes to meet the responsibility of each role (Kossek, Raymond, & DeMarr, 1999;
Rodgers, 1998). When talking about the management of multiple roles, there are two
sides to the debate. One side contends that there is role conﬂict or role strain, which leads
to stressﬁrl lives, while the other side argues that there are beneﬁts to having multiple
roles.

In another approach to the study of the employment-family interface, Gutek,

Searle, and Klepa (1991) distinguished between two types of employment-family conﬂict

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on the basis of what causes them. Employment-family conﬂict may result from
employment demands interfering with family demands (e.g., working long hours may
prevent adequate performance of one's family responsibilities), or from family demands
interfering with employment responsibilities (e. g., a child's illness may prevent
attendance at work).

There is no widely used measurement of the employment-family interface. The
measurement methods focus either on the employment-to-family conﬂict, or on the
family to employment conﬂict. Recently, a distinguished panel of employment-family
researchers has been discussing the current state of measurement of employment-family
conﬂict. This discussion is based on a deductive fashion, and on the research literature

(MacDermid, 2000), though no results from new analyses have been published yet.

Posiﬁve Outcomes of the Employment-Family Interface

With multiple-role conﬂict, Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) suggested that high
levels of role involvement will lead to employment—family conﬂict because considerable
time and effort will be devoted to a single role, making it physically impossible, or at
least difﬁcult, to respond to the demands of other roles. Past studies have indicated that
although the demands of multiple roles have an impact on an individual’s quality of life
by increasing stress levels and compromising physical health (Erickson & Ritter, 2001;
Weigel, Weigel, Berger, Cook, & DelCampo, 1995), they also bring rewards such as
more power in a relationship, higher self-esteem, higher levels of consumption, and an
increase in human and family capital (Hyde & Kling, 2001). Positive spillover between

employment and family has been largely overlooked in empirical research, regardless of

11

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consistent evidence indicating that most employed adults believe that the beneﬁts of
combining employment and family outweigh the burdens or strains (Grzywacz, Almeida,
& McDonald, 2002). Moreover, the accumulation of experiences, skills, and personal
knowledge over time would encourage greater integration of employment and family
lives by employees (Greenhaus & Callanan, 1994).

Several studies have indicated that some employment and/or family variables
mediate or moderate the relationships between employment and family lives. It was
found that family relationships inﬂuence mothers' weekly hours of employment. Married
mothers appear to be more able to call on the earnings of their partners to reduce their
work hours than mothers in other household situations (Abroms & Goldscheider, 2002).
Congruent with this rationale, Bokemeier, Lorentzen, and Morash (1996) found that the
amount of employment interference peOple sense in their personal and family lives
depends on demands placed on them and on their type of employment. Individuals with
the highest incomes and the highest educational achievements have fewer problems with
employment interfering in personal and family lives because they are able to control the
events of their lives outside of employment. Also, it was found that marital status at least
partially determines the degree of caregiving responsibilities. For example, a single
parent will have more demands at home than a parent with a partner.

In their study of the employment and family characteristics that inﬂuence human
development, Grzywacz and Marks (2000) used Bronfenbrenner’ s ecological model to
study a large national sample of employed adults. They found that employment and
family features that facilitated development (e. g., family support) were related to less

negative and more positive spillover between employment and family. On the contrary,

12

employment and family difficulties (e.g., job pressure, family disagreements) were
associated with more negative spillover and less positive spillover between employment
and family lives. The researchers suggested that a more complete understanding of the
employment-family interface requires consideration of the reciprocal interactions
between positive and negative characteristics of this linkage.

As might be expected, ﬁndings from a study of employed mothers with preschool
children showed that the workplace has a substantial effect on balancing employment and
family responsibilities. The managerial culture of a business, support in the employment
environment, and the family-oriented beneﬁts offered have an effect on the levels of
strain experienced by employed women (Warren & Johnson, 1995). In addition,
employed women with control over their employment activities experience signiﬁcantly
greater psychological well-being than women with low employment control as well as
homemakers. Low levels of control at paid work also have a negative effect on the well-
being of women with greater family demands (Lennon & Rosenﬁeld, 1992).

Other researchers have found that the negative mental-health effects of childcare
burden on employed mothers are compensated by having challenging employment, and
the relationship between length of shift and incidence of job turnover is mediated by
marital status and the number of children living at home (Barnett & Brennan, 1998;
Barnett, Marshall, & Sayer, 1992; Kossek & Ozeki, 1998). Moreover, married mothers
were more able to call on their partners’ income to decrease their employment hours than
mothers in other household situations (Abroms & Goldscheider, 2002).

In the case of employed men and women equally sharing family roles, Sekaran

(1989) found that at least two positive outcomes are likely to occur: (a) communication

13

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and interactions between the spouses increase, enhancing their marital happiness; and (b)
the job satisfaction of women tends to increase since they can now devote more of their
ﬂexible time to employment-related activities in a stress-free manner. Satisfaction with
the division of household tasks also has the greatest inﬂuence on life management
(Stevens, Kiger, & Riley, 2001).

In a study of 6,541 IBM employees about the inﬂuence of perceived ﬂexibility in
the timing and location of paid work on employment-family balance, the researchers
found that perceived ﬂexibility is related to positive outcomes from personal, family, and
employment perspectives (Hill, Hawkins, Ferris, & Weitzman, 2001). As a consequence,
perceived ﬂexibility allows more employees to have employment-family balance, and
also enables workers to work longer hours before impacting the management of multiple
roles. Results from a study developed by Orrange (1999) showed that couples did not
experience the same set of demands associated with life management over time. On the
contrary, the demands were lowest during the initial phases of a relationship and
increased with the arrival of children. When children became adults and began leaving

home, those demands were lower again.

Negative Outcomes of the Employment-Family Interface

Results from different studies indicated that the employment-family tension was
affected by a variety of factors: the age of the youngest child in the family; whether the
working parent had full-time employment; marital status; ﬁnancial security; and the types
of childcare used while the respondent was at the employment site (Alexandrov, 2001;

Galinsky, Bond, & Friedman, 1996; Lero & Johnson, 1994; MacBride—King, 1990).

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Other studies suggested that there is a relationship between gender (Canary, Stafford, &
Semic, 2002) and life-cycle stage (Higgins, Duxbury, & Lee, 1994) on the employee’s
ability to balance employment and family responsibilities. Gender was found to be a
direct predictor of employment-family conﬂict, and sometimes also acted as a moderator
of conﬂict; i.e., how the conﬂict was perceived, how it was manifested, and what coping
skills were required. In addition, the presence, number of children or both in a worker’s
family was one of the indicators of a woman’s satisfaction with the employment-family
management (Sastry, 1999).

Results from a study developed in Canada showed that women (particularly
mothers) were very susceptible to employment-family conﬂict. In other words, employed
mothers experienced more overload, interference from employment to family, and
interference from family to employment than did men. Women experienced more
problems because their employment and family demands were higher than men’s
demands (Duxbury, Higgins, & Lee, 1994). Supporting this idea, Foley and Powell
(1997) indicated that for employed women, the family role interfered with the
employment role more than the employment role was allowed to intrude into the family
role; for men, the opposite was true. Gutek et a]. (1991) also indicated that women
reported more employment inﬂuence in family life than men, despite spending the same
number of hours in paid work as men.

In a cross-sectional study to determine whether employment and family domains
were asymmetrically permeable, Eagle, Miles, and Icenogle (1997) found that family

boundaries were more permeable than employment boundaries; i.e., that demands of the

15

 

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employment role were more likely to occupy one's family role than vice versa. According
to this study, no gender differences were found in the pattern of asymmetry.

According to the life-cycle stage, it was found that the simultaneous aging
(development) of the employees and their family members also appeared to contribute to
a stable trajectory of negative spillover between employment and family that did not
decrease until after midlife, and was not limited to employees with young children
(Grzywacz et al., 2002; Han & Moen, 1999). Many studies have shown that traditionally,
women also are the main caregivers for parents in need of assistance (Brody, 1990;
Quinn, 2001; Rix, 2001). Employed women caring for elderly parents generally have
children at home, and the demands of their various roles compete for their time and
energy (Singleton, 2000). Employed caregivers report more absenteeism, more
distractions at work, more physical, mental or both health problems, and a greater loss of
career advancement and opportunity (Scharlach & Boyd, 1989; Scharlach, Lowe, &
Schneider, 1991).

Elovainio and Kivimaki (2001) found that role stressors were related to role
ambiguity, which, in turn, was related to strain. Many researchers interested on the role
strain studied female employees with children (1996; Stanﬁeld, 1998; Tingey, Kiger, &
Riley). These studies indicated that there were two types of role strains: strains caused by
the expectations of the career, and strains caused by the expectations of being a
wife/mother (Rain, 1996). These two sets of role expectations overlapped, and it was the
overlap that caused the strain felt by the wife/mother. For example, in a study of 129
married, employed women with at least one preschool-aged child, Erdwins, Buﬂ‘ardi,

Casper, and O'Brien (2001) found that employment and family support were particularly

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inﬂuential in reducing strain. In addition, satisfaction with childcare was related to
signiﬁcantly less anxiety about being separated from young children. Tingey et al. (1996)
also found that a partner's employment-family spillover and dissatisfaction with childcare
arrangements were related to an employed mother’s perception of stress when performing
multiple roles.

Supporting this idea, Fredriksen-Golsen and Scharlach (2001) studied a national
sample of employed parents to examine employment-family conﬂict. Using a multi-
dimensional model that included family-related and employment-related demands, and
family, occupational, and social support resources, it was found that having children
under the age of 6 years, more demanding employment, less acceptable childcare
arrangements, and less employment support were directly related to higher levels of role
strain. Moreover, employment and family resources were not found to have greater
benefit for employees with more demanding employment and family lives than for those
with less demanding situations. Westman (2001) also found that stress caused by
employment demands was transmitted to an employee’s partner, affecting the partner’s
psychological and physical health.

According to the results of a study about the role processes of a voluntary
organization, Valcour (2001) found that role ambiguity and role conﬂict resulted from the
fact that individuals were engaged in multiple roles with conﬂicting role expectations.
Therefore, they experienced difﬁculty in integrating these expectations and in switching
between roles.

Scholars of the life course, including those who focus on employment careers or

family processes, have been interested in how individuals assess multiple role trajectories

17

 

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over time. Merola and Moen (2000) found that life-cycle stage is the most important
predictor of leisure time, but in ways that are conditioned by gender as well as presence
and age of children. Married women with children have less leisure time, even though
they tend to work fewer hours than married men with children in the home. Moreover,
married men and women in their 205 and 303 without children tend to have more leisure
time than older workers without children.

Recent research on the employment-family interface identiﬁed the role of self-
employment and ﬂexibility on paid work attitudes and domestic division of labor
(Hundley, 2001). Other studies were concerned with how employment-life policies and
practices were associated with an employee’s attitudes and behavior (Orthner & Pittman,
1986; Roehling, Roehling, & Moen, 2001; Tausig & Fenwick, 2001). Results from a
recent study (Townsend, 2002) found that commitment to career was predicted by the
employees’ life stage. For instance, highly committed couples were much more likely
than others to be in the “young childless life” stage or the "empty nest" stage. Women in
these stages rated their career success signiﬁcantly higher than other groups, but also
revealed the widest gap between actual- and preferred-paid work hours, and the lowest
self-rated success in balancing employment and family demands.

In a study about the determinants of men's gender-role orientation, Smith and
Beaujot (1999) found that for most men, in spite of changes in gender roles, gender
remained a very salient organizing construct in the deﬁnition of roles both within and
outside of families. The “traditionalism of attitudes and beliefs about appropriate gender
roles, family forms, and religious participation is strongly associated with having a

traditional employment-family strategy for both sexes” (Becker & Williams, 1999, p. 4).

18

 

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Results of another study developed by Sanchez and Kane (1999) also found that
assumptions about roles within marriage and issues of equity or equality were crucial
factors in determining how individuals deﬁned and strove to manage multiple roles.
Moreover, the fact that dual earners and dual-career women still carried primary
responsibility for family duties was found to be an important factor in the negative
relationship between employment and family (Burley, 1995). Many employment or
family situations that would be perceived as stressful by an individual without social
support are not when that assistance is in place (Carlson & Perrewe, 1999).

According to Tolbert et al. (2002), the impact of employment schedules on
perceived success in paid work and in family life was mediated by the impact of those
schedules on perceived success in balancing employment and family. Therefore, working
a reduced-hours schedule enhanced women’s perceptions of success in balancing
employment-family life, while success in balancing work-family demands had a positive
inﬂuence on both perceived success at work and perceived success in family life. On the
other hand, women who worked longer hours were more likely to feel successﬁrl at work
than women who worked reduced hours.

Only a few studies have focused speciﬁcally on time-based conﬂict. On balance,
such studies have tended to rely upon quantitative measures of time, such as hours
worked per week, as the primary independent variable predicting employment-family
conﬂict (Daly, 2001; Marks, Huston, Johnson, & MacDermid, 2001). Based on the 1970
and 1997 Current Population Surveys, Jacobs and Gerson (2001) investigated the
distribution of working and leisure hours across dual-earner couples and single parents. It

was found that changes in the employment time of individual workers could not explain

19

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the increase in family time deﬁcits. Rather, these changes were explained by a
transformation in family composition and gender relations. Likewise, according to a
study developed by Kalleberg and Rosenfeld (1990), there was a negative effect on the
amount of time worked in the labor market to the proportion of household activities
accomplished for women, although there was no evidence of this for men. In addition to
the negative effect on the individual and family members, failure to achieve a balance
between employment and family lives was directly related to a number of negative
outcomes for both employees and employers, including higher stress levels, increased
absenteeism, and lower productivity (Hobson, Delunas, & Kesic, 2001). Recently,
Thompson and Bunderson (2001) proposed that the relationship between paid work and

nonwork needs to incorporate the quality of time dedicated to each domain.

Human and Family Development

Recent research in family development has focused on the dual-earner family
(compared with the traditional one-earner family with a male breadwinner), evaluating
how the employment-family demands are affected by the timing and sequence of stages
in the family career (White, 1999). According to a study developed by Still (1999), which
aimed to understand the inﬂuence of gender and life course on family social capital, key
life events, such as parenting and retirement, were found to be predictors of social
involvement. Results from the same study also indicated that women who worked ﬁrll-
time were more likely to be involved in social groups than those who worked part-time,
and men whose wives worked ﬁrll-time were less likely to be involved in those groups.

Findings from another study (Townsend, 2002) also indicated that employed wives

20

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whose husbands worked long hours were more likely to be involved in family,
neighborhood, and employment-based networks. Congruent with this idea, couples in
which the husband worked full-time, and the wife part-time were more likely to be
involved in social activities.

Findings from a recent study (Becker & Hoﬁneister, 2000) showed that the
number of hours a woman worked had an effect on the form of social capital in which
individuals invested. According to the same study, the level of education and the age
were strong predictors of investments in social capital. For instance, women with
increased age and level of education (college degree or more) were more likely to
establish social networks than younger and less educated women.

According to a study developed by Crouter and Helms-Erikson (2000), social
activities and employment-related problems had a great impact on an individual’s human
development and career progress, as well as on family roles and interactions. Moreover,
ﬁndings ﬁom a study with 399 dual-earner, married couples with children under the age
of 12 indicated that employment hours and pressure also were associated with family
stress (Rwampororo, Mock, & Schafft, 2002). However, women also listed conﬂicting
employment-family demands as sources of stress while men did not. For both men and
women, childcare mitigates the association between children in the home and family
stress.

Other researchers were interested in how the parents’ employment may have
inﬂuenced children’s achievement. According to Teachman, Paasch, and Carver (1997),
parents’ ﬁnancial and human capital were necessary to the development of human capital

in their children, but by themselves were not sufficient. Social relationships were

21

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important resources for building human capital in children. In a study of children’s
accomplishments, it was found that children of employed mothers have higher
educational achievements than other children (I-Iaveman & Wolfe, 1994). Hofferth (1999)
indicated two possible explanations for this fact. One is that there is little difference in the
amount of time spent with children for employed and nonemployed mothers. Another
explanation is that employed mothers put an increased emphasis on “quality time”; i.e.,
time in which the parent and child actively engage in an activity together.

In a recent study about the effects of parents’ employment on children’s behavior,
researchers found that maternal and family resources, rather than maternal employment,
have a greater inﬂuence on pathways to children’s delinquency (V en, Cullen, Carrozza,
& Wright, 2001). Results from another study found that employment demands,
community support, and family social organization are more important than time, per se,

in relation to adolescent problems and grades (Voydanoff, 2002).

Academic Life
The United States has over 4,700 higher education institutions, with a large
variety of missions, structure, and characteristics (AAUP, 2002). Some examples of these
institutions are community colleges, trade schools, denominational colleges, small and
large colleges and universities, liberal arts institutions, elite private colleges and

universities, and medical schools.

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Faculty Appointments

A faculty appointment may be for tenure or nontenure track positions. All tenure-
track appointments entail ﬁill responsibility for teaching, performing research, advising
students, and performing professional service. Within this appointment, the occupational
hierarchy is assistant professor, associate professor and professor or ﬁrll-professor, in
which assistant professor is the lowest rank, and associate and full-professors are the
higher ranks. For all the three, the faculty member must have an earned doctoral or
terminal degree, or equivalent. An assistant professor ’s appointment requires the
potential for excellence in teaching and research, while for an associate professor, quality
teaching, recognition for scholarly activities, and substantial service to the university and
appropriate outside communities are necessary. An appointment for a professor involves
sustained quality teaching, wide recognition for scholarly activities, and substantial
service to the university and outside communities (AAUP, 2002).

Nontenure-track appointments may be for lecturer, instructor, adjunct, or visiting
professor. The lecturer appointment requires at least a master’s degree or equivalent
professional qualiﬁcations. It entails full responsibility for teaching courses, advising
students, serving on committees, and being active in professional societies. Usually, these
appointments are for up to three years at a time. An instructor appointment requires a
master’s or a bachelor’s degree. It entails full responsibility for teaching undergraduate
courses, with limited or no responsibility for advising, research, and service. The duration
of these appointments depends on the institution’s instructional need. Adjunct
appointment is offered to persons not regularly or primarily employed within the

academic unit to which the appointment is made. Such individuals are invited to

23

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participate in the teaching, research, and/or instructional programs of academic
departments because of their training, experience, credentials, and interest. Usually, no
remuneration is provided. The visiting appointment is considered a guest appointment
offered to a faculty member from another institution and is appointed at the rank of that
institution (AAUP, 2002).

The wage disparities between male and female professors range from 6.2 to 8%
(Nettles, Perna, Bradbum, & Zimbler, 2000). The wage gap is smaller for younger
women (40 years and younger) than for older women (Toutkoushian, 1998). Full-time
female faculty salaries are highest at doctoral level institutions, where the majority of
female faculty is employed. At this level, females are paid the most at private institutions,
where the average salary for female faculty members is 20% higher than for female
faculty members at public institutions. Female faculty members at church-related
institutions earn about 8% higher salaries than their public institution counterparts.
Doctoral level public institutions employ about 5 times the number of female faculty
found at private institutions, and almost 13 times the number of female faculty at church-
related institutions. Across all three types of institutions, female faculty salaries compare
most favorably with male salaries at the rank of instructor, where female faculty earn
94.6% at public, 100.3% at private, and 96.4% at church-related institutions (Evans,
2000). Faculty, either men or women, are also less well rewarded than many other

comparably educated professionals (AAUP, 2002).

24

Academic Life and the Employment-Household Management

Most of the studies related to academic life are related to issues faced by
minorities (Allen, 1998; Perna, 2001a; Carter & O’Brien, 1993; Turner, 2002). In their
analysis of data from different sources, Harper, Baldwin, Gansneder, and Chronister
(2001) found that gender is related to working ﬁeld; i.e., more than half of all women
faculty are working in health sciences, education, and humanities. The proportion of
women in a given department is related to the women’s perceptions of the environment
(Riger, Stokes, Raja, & Sullivan, 1997). Additionally, within every racial or ethnic group,
men are more likely than women to be tenured or tenure-eligible. Perna (2001b) also
found that the employment of women in nontenure-track positions is related to their
marital and parental status. Being married and having at least one child or both increases
the probability of holding a part-time, nontenure-track position for women but not for
men. In a cross-sectional study related to sex differences in faculty salaries, Perna
(2001a) found a smaller male-female salary gap among “younger” than “older” faculty,
after controlling for education, experience, institutional characteristics, publications, and
academic ﬁeld. Gender-based wage differentials are negatively related to females' overall
employment satisfaction, having the largest inﬂuence on faculty members’ perceptions of
the institution (Hagedom, 1996).

Contrary to these ﬁndings, Hargens and Long (2002) found that data on women's
representation in a ﬁeld, changes in women's representation, women's representation
compared to men's, or changes in women's representation compared to changes in men's,
were inadequate for drawing inferences about disparities in the sexes' treatment in hiring

and promotion processes when demographic statistics were not considered in the study.

25

H
it“

1.)"

In a study related to stress faced by faculty members, females in academia
suffered more negative stress than their male colleagues (44% of female faculty
compared with 28% of men) (Miller, 2001). The causes of female distress were the same
as the male, although women also complained about subtle discrimination and a lack of
personal time. In studying employment-related stress and personal strain levels among
new and experienced male and female college faculty members, Lease (1999) found that
stress or strain were not related to sex or length of time employed.

When talking about studies related to higher education, faculty members, and the
management of multiple roles, only recently have attempts been made to understand how
faculty members balance employment and nonemployment commitments. Based on a
national sample, Drago and Colbeck (2002) tried to identify the barriers to family
commitment. They found that bias avoidance behaviors were more common among
female than male faculty. The study also indicated that couples were having fewer
children and had lower levels of organizational and supervisor support for double
commitments to employment and family. Another study developed by Varner (2000)
showed that couples in which women had not reached tenured positions often delayed
childbearing and childrearing until this goal was attained.

According to a study developed by Young and Wright (2001) about how women
in social work academia balance their multiple roles, researchers found that the struggle
to maintain balance was related to the individual’ 3 experience with her environment. In
other words, employment-family balance was directly related to the amount of support
both within and outside of the academy. When coping with stress related to employment-

family interface, individuals in the early stages of their careers tended to adopt

26

and w.

(level
:0

signiﬁcantly more emotion-focused, intrapersonal coping strategies than those in the late
stages of their career (Alcom, 2001).

Interested in the productivity of part-time and ﬁrll-time faculty members,
Fairweather (2002) used a decision model to analyze a large nationally representative
sample, working in two- and four-year colleges and universities. The decision model was
intended to understand how a hypothetical promotion and tenure or annual review
committee might combine productivity measures to identify “highly productive
researchers” and “highly productive teachers.” The results of the study indicated that few
faculty members were able to publish while carrying above average teaching loads. For
most faculty members, high numbers of student contact hours decreased publication
rates, and vice versa. Untenured faculty members were the least likely to attain high

levels of both research and teaching productivity during a given 2-year period.

Summary

Studies related to employment and family issues were reviewed in this chapter,
and two important points need to be highlighted. The ﬁrst point is related to the studies
developed by researchers in the ﬁeld. Issues regarding the management of employment-
to-family conﬂict, or family-to-employment conﬂict have been widely studied. However,
few studies have investigated both the positive and negative aspects of this interface. In
addition, although there are many studies about individuals working in the academy, few
researchers have tried to understand the employment-family interface.

The second point refers to the measures used to study the employment-family

interface. The review of literature shows that the development of established measures

27

for the study of the employment-family interface is a matter of concern for scholars and
researchers in this area. It is hoped that this study will contribute to a deeper and
ecological understanding of the employment-family balance. This would help in the
development of a survey methodology and quantitative analysis for use with a larger

population of employees to better understand the employment-family interface.

28

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Chapter III

Theoretical Framework

This section includes a discussion of some of the theories used in other studies
related to the employment-family interface, and the theoretical contribution that this
study intends to develop. It also describes relevant characteristics of the models
developed by Bubolz and Sontag (1993), Deacon and Firebaugh (1988), and the social
exchange theory, which constitute the theoretical foundation for the development of the
Family and Job Environments Transactions Approach (FJET), as well as the Bates and
Harvey model (1975), which was used to integrate these three approaches. Its major
contribution was to demonstrate an individual’s role relationships. The Bubolz and
Sontag Family Ecosystem Model analyzes the system as embedded in its environments,
which are considered sources of inputs for the system. The Deacon and Firebaugh
Ecological Framework for Family Resource Management and Decision Making gives
insights to understanding the management processes of the organisms and their effects on
the system. The social exchange theory offers an avenue for exploring and developing the
notion of exchange, internally as well as between and among the systems and their near

and far environments.

Theories Used In Studies of the Employment-Family Interface
A variety of theories have been used in studies related to the management of the
employment-family interface, such as feminist theory, motivation theory, and stress

theory, among others. Three theories have been widely used: multiple role theory,

29

spillover theory, and social exchange theory. A large number of studies use the multiple
role theory to examine employment and family issues (Marks & MacDermid, 1996;
Marshall & Barnett, 1991; Thoits, 1992). A major assumption of multiple role theorists is
that role systems are hierarchical. Therefore, the problem of managing different and
conﬂicting roles requires favoring one role over another (Perry-Jenkins et al., 2000).
Following this idea, an extensive body of research has focused on theories of role strain
(Burke, 1991; Doumas, Margolin, & John, 2003; Frone, 2000; Frone et al., 1997;
Schlenker, 1987) and role enhancement to address the effects of performing multiple
roles on psychological well-being (Aryee, Luk, Leung, & Lo, 1999; Baruch & Barnett,
1986; Carlson, 1999).

Spillover theory assumes that similar experiences exist and are shared between
the employment and household environments. Grzywacz et al. (2002) found that spillover
from employment to family life and from family to employment life may affect an
individual’s physical and mental health. Interested in the potential beneﬁts of the
employment-family spillover, Brockwood (2002) found that for both wives and husbands
work role quality was related to positive employment-to-family spillover, while child
care role quality was related to positive family-to—employment spillover. In addition,
positive employment-to—family spillover predicted family satisfaction over time, while
positive family-to—employment spillover predicted employment satisfaction over time.

Social exchange theory emphasizes that social interactions depend on the rewards
and costs involved in the exchange. An individual will choose the course of action that
will maximize proﬁts (Klein, & White, 1996). Rank (1982) used the social exchange

theory to study married couples and determinants of inﬂuence on wives’ employment and

30

 

 

. ,.
ll.“ ...;
.‘-.\¢n

exam "I

indies
faint
35:8:
Lleor:

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career development. Results indicated that increments in wives’ resources (e. g., level of
education, career training, and money) correlate positively with wives’ inﬂuence in
decision-making regarding their employment, while increments in husbands’ resources
correlate negatively with husbands’ inﬂuence on wives’ work. Lambert (2000) also used
the social exchange theory to study employment-family interface. Results of her study
indicated that with employment and family beneﬁts, employees may feel obligated to
exert “extra” effort in return for “extra” beneﬁts.

Although the employment-family interface has been the focus of many different
studies, only a few studies make use of theories that speciﬁcally address this issue.
Furthermore, these are examples of isolated studies, showing that there is no widely
accepted theoretical approach to analyze the employment-family interface. These
theoretical approaches are grounded in multiple role and enhancement theories. For
example, Frone et al. (1992, 1997) developed and tested an integrative model of the
employment-family interface. Their model is based on mediating pathways linking
predictors to employment-family conﬂict. Although these authors have introduced the
use of a bidirectional conceptualization of the employment-family conﬂict, and have
presented a series of hypothesized relationships to explain this conﬂict, their theoretical
approach emphasizes the negative aspects of the employment-family interface. In doing
so, it does not help in the analysis of the employment-family interface within a given
context.

Related to this idea of predictors of the employment-family conﬂict, Voydanoff
(2002) proposed that a combination of employment and family characteristics

(intervening mechanisms) are tied to employment, family, and individual outcomes. She

31

analyzes employment and the family as microsystems consisting of networks of
relationships. Although Voydanoff uses the ecological systems theory to conceptualize
the employment-family interface, the effects of the employment-family interface on
employment, family, and individual outcomes are explained by role strain and
enhancement theories, exchange theory, and stress theory. Voydanoff’ s model extends
previous research by focusing on a sequence of mediators rather than on one mediator.

Interested in the idea of work-family balance, Crooker, Smith and Tabak (2002)
developed a theoretical framework that enlightens how life complexity and enthusiasm
may inﬂuence work-life balance. The authors analyze how the accessibility of resources
in a person’s life as well as the individual differences and value systems have an effect on
the relationship between life complexity/dynamism and work-life balance. They argue
that an individual’s higher levels of life complexity and dynamism will result in lower
levels of perceived work-life balance. This model extends previous research by
integrating both micro- and macro-level theoretical insights to the study of work-family
balance.

Thus, researchers have made many scholarly contributions regarding employment
and family issues. However, as family/household and employment structures change, it is
increasingly important to help in this theoretical development. This study intends to
further contribute to this theoretical development by addressing three gaps in the
theoretical approaches discussed. The ﬁrst one is related to the time dimension. None of
these theories on the employment-family interface address the issue of time. It is known

that the time dimension has a powerﬁrl inﬂuence on a system’s outcomes (Daly, 2001).

32

 

. c
we" :
L33“

mire

.o‘Vt'Y'
3::hh‘ll

from
his,”
d5" 6‘1.

ftnil‘.

For example, the learning process is a chain that will always inﬂuence employment-
household management.

The second gap that this study intends to address is the fact that these theoretical
frameworks do not focus on the individual/organism, but on the inﬂuence the
environments have on him/her. Although environment does have a major inﬂuence on the
individual, this inﬂuence is reciprocal. Individuals also have some control over their
lives, and on the way they manage the employment-family interface.

The third gap is the use of the ecological theory for understanding employment-
household management. Although Voydanoff (2002) introduced the ecological systems
theory to explain the employment-family interface, she did not use it to understand and

explain the effects of this interface on the outcomes of the system.

The Bubolz and Sontag Family Ecosystem Model
Bubolz and Sontag (1993) propose three embedded and interrelated
environments: the natural physical-biological, the socio-cultural, and the human built.
These environments, which can act as stressors or ameliorators and elicit some response
from the family system, constitute the main sources of input of matter-energy and
information for the family system, and are the context for the behavior, growth and
development of human beings. The source, nature and quantity of the inputs affect the
family’s skill in accomplishing its purposes.
Families of diverse characteristics and with both individual and family attributes
interact with their environments. They transform inputs of matter-energy and

information, and adapt to their environments through different activities/processes such

33

 

 

r perceptic
outcomes rl
airmen:
loci-omen
domains of
sets of wej

1n 5
MTG"? 31

creatior

n“ Dem

The
Wen] “ill
lath“ lr
H’l'luﬁng
mbSZ‘OSIEm
use of ,
mm‘mnlc
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as perception, communication, and management. The family system experiences
outcomes that are conceptualized as assessments of quality of life, quality of the
environment, income adequacy and material well-being, and human resource
development. The outcomes will be reﬂected in evaluations of the self and of various
domains of life. Such evaluations also will affect a person's perceived quality of life or
sense of well-being, and will affect behavioral responses or outputs to the environment.

In summary, Sontag and Bubolz (1993) consider the family as an energy
transformation system that is interdependent with its environments, giving emphasis to
the creation, use and management of resources for adaptation, human development and

sustainability of its environments.

The Deacon and F irebaugh Ecological Framework for Family Resource Management
and Decision-Making

The model developed by Deacon and Firebaugh (1988) views the family as a
system with two major subsystems: personal and managerial. The personal subsystem
receives inputs from the external environment (external inputs), and is responsible for
nurturing the individual capacities of family members. Through the managerial
subsystem, individuals and families attempt to achieve their goals by the acquisition and
use of resources. The personal and managerial subsystems interact through
communication processes to develop intrasystem dynamics of cohesion, adaptability, and
functionality via throughput processes. The feedback from the communication process to

individuals is important for showing the system how it will continue to ﬁrnction.

34

3""!
.5 ,.

Lu.

. L

The family system has demands and resources, which may be external or internal
inputs. The intrasystem demands are based on family values, goals, claims, personal
goal orientations, and events. The intrasystem resources are family supports, income and
net worth, personal capabilities/qualities, and life experiences/relationships.

The internal and external outputs of the family system are demand responses (goal
orientations, achievements, and personality development), and resource changes
(personal capacities and qualities, and income and net worth). According to this
approach, it is important that the family system be familiar with the situation, appraises it,
and, based on the most recent events, makes a decision and acts rationally (Deacon &

Firebaugh, 1988).

The Social Exchange Theory

The focus of social exchange theories is on interpersonal transactions (Huston &
Burgess, 1979). In a broader sense, a social exchange ﬁarnework refers to any conceptual
model or theoretical approach which focuses on the exchange of material or symbolic
resources between or among people during interactions. Some exchange theorists also
consider the fairness or equity of the exchange, which refers to the relative rewards and
costs for both partners. In other words, social exchange theory assumes that self-
interested actors transact with each other to accomplish individual goals they cannot
achieve alone. Self-interest and interdependence are central properties of social exchange.
Two or more actors, each of whom has something of value to offer the other, decide

whether to exchange and in what amounts. Such actors are normally viewed as

35

 

aﬁﬁ
v» J

unemotional beings who have information, cognitively process it, and make decisions
concerning the pattern and nature of exchange with others (Lawler & Thye, 1999).

There are two distinct orientations of social exchange theory: the French
collectivistic and the British individualistic. The French collectivistic tradition is based on
the work of Levi-Strauss, focusing on the autonomy of society, with less emphasis on the
individual as having complete control of the environment. Exchange items have symbolic
rather than economic value, and the beneﬁts of social interaction are based on a network
of social relationships. In contrast, the British individualistic orientation places individual
desires and wants at the center of analysis. According to this tradition, man is rational,
considering all alternatives by calculating costs and beneﬁts of different options to make
a decision which would yield maximum revenue for the smallest amount of investment”
(Rettig, 1980). This tradition had a great inﬂuence on the work of Homans (Nye, 1979).

Dissatisﬁed with existing approaches to sociological theory and research, Homans
(1974) examined possible applications of Skinner’s behaviorism approach and concluded
that the heart of sociology is based on the understanding of behaviors and interactions,
rather than in structural functionalism (Ritzer, 1988). He argued that a person's behavior
was the result of reinforcement and that people would continue to do what was previously
rewarding while discontinuing costly behavior. Homan's version of social exchange
theory suggested that people would continue to interact when there was an exchange of
rewards, but if the exchange was costly to one or more of the exchanging parties, it was
less likely to continue.

According to LaGaipa (1977) and Nye (1979), most social exchange models share

the following basic assumptions: (a) social behavior is a series of exchanges in which

36

individuals attempt to maximize their rewards and minimize their costs; and (b) when
individuals receive rewards from others, they feel obligated to reciprocate. A few
concepts are common to most social exchange theories. According to these assumptions,
rewards, costs, and reciprocity are key concepts to the social exchange theory. Rewards
are deﬁned as exchanged resources that are pleasurable and gratifying. Resources are
sometimes used synonyrnously with rewards, and the value of a resource is assumed not
to vary over time and to be reciprocal, but not necessarily equal. Costs are deﬁned as
exchanged resources that result in a loss or punishment (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). Costs
also include foregone opportunities because of being in the particular relationship or
interpersonal transaction. Rewards minus costs equal the outcome, although the
difference, when it is positive, also has been referred to as beneﬁts and proﬁts.
Reciprocity refers to the notion that we give something back to those who have given to

us (Sprecher, 1992).

The Bates and Harvey Model for the Structure of Social Systems

The model developed by Bates and Harvey (1975) is concerned with relationships
between human systems and their environments, as well as with relationships among the
human systems as they interact in an environment. Each individual is considered an actor,
carrying out behavior in a number of social systems. The behavior is structured by norms,
which deﬁne the actor’s positions. An individual occupying the mother-wife position in a
family may have two sets of norms with respect to family behavior: those which this
individual sees as relevant to her as the actor (her duties), and those she sees as

determining her rights. A group structure is formed based upon a set of relationships

37

 

: §
5
.,\.5

Int.

l3

among norms and the functions actors carry out toward each other. A group consists of
“the behavior of at least two individuals who interact with each other as occupants of two
positions, each of which contains at least one role complementary to a role in every other
position” (Bates & Harvey, 1975, p. 118). The roles an individual performs are based on
the sets of norms he/she is expected to perform. A role consists of acts structured by
norms performed by an actor with a personality in interaction with other actors in a
physical situation tln'ough time.

This model assumes that society is a system of changing behavior patterns
through time. This model may be applied to the study of small, less complex systems,
such as families or to larger complex organizations, communities, and societies. As such,
this model makes it feasible to think systematically about the organization of society and
about the individual’s involvement in it. In response to the critics of his ﬁrst book who
argued that his ideas were static and did not provide a satisfactory understanding of the
macrostructure, Bates (1997) reformulated some of his previous ideas. One of his central
propositions in his new book is that societies are not necessarily systems. A society will
only be regarded as a system depending on the structural characteristics attributed to it.
For the purposes of this study and based on the researcher’s beliefs, the ideas contained in

Bates and Harvey (1975) will be used.

TheFam'ly andJob Environmam Transactions Model (FJETModaD
Introduction
This section moves beyond the theoretical background to the development of

the Family and Job Environments Transactions Model. Speciﬁcally, it is intended to

38

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to“

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TIC?)

.
A’

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.

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‘5

l

develop an approach for understanding how the transactions between
family/household and employment environments affect the organism (woman) under
study. The idea for developing a new model lies in an attempt to consider that both
the roles played outside the family/household system and the transactions between the
organism’s near and far environments will affect the management processes of the
organism. In using the Deacon and Firebaugh Model (1988), an attempt is made to
understand how a woman manages the family/household and employment interface. The
Sontag and Bubolz approach (1996) provides the opportunity to know what the
consequences or outcomes of the management processes are for the individual, for the
family/household, for the workplace, and for society. The theory of social exchange will
provide information about how a woman is involved in the transactions between her
employment and family/household environments, how these transactions occur, and how
she mediates and manages rewards and costs. To integrate these different approaches in
the FJET Model, the Bates and Harvey (1975) model of the structure of social systems
was used to show all relational roles performed by an individual.

The uniqueness of the FJET Model is derived from an effort to develop a
deeper understanding of the complexity of interacting variables in the family/household
and employment environments by looking at them both broadly and narrowly
(identifying their peculiarities and characteristics). The consideration of two kinds of
outcomes—in the near and far environments—also differentiates the FJET Model from
the approaches developed by Sontag and Bubolz (1996) and Deacon and Firebaugh
(1988), which consider the family system to have an outcome only at the far environment

level. The throughput process is another point of distinction. The FJET approach presents

39

moment
the other IT:
multiple r02:-
brmg posits.
he The

airplane:

ire. roles.

 

make it dit‘.~
“if: the 0:?
may imtrfe:
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and conco."
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the“ issue
Understani

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the idea that this process is not restricted to one point in time. On the contrary, it is a
process that will happen each time an adjustment/change occurs in the organism or
systems.

Furthermore, the consideration of roles performed outside the family/household
environment as affecting the process of throughput distinguishes the FJET Model from
the other models used as the basis for this study. This analysis is important because
multiple roles performed by employed women and their family/household members may
bring positive, negative, or both outcomes to the individual and to the family members’
lives. The problem of balancing employment and family/household arises from
employment-family/household conﬂict, which reﬂects a mutual incompatibility of the
time, roles, and energy required for both. Consequently, the time demands of one role
make it difficult to participate fully in the other one. Additionally, one role may interface
with the other, so symptoms of psychological stress generated by family or employment
may interfere with the other (Parasuraman & Grennhaus, 1997). On the other hand, when
managing multiple roles, the individual has the opportunity to enhance social integration
and concomitant resources. The possession of multiple roles also is associated with
higher levels of emotional health (Wethington, Moen, Glasgow, & Pillimer, 1999). The
detection of changes and the analysis of the transactions between the organism, its
systems and its environments become possible only if an approach that addresses
these issues is used. In addition, the recognition that time evolves provides a key to
understanding changes in the organism’s roles associated with positions in the

systems.

40

(v

Therefore, as employment-family/household interface is a source of both
difﬁculty and betterment for workers and family/household members, it is the role of
human ecologists to promote the understanding of, and the social well being of, the
family, its members and the workplace. For that reason, the study of the social needs of
families, played out in daily transactions of interpersonal relationships with family groups
and the larger community, including the workplace, is very important for promoting a
better quality of life for families, workplaces, and individuals.

In beginning the discussion, the theoretical assumptions that underlie the
development of the FJET Model will be presented. Following this discussion, women
will be presented as the organisms/environed units, and the family and the workplace as
the organisms’ near environments. The analysis proceeds to show how the complexity of
these environments changes through time and thus affects the complexity of their
structures. Then, the inﬂuence of the far environment on the organisms is discussed,

followed by the transactions, changes and adaptations of the systems through time.

Theoretical Assumptions

Several assumptions underlie the formulation of the proposed theoretical model.
First, as the environed unit chosen for this study, a woman is responsible for linking her
employment and family/household systems, for the selection of inputs, and for the
management processes. The model would work equally well with a man or a child as the
environed unit. In this case, the woman is the /source of inputs for the family/household
and employment systems. Implied in this assumption is the fact that the family/household

and employment characteristics will inﬂuence how a woman manages her life.

41

 

fl

(a

H‘-'
l’Ui.

llZCr

Following the ﬁrst assumption is the idea that the family/household system
changes and adapts through time, and the family/household system is less complex in
earlier stages of life (Han & Moen, 1999). F amily/household complexity may be
conceptualized in terms of (a) time devoted to develop tasks and to reach an outcome; (b)
psychological concerns; and/or (c) employment stress. In other words, the
family/household system will become more complex as a result of (a) an increase in
family/household size and, consequently, all of the changes and adaptations that may
happen in the family/household; (b) the emotional concerns developed with an increase in
family/household size and/or when the individual has more roles to perform; and/or (c)
the transmission of stress from employment to family/household. The time complexity
will decrease as children grow up and/or leave home, although the psychological
concerns may increase for some families when children grow up (e.g., families may be
concerned about children’s drug abuse, involvement in sexual activities, or about how to
raise money to pay for their education), and decrease only when children are ﬁnancially
independent or have a socially acceptable lifestyle (Haveman & Wolfe, 1994). At the
same time, other families/households will have other types of psychological stress related
to aging (Connidis, 2001; Dentinger, 2002). However, even if families/households have
reached a stage in which time and psychological concerns are not interfering with family
complexity, family members may be at a stage in which employment is a major source of
increased family complexity.

The third assumption is that the workplace system also changes through time. It is
assumed that the complexity of one’s employment career tends to vary over time, making

it more or less difﬁcult to meet demands. Complexity may increase (a) as one’s

42

fpi"

oU-F
.

I:

 

responsibility increases; (b) when the worker has to manage multiple roles; and/or (0)
when there is a negative spillover ﬁom family/household to work (family stress). On the
other hand, employment complexity may decrease as one prepares for retirement. The
work structure, its demands, and dynamics affect the way work is done, and have an
inﬂuence on the employees’ personal lives.

The fourth assumption is that the transactions between family/household members
or employees can affect third parties not originally involved. This means that the
employment-family/household interface can positively or negatively affect quality of
employment life, family satisfaction, employers, and the community. This assumption is
also related to the fact that although the focus is on the organism (woman) who is
responsible for linking the employment and family/household systems, there are other
persons involved in this process. Following this rationale, it is also hypothesized that the
interaction between paid work and family/household lives includes circumstances that
may enhance individual/family development.

It is important to know that the FJET Model is being presented as a general
model. The employment and family/household experiences of women are diverse. For
example, some couples at midcareers may be preparing to launch their children into
the adult world, some may have children in college, and some already have empty
nests (Bures, 1999). Therefore, the complexity of job and family/household
environments will vary according to the family/household and employment

responsibilities that are typical of each family/household member/worker.

43

Women as OrganismyEnvironed Units

The word “ecosystem” comes from ecology, which has its roots in biology, and is
now used in other areas (Brother, Mann, & Gupta, 1981). It has often implied a holistic
approach with a focus on interrelationships (F irebaugh, 1989). Ecology is the science that
deals with the reactions and transactions of plants and animals with their immediate
environment. In ecology, the unit of study is the ecosystem, or a community of organisms
considered in reciprocal relationship with other organisms and the environment (Bristor,
1995).

The use of the term “human ecology” means an integrated, holistic approach
encompassing all physical and biological, as well as political and ethical, elements
(Campbell, 1983; Lawton, Morgan, & Chinnery, 1981). In a general human ecological
model, the humans under consideration could be any individual or group of individuals
who interact and share common interests as time evolves, and who are dependent upon
their environment for their subsistence requirements. The size and organizational
complexity of the groups’ studied may vary from individuals to small ﬁiendship or
family groups with informal or semiforrnal organization, to communities and populations
that are formally organized (Sontag & Bubolz, 1996).

Human ecology and functioning human ecosystems are more complicated than
natural ecosystems because of the high degree of institutionalization of human actions.
No other species comes close to the human social structure (Bowles, 1999). That is
because the spatial and sustenance relations in which human beings are organized are
constantly changing in response to the operation of a complex of environmental and

cultural forces (Stevenson & Haberman, 1998). Social action, institutionalized, is the core

oil

A f‘
U.‘

of human ecological functioning. Individual drives remain, but they are generally
directed toward the population as a whole (Bowles).

The human ecosystem is considered to be one type of system. Such concepts from
general systems theory that are appropriate for the study of living systems can be used to
describe and understand a human ecosystem, such as a family (Sontag & Bubolz, 1996).
A system is a ﬁrnctioning unit, and it is generally deﬁned as a “complex of elements or
components directly or indirectly related in a causal network, such that each component
is related to at least some others in a more or less stable way within any particular period
of time” (Buckley, 1967, p. 41). In organizations, communities, and societies, individuals
occupy many different positions, as seen in Figure 3.1. Based on the work of Bates
(1997), this ﬁgure gives an example of some of the many roles individuals may perform
at the family/household and employment sites, and the resulting relationships with others.
Women in a family perform the roles of spouse and parent, as well as the many roles
associated with being an income earner. As an employee, a woman performs other roles
that are different from those played in the family environment. These roles are performed
in sequence by the person playing them, and involve activities, identities, obligations, and
relationships with others. The roles are interdependent in terms of the time, energy,
and commitment required for adequate performance. This interdependence can result in
role conﬂict, which can be of two types: overload (demands on time and energy are too
great to be met adequately or comfortably) and interference (incompatible demands make
it difﬁcult to fulﬁll the requirements associated with work and family roles) (V oydanoff

& Donnelly, 1999).

45

 

FAMILY/HOUSEHOLD Individual “B”
Individual “A”

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . “ ,, Individual “D”
Indrvrdual C Member of
research
team
1 Student
EMPLOYMENT LIFE Legend

Boundaries

4+ Transactions of energy
and information

 

 

 

 

Figure 3. 1. The Family and Job Environments Transactions Model (FJET Model): The

relationships between the different roles performed by individuals.

46

 

\l'l.

narrator.

Manor
Tr.
mental he

increase 5:

 

as self-es
llem-ler'

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opened
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family“

71ch

 

While performing her roles, a woman interacts with other persons, and this
interaction provides well-being, personal growth, and quality of life for the individual and
the persons who are related to her in the internal and external environments, e. g., ﬁiends,
extended family, employers, coworkers, and peers (Bates, 1997). During this interaction,
the woman is managing costs and rewards that positively or negatively reinforce her
behavior.

The management of multiple roles has a powerful inﬂuence on an individual’s
mental health and on the quality of her relationships. The demands of numerous roles
increase stress levels and undermine well-being, but at the same time bring rewards, such
as self-esteem, monetary income, opportunities for social relationships, and power
(Perry-Jenkins et al., 2000).

The family roles of most women and men have changed. Men are typically not
expected to be the only economic providers, and most women are no longer full-time
homemakers. However, women today usually are expected to be responsible for
maintaining ties with extended family, to be the main caretakers of young children and
other family members needing care, and to do the larger share of the housekeeping. This
means that women generally are expected to continue being the “emotional glue of the

family” (Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999).

The F amily/Household: One Near Environment for a Woman
Environments are anything that surround the organism, and include natural and
physical structures, culture, values, and social institutions. The environments can be near

or distant. The near environment is psychologically and socially closer to the system

47

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eastern
meml
{he workpll
and acting

Th

 

stooped
generally
wife. laid
wally s
delimiter
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(ll wom

(Sontag & Bubolz, 1996), while the far environment is bigger. As one moves through an
ecosystem over time, one’s near environment changes. Both the near and far
environments inﬂuence and are inﬂuenced by the organism. In this study, the family and
the workplace constitute two of the near environments of the organism, providing inputs
and acting as a source of positive and negative stressors.

There are many deﬁnitions of “family”. The deﬁnition chosen for this study was
developed by Nass and McDonald (1982, p. 7). According to these authors, “family”
generally refers to “a social group having speciﬁed roles and statuses (e. g., husband,
wife, father, mother, son, and daughter) with ties of blood, marriage or adoption who
usually share a common residence and cooperate economically.” According to this
deﬁnition, single persons living alone are members of a family of orientation. Among
others, this deﬁnition was chosen because it is broad enough to characterize the families
of women involved in this study.

A family system would be a collection of roles and statuses interrelated in a
particular way, and the relationships that exist among them (Montgomery & Fewer,
1988). Figure 3.2 shows how a family system changes and adapts through time. It is
hypothesized that in the earlier stages of a family, the system is less complex. It will
become more complex as a result of the family’s increasing in size and, consequently, of
all of the changes and adaptations that will be made. The complexity will decrease as
children become more emotional and ﬁnancially independent. This increasing and
decreasing in complexity is represented by the different sized circles. Because a
family is a system, family members are not only affected by their transactions with others

in the family, but they are constantly playing the role of interested third party.

48

 

Ecosystem beyond the family/household system

Outputs/Outcome
Storage

      
  

 

FAMILY/HOUSEHOLD
SYSTEM

Tr

 

 

Structure, relationships, characteristics
[mm-SYSTEM DEMANDS
Individual/family values, goals, claims
Needs and resources, events

 
 
       
     
     
             
   
      

 
 

Woman as a T2

source of inputs INTRA-SYSTEM DYNAMICS
for the Individual/Family support
family/househol Income and net worth
environment OTHER Personal capabilities and qualities
and receiver of PERSON’S Resource exchanges
outputs from the FAMILY] Life experiences and transactions of
family and HOUSEHOLD energy and information
employment ROLES THROUGHPUT PROCESSES
environments Decision-making and management
[nun-system dynamies (ﬂexibility,

 

 

 

adaptation, cohesion)o

5,-1
6

'3 a}
WOMAN ‘SiFAMILY/
HOUSEHOLD
ROLES

 
      
 

 

 

 

FAMILY/HOUSEHOLD TN
SYSTEM

 

 

 

 

Figure 3. 2. FJET Model: The family/household as one of a woman’s near environments.

49

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The behavior of one member toward another can affect third parties not originally
involved (Aldous, 1996). This means that the employment-family problems experienced
by women can adversely affect their quality of employment life, family satisfaction,
employers and the community (Parasuraman & Grennhaus, 1997). The family/household
as a life support system is dependent upon the environment for physical sustenance, and
upon social organizations, which are related to our humanness and give quality and
meaning to life (Kilsdonk, 1983).

According to Melson (1980, p. 26), “quality of life consists of among other
things, hope for the future, land, adequate food, clothing, shelter, income, employment
opportunities, maternal and child health, and family and social welfare.” Cebotarev
(1985) stated that quality of life, from a general point of view, refers to the necessary
conditions (e. g., at family, community, and employment levels) for satisfying the basic
and culturally deﬁned necessities that are indispensable to the normal development of
human potential, giving focus to the physical and natural environments. Quality of life is
relative and differs among individuals, but it can be perceived as the level of satisfaction
or conﬁdence with one’s conditions, relationships, and surroundings compared with
available alternatives (McGregor & Goldsmith, 1998).

From an ecological perspective, the fundamental challenge facing all human
beings is to survive in their environments and to develop abilities to deposit things back
into the environment in a manner that will not ruin it. To do this, they must obtain
necessary inputs ﬁ'om the environment and transform them into useﬁrl goods and services
(Olsen, 1993). When women are conceptualized as organisms acting interdependently

with their environment, it becomes imperative that major consideration be given to the

50

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effects of women’s demands on limited environmental inputs and, conversely, to the
effects that changing the quantity and quality of inputs have on women’s decision-
making (Solheim & Hill, 1984). Also, according to Hawley (1998), adaptation to external
conditions, which provide the materials for existence but also impede and limit
expansion, is the central problem of life, and is necessarily an organizational process. It is
the securing and conserving of control over the environment. A family and its members
within a household form a microsystem that works for a common purpose: to maintain
itself in the larger environment, or the macrosystem (Paolucci, Hall, & Axinn, 1977).
Thus, changes in the environment or within the microsystem can upset an established
equilibrium, produce changes in demands and inputs, and force adjustments within the
household (Rowland, Nickols, & Dodder, 1986), leading to changes in outputs and

OUICOIDCS.

The Workplace: A Second Near Environment for a Woman

The actual employment environment is a paradox. Technology allows workers to
work in ofﬁces without walls, giving them more ﬂexibility and autonomy. But, at the
same time that technology frees employees to have greater ﬂexibility and independence,
when it comes to work/family balance it is still difﬁcult for the employee to manage
different roles.

It is difﬁcult to achieve a balance between life in the family/household and in the
workplace. The number of employed women is growing, and the percentage of men who
have wives in the workplace has increased dramatically (F redriksen-Golsen, & Scharlach,

2001). At the same time, the population is aging, and the workers have elder care

51

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responsibilities. Hence, in addition to working, childcare needs, and family
responsibilities, many employees must now care for elderly friends and relatives. Along
with these changing family structures, work lives have become more demanding. Both
men and women are working longer hours, resulting in more conﬂict between work and
family obligations (Moen & Yu, 1999), since their roles in the workplace are interrelated
with their roles in the family. Figure 3.3 shows how a workplace system changes through
time, considering the inputs that come from the far environment and from other
ecosystems.

The work structure, its demands, and its dynamics affect the way work is done,
and have an inﬂuence on the employees’ personal lives. It is assumed that the complexity
of employment tends to vary over time, making it more or less difficult to accomplish its
demands. Figure 3.3 represents this variety over time by the changing sizes of the circles.
Complexity may increase as one’s responsibility increases, and decrease as, for example,

one prepares for retirement.

The Far Environment as a Source of Inputs

Families and workplaces are embedded in distal environments, which constitute
sources of inputs for matter-energy, and for information. These environments are the
multidimensional settings or contexts for an individual’s lifestyle, activities, and
experiences. Individuals personalize their environments and create meaning through
transactions with and actions toward these environments. Family and employment
environments are the locus of inputs of material, and of human inputs composed of

matter, energy, and information, as well as a destination for their outputs.

52

 

 

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a source of
inputs for
the workplace
environment and
receiver of
outputs from the
employment and
family/household
environments

 

 

 

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Lapse

 
 
      

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fl

 
 

  
 
   
    
 

Feedbackemployees’ needs; employees
capabilities and qualities
EMPLOYEES’ Resource exchanges between and

ROLES AND
NEEDS

H

Outputs/ Employers/workplace support to the

EMPLOYMENT SYSTEM
Workplace structme
Relationships among employees,
peers and employers; Characteristics
of the employees, peers, employers,
and the workplace

INTRA-SYSTEM DEMANDS
Employees/employers’ values, goals,
claims; work needs and resources;

T:

 
 

 
     
     
     
     

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among employees, peers, employers
and the workplace; work experiences
and transactions of energy and
information

THROUGHPUT PROCESSES
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Inna-system dynamies (cohesion and
ﬂexrbility)

  

    
   
   
     
   
   
 

 

EMPLOYMENT
SYSTEM

 

Figure 3. 3. FJET Model: The workplace as one of a woman’s near environments.

53

 

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The source, nature, and quantity of these inputs are variables affecting decisions
and actions, and will affect a family’s or an employee’s abilities to achieve goals (Sontag
& Bubolz, 1996). The inputs include such elements as atmosphere, climate, soil, water,
minerals, topographical features, plants, animals, microorganisms, technology, culture,
politics, and socioeconomy.

When the inputs enter the organism/woman’s system, the organism chooses those
most appropriate to her life and to her environments. These inputs are transformed and,
when they leave the organism’ 5 system as outputs, they also constitute the inputs for the
roles performed by other individuals related to the organism/woman in the family and/or
employment environments.

All the components of the near and far environments transact with one another,
which means that they are not independent entities. According to Bristor (1995),
transactions refer to resource exchanges between individuals and environments which are
regulated by the immutable laws of nature and by a set of humanly-derived rules.
Environmental factors inﬂuence a person’s physical and mental well-being and, at the
same time, individuals affect their own environment in many different ways. For
example, technology affects the way work is done, the way materials are used, and the
choice of which new materials will be used to produce the goods and services necessary

for life (Bradford & Kent, 1993).
The Family and Job Environments Transactions Model (FJET)

The family/household, employment, and other components of the environment

comprise an integrated ecosystem. The environment facilitates and constrains human

54

 

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action. A holistic analysis of this interdependence advances a comprehensive
understanding of the dynamics of the employment-family ecosystem.

The three organizing concepts of the human ecosystem, that is, the organism,
community, and employment environments, and the transactions among them all in a
speciﬁc space and through time, form the basis for the conceptualization of the “Family
and Job Environments Transactions Model” (Figure 3.4). This ﬁgure shows that the
systems are dynamic, changing and adapting through time. Because this is a continuous
process, no information can feed back to the system, which is another point of
differentiation between this approach and the Bubolz and Sontag (1993) and Deacon and
Firebaugh (1988) models. The FJET model considers that time is a continuous process,
and so is the information. Figure 3.5 includes a woman as the organism of analysis, being
more speciﬁc to the purposes of this study. Because the FJET model shows a dynamic
process, Figure 3.6 helps in understanding what happens when the employment and
family systems interact with each other in one action cycle.

F amilies/hwseholds have a chance to improve their management in general and/or to
nmkechangesmfaaomﬂmdirecﬂyaﬁeaachievemnofaspedﬁcgodTlnsnucune
clmracteristics, relationships, and social exchanges of the family system inﬂuence the intrasystem
dernandsmrddynanﬁcaﬂretluoughrxrtprocess, andthetransactionswiththefamily system’s
outside environment The family/household structure is deﬁned by composition, life cycle stage,
and role allocation, all of which inﬂuence its internal and external transactions with the
environment. These transactions are affected by the way families/households recycle the
psychologicalwastethatrnodern lives irnposeuponthem. Itisimportarrttoobservethatthe

msacﬁonsocaninaspeciﬁccomextarrdspaceandchangeﬂnoughﬁme.

55

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56

       

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In summary, the uniqueness of this model lies in the opportunity to get both a
broad view of how female faculty members and their family members transform inputs
from their environment to meet their demands, and, at the same time, a deeper analysis of
the internal processes that happen in the family/household. The F JET model also aims not
to study the family/household system in isolation from space and time, but with both
variables as constant inﬂuences on the management process. It is known that the FJET
model will not give a “hill and complete match” of the family systems under study,
mainly because, according to Constantine (1993, p. 42) “no theory/model is a ﬁill and
complete match for the complexities and intricacies of real families, which are always
more interesting than the best of our theories, but a theory is apt to be less useﬁil or even

misleading if it ignores salient aspects of family functioning.” However, this model
provides insights into how the system functions (broader perspective), and helps in the
attempt to understand the whys and wherefores of how it ﬁinctions. This understanding is
Only possible if analyses occur related to management and interpersonal relationships, as

well as the social transactions between the system and its environments.

59

 

h.

Chapter IV

Methodology

This chapter includes a description of the methodology used. The research design,
including variables to be explored, population and sample, and data collection
procedures, are discussed. A review of how the research data will be analyzed is

presented. Finally, issues related to reliability and validity as well as the limitations of

this study are discussed.

Research Design

This theoretical, exploratory and descriptive study was carried out in natural

settings. The study was cross-sectional in nature, and its context was female faculty
members working in three types of higher education institutions in Michigan: small-,
medium-, and large-sized institutions. They represented two age cohorts (39 years old or
16SS, and 40 years old or more). The span of place for this study was the state of
Michigan, and the source of data was primary. The study was qualitative, with data
gathered in two stages—interviews with female faculty members and the use of a
unStionnaire containing demographic information (ﬁrst stage), and interviews with

female administrators (second stage).

The two interview protocols developed were related to the ﬁve scholarly
questions discussed in Chapter I. The questions asked of female faculty members were
inteIlded to provide an understanding of how they perceived the management of past

experiences in their employment and family careers, and how these past experiences have

60

contributed to the complexity of their current employment-household management. Of
equal importance was understanding the ways in which the complexity of women’s
careers in their family and employment environments promoted their employment-
household management. The questions also were intended to explore the perceived
sources of help and stressors for female faculty members, and how they may have
inﬂuenced the management of different experiences.

The questions asked of female administrators were aimed at understanding how
they perceive female faculty members’ employment-household management, and what
real sources of help were offered at the institutional level. In addition, it was important to
understand how aware female administrators were of issues faced by female faculty

members.

Population and Sample
The population for this study included female faculty members working in three
kinds of institutions in Michigan (small, medium and large institutions), and representing

tWo age cohorts (39 years old or less, and 40 years old or more). The classiﬁcation of

these institutions is in accordance with the criteria used by the Association of University

PI‘Ofessors (AAUP). Because it is assumed that life management processes differ by

gender (Small & Riley, 1990), the sample was limited to female faculty members. To

maintain the privacy of research participants, the names of the selected institutions will

not be mentioned. These three institutions differ in the number of undergraduate and

gr aduate courses offered, the number of faculty/staff, and the number of students

enrolled. Their objectives also are different. While the large-sized institution is a

61

research-oriented institution, the other two are more teaching-oriented, although at the
medium-sized institution some research is also developed.

The large-sized institution is an example of a public research university. Research
universities are regionally accredited institutions whose academic programs award
accredited academic degrees. As educational institutions, research universities can
maintain any number of academic specialties, support an extensive array of professional
schools, engage in extensive off-campus educational activities in continuing professional
education, and perform services for public and private interests (Lombardi, Craig,
Capaldi, Gater, & Mendonca, 2001). This institution had more than 4,000 faculty
members and academic staff, more than 30,000 undergraduate, more than 7,000 graduate,
and more than 1,000 professional students. Women comprised 27% of the total faculty in

tenure system during the period 2000-2001. Among tenured or tenure-eligible faculty,
women were best represented among assistant professors (38%) and least represented
aniong full-professors (20.03%) (AAUP, 2002).

The medium-sized institution has some characteristics of a research-oriented
university, although its main goal is education. For example, some research is developed,
and some graduate programs are offered. The total number of students enrolled at this
university was more than 20,000 for 2002-2003, with more than 17,000 undergraduate,
and more than 5,000 graduate students. Women comprised more than 40% of faculty
members, although there was no information about the percentage in the tenure system.
Of those female faculty members, more than 20% were full-professors, with 35%

aSSOciate professors, 51% assistant professors, and 69% were instructors (AAUP, 2002).

62

Community colleges focus on teaching students within the context of a two-year
undergraduate curriculum leading to an Associate Degree. The small-sized institution
attended an average of 16,000 students per semester. Females represented more than 44%
of full-timers, and more than 26% of part-timers (AAUP, 2002).Prior to contacting
potential research participants, the researcher submitted an application to the University
Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS), within the Michigan
State University Institutional Review Board (IRB). After the research proposal was
approved, and in order to compile a list of possible participants, the researcher contacted
administrators of the institutions to explain the purposes of the study and to ask for their
collaboration in providing a list of female faculty members, along with their ages and
contact information. Administrators from the three selected higher education institutions

were unanimous in stating that they could not provide such a list because they needed to
maintain the privacy of faculty members working at the institution. As such, the
researcher decided to employ the snowball sampling technique. The researcher randomly
Selected the ﬁrst participant at each campus using the information available on-line. After
each interview, the researcher asked each participant to give a suggestion of two female
faculty members working in the same institution, one in each selected age cohort. The
researcher contacted a total of 45 potential participants. Of those, 18 female faculty
Intitlnbers participated in this study. Some of the contacted faculty members did not reply
to the researcher’s invitation, others replied saying that they did not have time to
Participate and a few saying that they did not want to participate.
Participants were sampled based on their age bracket, constituting a

hotITIOgeneous and purposive sample. In a homogeneous sample, the researcher selects a

63

'l

.1

g

small sample with similar characteristics to describe some particular subgroup in depth
(Creswell, 1998). In a purposive sample the sample is structured around key dimensions,
both to ensure coverage of important characteristics of the population and because they
are signiﬁcant to the research questions (Marshall & Rossman, 1999).
After collecting and analyzing the data, the researcher developed an interview
protocol that was used with female administrators. This protocol was submitted to
UCRIHS. Two administrators at each institution were interviewed to help in the
triangulation of the data. Since it is known that not all of the administrators of a higher
education institution are knowledgeable about female faculty members’ issues, the
researcher carefully selected participants in this stage. The selection process was based
on the person’s role at the institution, as well as based on suggestions received during
Phase 1. A total of 16 potential participants were contacted during this stage, and of

those, six accepted the researcher’s invitation.

Preparation for the Study

After an initial list of interview questions to be used during the ﬁrst stage of the
research was written, revised, and the study was approved by UCRIHS. The next step
Was the pilot interview. The researcher selected a pilot interview respondent from the list
of possible respondents. This respondent was contacted by the researcher and asked to
Participate in the pilot interview and a follow-up discussion. The pilot interview was
conducted in a quiet and empty classroom in the respondent’s department. After an
0Deming greeting, the researcher gave a brief overview of the purposes of the study. The

reSearch participant was given a copy of the consent form and consent to use direct

qua

g-

5

quotes, and was asked to read and Sign it. She was also asked to answer the questionnaire.
At this point, the tape recorder was turned on. The researcher had previously recorded the
date and the code of the participant onto the tape.

The researcher conducted the interview using the initial list of interview questions
as a guide. The interviewee was encouraged to speak freely, to interrupt at any time and
ask for clariﬁcation of any questions, and to make suggestions that would enhance the
questions. The interview lasted approximately forty-ﬁve minutes. After the pilot
interview, the researcher asked the interviewee for feedback on the wording, content, and
sequencing of the questions. Feedback on the questionnaire also was requested. The
respondent was asked if the consent form and consent to use direct quotes were clear, and

if the researcher’s behavior and tone of the questions were appropriate. This discussion
lasted approximately twenty minutes. Some revisions were made to the wording of the
interview questions and questionnaire. The researcher transcribed the interview, and it
Was estimated that it would take approximately two to three hours to transcribe the tape
ﬁ’Ol‘n each interview.
The preparation for the second stage of the research process was a little different.
Once the researcher prepared the interview guide for interviewing administrators, she
aSked one female administrator to read it and give her suggestions. The administrator
Suggested a few changes and the researcher submitted it to UCRIHS. Because of the tight

Schedules of female administrators, it was not possible to conduct a pilot interview.

65

Data Collection and Procedures

A two-stage approach was employed in the process of data collection. Interviews
were used during both of these stages. The purpose of the interviews was to learn how
female faculty members manage the employment and family interface. During the ﬁrst
stage, the researcher conducted interviews with six female faculty members from each
institution, for a total of 18 interviews. Each potential participant was contacted by the
researcher by e-mail, brieﬂy describing the purpose and design of the research study
(Appendix A). Based on the female faculty member’s willingness to participate, a date,
time, and location for the interview were established with each potential participant. The
researcher sent a follow-up e-mail message to each participant the evening before the
scheduled time to conﬁrm the respondent’s interest in participating in the research. These
interviews were conducted during a three-month period from December 2002 through
February 2003.

Each interview followed the same format. The researcher greeted the participant
at the selected time and location. After explaining the goals of the study in the most
general terms, the researcher followed the approved format and asked participants to sign
their informed consent to be interviewed (Appendix B), as well as their consent to use
direct quotes (Appendix C). In addition, they also were asked to answer a self-
administered written questionnaire containing demographic information (Appendix D).
This questionnaire was only used to gather demographic information such as age, marital
status, number of children, and employment status. The information was used to help in
analyzing the data gathered through the interviews. After that, the researcher asked the

interviewee if she had any questions regarding the study. The tape recorder was turned on

66

at this point. The researcher had previously recorded the date and the code of the
participant onto the tape. Open-ended questions based on the interview protocol were
asked (Appendix E). The length of the interview sessions ranged from approximately 30
to 60 minutes. At the conclusion of the ﬁnal question and response, the tape recorder was
turned off.

Most of the respondents talked informally with the researcher after the interview
sessions. The conversations centered on personal topics, such as the difﬁculties they face
in developing their careers and being recognized by their peers. After each interview, the
researcher took informal notes (ﬁeld notes) about the disposition and conduct of each
participant during the interview. A review of these notes revealed that although some
interviewees seemed to be reserved and cautious at the beginning of the interview, they
appeared to become more comfortable as the interview progressed. Most of the
interviewees seemed interested in the study, feeling that it was their opportunity to talk
about the challenges they face with someone who would take the time to listen to them.

After each interview, the researcher listened to and typed the verbatim transcript.
Similar patterns of responses began to emerge as more interviews were done and more
tapes were transcribed. After completing the transcription of the eighteenth interview
tape, the researcher determined that the data were repetitive and that an ample selection
of age had been included in the sample (saturation point).

Once the faculty interview data were collected and analyzed, the researcher
started the second stage of the research. An interview protocol for the female
administrators was developed and submitted for the UCRIHS revision. After obtaining

the UCRIHS approval, two female administrators from each institution were contacted

67

and interviewed. The same steps followed during the ﬁrst stage of the study were
followed here. They were contacted by the researcher who brieﬂy described the purpose
and design of the research study.

Based on the female administrators’ willingness to participate, dates, times and
locations for the interviews were established with each potential participant. The
researcher made a follow-up telephone call to each participant the evening before the
scheduled time, to conﬁrm the respondent’s interest in participating in the research and
her plans to attend. Each female administrator contacted by the researcher gave
permission to be included in the study. These interviews were conducted during a three-
month period between February and April 2003 (Appendix F).

Each interview followed the same format. The researcher greeted the participant
at the selected time and location. Then, the purpose of the study and the format of the
interview were brieﬂy described by the researcher. The researcher gave a copy of the
consent form and consent to use direct quotes to the interviewee, and she was asked to
read and sign them. The tape recorder was turned on at this point, and the researcher
followed the interview protocol (Appendix G). The researcher had previously recorded
the date and the code of the participant onto the tape. The length of the interview sessions
ranged ﬁ'om approximately 25 to 40 minutes. At the conclusion of the ﬁnal question and
response, the tape recorder was turned off.

Most of the respondents talked informally with the researcher after the interview
sessions. The conversations centered on personal experiences and challenges they face
now as female administrators, the difﬁculties they had to overcome to reach their

position, and their desire to have more female faculty members interested in achieving

68

such roles. After each interview, the researcher took informal notes about the disposition
and conduct of each participant during the interview. A review of these notes revealed
that interviewees seemed comfortable and interested in the study.

After each interview, the researcher listened to and typed the verbatim transcript.
After the interviews, the researcher took informal notes containing her personal
reﬂections and observations about the disposition and behavior of each interviewee
during the interview. In both stages of this study, the researcher felt that the respondents
answered truthﬁilly, and provided thoughtﬁrl, accurate, and honest information in
response to the questions. They also understood the terminology used in the questions
and in the questionnaire.

Each group of interviews conducted in the two stages of this study (interviews
with female faculty members and with female administrators) provided a data set for each
institution (Figure 4.1). The data were complementary and helped in the understanding of
how female faculty members manage the employment-family interface at each higher
education institution selected. They were also helpful in analyzing the perceived and
actual sources of support available for female faculty members at each institution,
whether they were useful in meeting female faculty members’ needs, the kinds of support
still needed by them, and those which the administrators intend to develop to meet
women’s needs. Once all of the data sets for each institution were analyzed, the

researcher analyzed the data sets as a whole.

69

 

    
   
       

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    
   
    

  

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    
   
    

 

  

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Interviews :
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administrators.
* The interviews with female faculty members included two or three representatives of
each of the two age cohorts.
0 Two female administrators of each institution were interviewed.

 

 

 

Figure 4.1. Sampling design.

70

 

 

 

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Data Analysis

The rereading, proofreading, and analysis of the transcripts were the next steps.
Data were categorized by research question. The winMAX software was used to manage
the qualitative data because winMAX is a powerful tool for text analysis. It can be used
for grounded-theory-oriented "code-and-retrieve" analysis, as well as for more elaborate
types of text analysis. It also enables a combination of qualitative and quantitative
procedures. The researcher can work with quantitative and qualitative data
simultaneously and can cross-reference them, i.e., use one set for making better sense of
the other (Kuckartz, 1998).

The audiotapes of the interviews were labeled, copied, and transcribed. The
transcripts were formatted as text ﬁles and imported into the computer-based software
program (winMax). The initial step in qualitative analysis is reading the transcripts. The
text-based computer ﬁles of the transcripts were reviewed for accuracy both by the
researcher and by a person not involved in the study. These veriﬁed transcripts of the
interviews comprised the data to be used in subsequent data analyses.

After reviewing the transcripts, a researcher has several options, according to
Maxwell (1996), which are: memos, categorizing strategies (i.e., coding according to the
thematic analysis), and contextualizing strategies (i.e., narrative analysis, ethnographic
microanalysis, and individual case studies). There is no agreement about the best option
to analyze the data, since each of these options has strengths and weaknesses. For this
study, thematic analysis and subsequent categorization (Appendix H) were selected to
analyze the data because it would help in the understanding of each individual and her

situation.

71

The following themes emerged during the analysis of data: employment-
household management, employment-family interface, decision making process, degree

of difﬁculty, sources of help/stress, and demographics.

Employment-Household Management

This includes all the decisions the individual has already made and will make
according to values, attitudes, goals, and resources. Management is a function of the
availability of resources in the family and employment environments, as well as the
situation to be managed. It relates to the needs, desires, goals, perceptions, attitudes,
values, and resources of others involved in the same situation, or those that will be
affected by the outcome of the management process. It also is a learning process, i.e., past
experiences will inﬂuence the actual management process. It does not depend exclusively
on the individual, but also on life circumstances, past decisions, and other individuals.
This theme was subcategorized into past and present. Issues related to children’s age,
husband/partner’s support, ﬂexibility and a lack of time appeared in the data. Content

analysis was used to determine the most prevalent answers.

Employment-Farrah Interface

This refers to the intersection of various employment and family roles for a given
individual, having a direct effect on employment, family, and individual outcomes
(V oydanoff, 2002). Questions related to how experiences at employment/home

complemented or enhanced respondents’ life at home/work prompted this theme.

72

Subcodes for this theme were employment-to—family conﬂict/enhancement and family-to-

employment conﬂict/enhancement.

Decision-Making Process

This refers to the extent of participation of the individual, alone or with others, in
making decisions related to employment and family lives. Questions related to the
biggest decision individuals had to make regarding work and household or personal
relationships, both when they started their academic career and more recently, prompted
this theme. This theme was subcoded into family and employment decisions made in the
past and in the present. Identiﬁed topics were family related decisions and career related

decisions.

Degree of Drﬂiculty

This is based on the individual’s perception of difﬁculty in performing the
activities related to employment and family environments. Questions regarding the
challenges individuals faced before starting their academic careers and issues they still
face when managing the employment and family environments prompted this theme. The
theme was coded as personal/family and employment challenges. Content analysis
determined the possible subcategories identiﬁed in the responses. These related to the
challenges in managing family and employment issues, overcoming challenges, and

accomplishments.

73

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Sources of Help/Stress

This refers to the information female faculty members receive about sources of
help/ stress found in employment and family environments, and the way they interpret this
information. It also refers to the actual sources of help offered by the institutions.
Questions regarding support systems available to female faculty members, and their
actual sources of help and stressors, prompted this theme. The subcodes that emerged
from this code were: (a) employment help/stressors, such as the role of mentors,
ﬂexibility, peers, stability, and unionization; (b) family help/stressors, like the role of
immediate and extended families; (c) family/community help/stressors; and (d) policies
and/or programs to be developed and/or improved. Content analysis was used to
determine the possible themes to emerge from the participants’ answers relating to the
sources of support/help available to the participant, and stressors associated with the

management of conﬂicting demands.

Demographics

These data helped in the understanding of the behavior and other characteristics of
research participants. Respondents answered a questionnaire providing information on
their marital status and history of marital status, highest degree obtained, history of
employment status, number of children, and age of children (refer to Appendix E).

With all of the responses to each question compiled, the researcher was able to
detect trends and locate occasional exceptions. Coding also allowed for cross-case
analysis. In other words, groups of respondents and their data were examined for

similarities and differences. Data were grouped according to interviewees’ age cohort and

74

institution of employment (small, medium, or large). Subsequently, particularly
interesting and theoretically signiﬁcant observations about the responses of the interviews
were used to identify the selective codes for analysis.

The second step of categorization was analyzing the content of the discussions.
With this analysis, the researcher looked for trends and patterns that reappeared within
either a single interview or among various interviews. Content analysis began with a
comparison of the words used in the answers. The researcher also considered the
emphasis or intensity of the respondents' comments. A cross-case and cross-method
analysis of the data gathered using interviews was undertaken.

During the data analysis, the researcher was interested in links between
employment and family, as well as in the effects of these transactions on employment-
household management. Of equal importance was the effect of sources of help/stress on

employment-household management.

Reliability and Validity
Reliability refers to the quality or consistency of the measurement method.
Because the results in qualitative research are empirically a product of a particular
historical moment and encounter, replication of observation may seem impossible.
Careful study of interview methodology and a well-planned strategy and protocol for the
interviews provide enhanced reliability. The use of mechanically recorded data followed
by a transcription of each interview promoted adequate reliability for the purposes of this

study (Anastas & MacDonald, 1994).

75

Validity refers to the accuracy of the measurement in measuring the variables it is
intended to measure. According to Marshall and Rossman (1999), the validity of
qualitative studies is widely assumed to be strong because the data and the interpretations
of them are low inference. During qualitative research, validity is strengthened because:
(a) the researcher establishes long and intimate contact with participants; (b) the study is
usually conducted in the participants’ natural settings and in everyday situations; (c) all
phases of the research process are being continually questioned and reevaluated; and (d)
the researcher relies on the words and ideas of the participants themselves. These factors
enhance the credibility and generalizability of the conclusions drawn (Sontag & Bubolz,
1996)

Triangulation also helped in enhancing the reliability and validity of this study.
Triangulation is the application and combination of several research methodologies in the
study of the same phenomenon. It helps to improve the accuracy of interpretation, and to
conﬁrm that the data collected are not due to chance or circumstances (Baptiste, 2001). In
this study, data were collected from different sources (female faculty members and
female administrators), and using different methods (interviews and questionnaire during
Phase 1). This helped the researcher understand the process of managing employment-

household environments.

Limitations of the Study
Several limitations of this study warrant discussion. First, some aspects of this
study raised concerns regarding the generalizability of the results. Speciﬁcally, although

three types of higher education institutions have been studied, the sample was purposely

76

limited to female faculty members working in Michigan, none of whom were randomly
selected. Aside from that, when responding to questions, an individual may have
concealed her beliefs, despite the assumption to the contrary. In addition, an individual
may not have been able to recall speciﬁc aspects of her life. Thus, her responses may
have been based on inaccurate memories or fantasies.

The researcher could not obtain the desired number of interviewees under the age
of 40 in the sample. Many of them replied to the researcher’s invitation that they had
deadlines to meet and could not compromise their time, although they thought they would
have participated otherwise. Their unavailability may be related to the difﬁculties they
face in managing their employment and family lives and represent a bias in the sample.

Another weakness of this study is that no information was gathered from persons
that would give insights about the family side, such as family specialists, therapists or
family members. Only information from those aware of issues faced by female faculty

members at the employment site was gathered (i.e., female administrators).

77

Chapter V

Results of the Study

Any woman who functions today, working and having a family, is
already doing more than anybody could possibly expect her to do.
[Tenured, large institution, 46 years old.]

This chapter discusses the results of the study, presenting the data gathered via the
respondent interview method and the demographic questionnaire. The data were
organized around two sections. The ﬁrst section presents the female faculty members’
responses to the questions regarding their historical experiences in balancing their
employment and family lives. Of the same importance is how the complexity of women’s
careers in their current family and employment environments promotes their management
of experiences in a broad range of life activities (second section), and their ﬁrture
aspirations and concerns (third section). The forth section discusses how female
administrators of institutions of higher education perceive female faculty members’
employment-household management.

The repetitiveness of the responses, as well as the use of various quotes, will
provide evidence of the respondents’ management of the stresses brought on by their
need to accomplish different goals in their lives. It will also assert the objectivity and

validity of the researcher’s conclusions.

Employment-Household Management
After the data were categorized, analyzed, and averaged numerically, a summary
of the typical participant in this study could be drawn. The proﬁle is based on the

demographic data obtained both through the use of questionnaire and by facts revealed

78

during the interviews (Tables 1 and 2). A total of 18 female faculty members participated
in the study, six from each higher education institution selected. The ages of the
participants range ﬁ'om 29 to 55. The mean age is 43.5. The majority of the participants
are married—16 participants—while one is divorced and one is single. Sixteen
participants are Caucasian and two are Aﬁican-American. The number of children ranges
from 0 to 4, and the mean number of children is 1.55 per participant. The children’s ages
range from 6 to 32 years old, and the mean age is 15.9 years old, while the median is
14.5. Only one child is married. Three are not living at home. Four married respondents
do not have children, nor does the single one. Two participants are responsible for the
care of an elderly relative, and one for the care of two disabled adults.

Regarding participants’ employment status, 13 interviewees had a job prior to
starting their current position. Of those, four participants did not have a previous job
related to education, two worked in public schools, and the remaining seven worked at
higher education institutions. Ten participants started their career working part-time in a
higher education institution. Of those, two continue as part-time employees in a small
institution. The mean number of years that the participants have been working in the
institution is 7.99 years, ranging from 1 to 16 years. Doctoral degrees are held by nine of

the respondents, seven hold master’s degrees, and two have a bachelor’s degree.

79

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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81

Female Faculty Members ’ History of Management of Ewa'iences

The ﬁrst three lines of questioning asked during the interviews with female
faculty members focused on the respondents’ history of management of life experiences.
These questions were related to the ﬁrst research question, which is: How have the
personal histories of the management experiences of women with their employment-
family interface contributed to the complexity of their current employment-household
management? Questions related to how they managed the employment-family interface,
and decisions they had to make to accommodate different demands were also asked.
These questions addressed the second research question: How does the complexity of
women’s careers in their family and employment environments affect their management
of employment-household demands? Questions related to the support network that female
faculty members could rely upon addressed the third research question, which is: What
are the effects on female faculty members of sources of help and stress in their
management of employment-household demands?

When applied to the FJET Model, all of the questions asked were directly related
to its assumptions. Consequently, the data gathered provided a greater understanding of
how female faculty members manage the employment and family integration, and how
the processes of decision-making and management related to the way female faculty
members’ families and employment careers develop through time. In addition, the data
also revealed the sources of help and stressors they have while managing different and
conﬂicting demands.

To begin, participants were asked to describe their experiences in managing the

employment and family interface when they started their academic career. Usually,

82

female faculty members talked about the difﬁculties of having a small child at home and,
at the same time, managing the employment and family situations, dilemmas they faced,
and issues related to childcare. Those who were single or married without children during
the time they started their career revealed that they did not face problems in juggling both
sides of their lives. All of their efforts were concentrated exclusively on the development
of their career.

The participants with children admitted that sometimes they had to take some
time off or even work fewer hours per week when they had an infant at home. When
asked how she managed her employment and family lives, one respondent replied:

After the ﬁrst year of marriage we had our ﬁrst child. I still wanted to

continue working. I don’t think I ever took a semester off. I just worked

four hours a week when I was nursing my baby, and the focus was him.

Then I had another baby the next year, and then another baby two years

later, and then another baby two years later. Within ﬁve and a half years I

had four kids. During that whole time there were times when I wasn’t

nursing so I would work two days a week. But right after having a child I

would usually come in for just a couple of hours, maybe working at the

help desk, and then go home. During that time period the focus was on the

family and I worked from four hours a week to 15 hours a week. [Part-

time instructor, community college, 39 years old]

For those working full-time, the situation was more complex, and they had to rely
upon childcare and support networks. A divorced, ﬁrll-time faculty member working in a
small institution emphasized the difﬁculties she faced in managing her work, master’s

studies and family.

It was pretty hard. I would get up early, like ﬁve o’clock, and do my
studies. Then the kids would get up at 6:30, so I had to do the mom thing,
and then by 7:30 get to work. And then come home at the end of the day,
get the kids settled where they needed to be, and then go back to my
studies. It was like a 24 hour cycle of changing roles. [Full-time professor,
community college, 47 years old]

83

A coworker on the same campus also stressed how difﬁcult it was to manage her
employment and family commitments when she started working full-time.

When I started as a part-timer, it was irrelevant. I just went to work I only

taught sometimes one class on a Saturday or one class during the week. It

didn’t relate to my family life. When I started full-time, then it did because

I have a seven o’clock boss. This department has a lot of “lay mark” kind

of mentality, and they like to work seven to three, and the schools don’t let

the children in before seven; elementary school you cannot get in until

eight. I had a very tight problem trying to get my children—even though I

had my children at school as few blocks away—get them there at eight

o’clock and be here at eight o’clock, at the same time. It was very

complicated. [Full-time professor, community college, 52 years old.]

Things were very different for those without family responsibilities at the
beginning of their academic careers. Without family demands, such as childcare, they
only had to be concerned with one aspect of their lives, without having to negotiate. One
participant described her situation in this way: “I honestly cannot think about any
negotiations that had to take place.” [Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 29
years old.]. Another respondent also talked about her lack of family demands during the
time she started her career.

I had basically to take care of myself. To the extent that I wanted to begin

a family and ﬁnd somebody who I wanted to spend the rest of my life

with, there were certain things that I needed to do to accomplish that. But

other than that, I didn’t have any dependents or any responsibilities except

to myself. [Tenured, large institution, 46 years old.]

The common pattern detected throughout the interviews was that participants
with children appraised the possibility of career continuance on the ﬂexibility of the
academic setting independently of the institution of employment or their rank. It was also
a consensus that their sick children needed a mother at home. For that reason, participants

would work at home during those times. A part-time faculty member described the

importance of having a ﬂexible job.

84

When you are a part-time employee and a faculty member here, your
demands are realistically very small. You have a contract that says you
will be at your class once a week. And that is really what I am committed
to. How much time I put into it outside of that, based on how much I want
to grade papers, how much I want to develop the course, whether I want to
put it in a PowerPoint presentation, it’s really up to me. The fact that
they’re sort of hands off when it’s your class early on gave me that
ﬂexibility that I needed around. While my son was sleeping, I could
prepare two or three classes in advance. But if he was real sick all the
week I could get that two hours off that I needed and make sure that I get
what I required to be done. [Part-time instructor, community college, 39
years old.]

Although ﬂexibility was a very important topic presented by the participants, all
of those with children also talked about the time constraints they faced when their
children were toddlers. The lack of time to perform their family and employment
activities always had to be compensated for the lack of sleep or, for some of them, by
squeezing their family time.

It was a pretty family-ﬁiendly department. When people had events, it was
usually ok bringing a baby. It was that. But I always felt like I was
ﬁghting one against the other for time. I remember doing a lot of work
when my son was napping and trying to squeeze my family life into the
weekend. So that would be a pattern: work, work, work, work, and then
we could have Saturday and Sunday to do something for the family, which
means cleaning the house, mostly. We tried to get out of town and go
somewhere to do kid and family kinds of things. But to have a whole day
of family space, to have that time was really a project, and we had to work
straight the whole week so we could clear that space for that day. Getting
up a couple of hours early and then working late into the night, that kind
of thing. [Tenured, large institution, 39 years old.]

Resolving issues related to childcare, a husband’s demanding schedule, negotiations of
time and whose career to prioritize were among the issues presented by one participant.

After my son was born there were some challenges. He was very small
when I started a tenure job. He was very small to suffer from any kind of
separation anxiety, but we suffered from that a lot because we had to
situate ourselves in this new community and we always tried to negotiate
time. Both of us have very demanding schedules. I started my new job, my
ﬁrst job as an assistant professor. My husband was going back to school.

85

So, who’s going to get up at night? Who’s going to deal with three hours

of sleep, four hours of sleep? How are we going to manage childcare?

That was really hard at ﬁrst. [Tenured, large institution, 39 years old]

Decisions made in the past.

The second line of questioning was related to the decisions participants had to
make in order to accommodate the demands of family and employment when they started
their academic careers. This question generated lengthy responses and was inﬂuential in
enlightening the researcher to the respondents’ values and attitudes toward both their
employment and family lives. Generally, female faculty members working in small and
medium size institutions recognize the importance of working in a less demanding
institution to their desire to raise a family. Of those working in a small institution, the two
part-timers explained that their choice to work part-time instead of ﬁrll-time came
because they think that family needs are more important than career ﬁrlﬁllment. This
same rationale is used to justify the choices of working in a community college versus a
medium institution, medium institution versus large institution, and nontenure track
versus tenure-track in a medium institution. All of the interviewees working in a large
institution were tenured, tenure-track, or continuous appointment. Only one participant,
without children, addressed her choice to work as a ﬁrll-timer in a community college as
a personal decision and not a family one. The lack of competitiveness among faculty
members in a small institution was a major factor for her. She spoke at length about her
early choice in life.

When I was ﬁrst asked to apply to a full-time position, my ﬁrst response

was “thank you, but I am not interested.” The reason being because I think

that academia has a reputation for being controlled, climbing up the

ladders. Again, my ﬁrst response was “thank you, but I am not interested”
because I don’t want to get into that all of that. Teaching one or two

86

classes a semester was ﬁne with me. But, then people continued to talk to
me and tried to encourage me to apply for the position because I had a
good reputation with the students. My evaluation was good, the quality of
my work was good, and they really thought I would be a nice ﬁt for a full-
time position. I said “ok, I will apply.” I applied fully thinking that I
wouldn’t get the position because, as I understood it, there were 70
applicants for this position. What happened was I did get the position,
because here I am, which surprised me. And what they told me afterwards,
because they couldn’t talk to me while the process was going on, was that
my interviews, my responses were just exactly what they were looking for,
which just made me understand that my philosophy in the way that I
interact with people would ﬁt in very well with this particular group. You
don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to be here 3 years to get to be a
professor, which is kind of nice because you have that comfort of not
having to be competitive. There’s only one professor shift and there are
ﬁve other people who are competing. We don’t have that. And that is
where I think I got the negative impression of academics — people ﬁghting
to become assistant, or associate, or tenure, or whatever. We do have a
Union, which is some kind of protection. We don’t have tenure system,
but the Union gives some kind of protection in terms of employment.
[Full-time professor, community college, 51 years old]

For the others with children, the decision to work at a smaller institution, or not to
pursue academic status, was inﬂuenced more by the family values respondents hold.
Choices in that regard were made by almost all of the interviewees working at the small
or medium institutions. None of the participants working in those institutions addressed
the decisions they had had to make that inﬂuenced their family composition and size. In
other words, most of the decisions made by those participants had an inﬂuence on their
career, which may be considered a farnily-to-employment conﬂict. For the most part, the
interviewees working in a small or medium institution made their choices based on their
need to have a smaller workload in order to be able to raise a family and work outside the
home.

I started here in 1990, when my son was just a few months old. In part that

is why I took the job here rather than any other job. I knew this was a

place where the demands for tenure weren’t going to be as great as in
some other bigger institutions, and I thought it was a place where I could

87

really handle having a family and being a professor at the same time. So,
my son was very young when I ﬁrst started. When I went to request my
courses, what I wanted was what I got. I taught 5 days a week every
morning, and still I could be with my son every afternoon. The balance
was very important to me to try to be in an institution which would allow
me to raise a family and have the other priorities in my life and still having
the satisfaction of having been in an academic career. [T enured, medium
institution, 46 years old]

She continued talking about her choice in early life:

Choosing to come here for my job was a big decision because I did very
well in graduate school, and I had a very good dissertation topic that was
well received and won a national award. There were many choices I could
have made about places to go. There were moments when I felt that I was
getting out of not going to a university where I could make more money,
where there were more pressures to get tenure. It was a kind of constant
battle. It was, and it isn’t anymore. Could I have gone to any other place
where the support would be greater? Not only the support in terms of
money, but the support to do research, not as much of a teaching load, and
that kind of thing.

Two other participants also talked about their decisions not to work full-time and to
continue as part-timers. The ﬁrst one commented:

The decision I took in the past was based on discussions with my husband
when I got married, and my faith going to church and so on, where I felt
that there was a world value that I shouldn’t sacriﬁce what I considered
very important—family needs over my ﬁrlﬁllment in my career. I wasn’t
going to pursue status although I felt like I could because I always did well
at school. . . . When I got married we decided that we would start out
depending on my husband’s income because we knew that family would
be important and we wouldn’t want to have to count on me working full-
time. [Part-time instructor, community college, 39 years old]

Her peer on the same campus concurred:

Personally, my challenge was—I love work, I enjoy work, I love
academia. I always loved school. I loved graduate school and I like
working. I like teaching. 80 I always had something that leads me to want
to work more. Actually, it was not that I wanted to stay home or not work.
I wanted to work more. But I also understood that it was important to stay
home. So, it was always conﬂicting with me as far as priorities. As to
having children, I think that children complement life at work because I
don’t over-commit myself. If my husband is going to be the primary

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breadwinner in the house, I have to be the primary parent. My life has to
be more ﬂexible, so that helps me not over-commit here. [Part-time
instructor, community college, 39 years old]

A female working on another campus also talked about her decision not to pursue
academic status and, therefore, not to be on a tenure-track position.

I had the priority that at that point I wanted to spend more time with my
child than would be appropriate for being on a tenure-track position. I felt
that I didn’t intend to go back to school for a PhD at that point, and I had
taken some graduate classes in a post-master’s degree. Then, having a
child, I decided that I really didn’t want to pursue that, and that I wanted
to spend time with the child. By the time I left the tenure-track position it
seemed to me logical for the way my husband and I wanted to raise our
child, how I wanted to spend my time. I thought about that for a while and
then let that go. [Continuing contract, medium institution, 55 years old]

One other respondent also described how her career choices and, consequently,
her career development were inﬂuenced by her concerns with her children’s formal
education: “I could have moved to another state and accepted a more prestigious
position, but that would have meant uprooting my family during my children’s high-
schooling years, and it wasn’t something that I wanted to do to them.” [Continuing
contract, large institution, 46 years old]

Besides making career choices, overall those participants with children admitted
that they established priorities in their lives, and family was always their ﬁrst priority.
This same respondent talked about her life priorities:

I am proud to say that as a parent of two children who were accomplished

athletes, that I never missed an athletic event. The day that I should have

walked across the stage to receive my PhD, my son was in a regional ﬁnal

for his high-school basketball team, and I chose instead to go to his

basketball game rather than to go to my own graduation ceremony

(laughs). All of us had a good laugh about that because we thought it

spoke about where my priorities have always been. I always believed that

my family was more important than anything else, and I am willing to

sacriﬁce anything for them. It took me seven years to ﬁnish the PhD, and I
think it took that long in part because my family was reliant to some extent

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on the money that I earned by working full-time. So that I would not give
up the role as a ﬁrll-time employee, and my family counted on me to be
there for family events, and just to have fun time with them. [Continuing
contract, large institution, 46 years old]

One of the respondents described how her children had and still have and inﬂuence on
her employment productivity and, consequently, her career advancement.

There was a decision that I made that wasn’t recently and that was very
important, which was that I took time off after my second child was born,
which delayed obviously a lot of things. But because of my experience
with the ﬁrst one and probably how frustrated I felt (it was not arranged
very well), I did not feel that I was doing anything properly. I wasn’t
doing my job; I wasn’t being there for her when I feel I needed to. I
decided not to put myself in that position again. So for the ﬁrst year I went
part-time, and there was a price to pay for that but it was deﬁnitely the
right thing to do to give myself some more time being with her when she
was very, very young. So that was one decision. The second decision, and
it wasn’t really a decision, something that just happened and it was partly
a consequence of this and also having two young children at home, my
productivity is not as great. The pile of things that you see here is the
second book that I am trying to ﬁnish, that I began when my second child
was born in the 1990s. And it has been 12 years, and should have take me
six, maybe ﬁve to six, but it has been twice as long because I have young
children, I have two girls, so it’s twice as long. Fortunately, since I have
tenure, it’s not much of an issue, but I’m not promoted to full professor,
and there are obviously additional projects that aren’t getting done because
this one isn’t ﬁnished yet. So, it’s not a decision, it’s a consequence of,
that I recognize, and I think that everybody recognizes that I just cannot
completely have things done as quickly as I would have if I didn’t have
my girls. That’s the reality. [Tenured, large institution, 46 years old]

Her counterpart on another campus emphasized one of the difficulties she had to
face by making a decision that was not approved by her male colleagues. This may be an
example of issues related to gender discrimination, suggesting that women are less career
oriented and will face conﬂicts between employment and family roles when balancing
multiple roles in their lives.

One of the difﬁculties that I remember was probably in my ﬁrst year here

when I had a Conference presentation in somewhere faraway. I was going
to leave my son, and he got sick. It was the ﬁrst time he got sick, and I

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was supposed to get on the plane and go. I ultimately said no to going to

this Conference, and the male colleagues with whom I was presenting did

not completely understand that, and they thought that I was burning my

academic career. It was very difﬁcult for me to say “I’m not going.”

[Tenured, medium institution, 46 years old]

The participants in this study who were single when they started their careers
reported having more ﬂexibility and being more career oriented than those with children.
The ﬁrst one commented:

The biggest decision was what job offer to take? I had three offers from

three very different institutions. And geographically—in that way I would

be separated from my family, ﬁ'om my boyfriend. That was the pivotal

decision as to where I wanted to go. Family and boyﬁiend really came

ﬁrst. The second decision was career based. At what institution will my

affiliation most enhance my career? Do I want to start in a big twelve

institution? [Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 29 years old]
Her peer on the same campus concurred: “I don’t know if there was any big decision. I
think that the biggest decision was moving away ﬁ'om my mother. Being the youngest,
she and I were really very close.” [Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 35 years
old]

An employment-to-family conﬂict was also faced by three of the interviewees.
Their conversations exemplify how the importance placed on their career has inﬂuenced
their family life. While two of the participants delayed the formation of their family, the
other decided not to have a bigger family. This is how a 46-year-old, tenured professor

working in a large institution described the decisions she had to make in order to

accommodate her career:

I cannot even imagine how I could have got through it if I had other
divergence on my time. I really had to be very single-minded. There were
relationships that I was in with people with whom I stayed ﬁiends over the
years, and who told me that it didn’t either matter that I could have been in
a relationship and I wasn’t. I wasn’t available to one because I was so
committed to what I had set myself to do. And it was to get my degree.

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This may be a weakness or strength, but it’s who I am. Maybe I didn’t
allow myself the opportunity to pursue that other part of my life at that
point. But really by the time I came here I was 27. I had not the media sort
of image of that type of woman who realized that her biological clock was
ticking. I didn’t have that. I needed to move on to a more settled part of
my life. I needed to think about other things. So, when I got this job I
guess I thought that I had more psychic space or liberty or maybe even a
need to work on other things because only my work would not be enough.
So I did. I was able to ﬁnd somebody here.

She continued talking about how having children at an older age and a more advanced
stage in her career helped in her career progress:

I was quite an old mom to start having children, and there are certain
downsides to that. I never really had to worry about the ways in which
having a very young infant might have upset that process of getting tenure.
I was working on the ﬁnal revision of my book while I was pregnant, and
it was hard because it was painful and difficult. But I knew it was a very
good thing to be doing because the book and the baby came at the same
time, and then I got tenure within a month. It was a very wonderﬁrl,
completely by chance coincidence, which made my process in a certain
degree easier than other people who have to juggle having a child in a very
young age and getting a book ﬁnished for tenure, which is the thing that
we need to do in my ﬁeld to get a book published within six years when
we ﬁrst arrive here—and it’s always a struggle.

 

A coworker on this same campus also described how her career aspirations affected her
family life:
I guess [I made] the decision not to have a bigger family. When my son
was born that was unexpected, so we just dealt with the situation. It wasn’t
difficult at ﬁrst because there weren’t a lot of immediate pressures. It was
just a sort of business trying to coordinate everything once we moved,
because he was little. It became pretty clear that it would be impossible
with more children. I know people have them, but I don’t know how they
do it. [Tenured, large institution, 39 years old]
Past support network.
A third way to approach how female faculty members managed the employment-

family interface was to discuss the informal support networks they had in place by the

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time they started their academic careers. None of them addressed the use of formal
support networks. It was important for the researcher to know whether the participant felt
that having a good support network made an important contribution toward easing the
difﬁculties they faced in managing their different roles. Overall, respondents with
children stated that having a source of childcare was fundamental to the initial stages of
their careers. It is evident from the participants’ responses that their main source of
support was someone close to them and, in most cases, a husband/partner. When talking
about childcare, interviewees had to rely on either their husbands or on outsiders for
support. Outside support was characterized by extended family members, such as a
mother or mother-in-law, or a babysitter. Those without a husband’ 3 support, without an
immediate family member to rely upon, and/or without money to pay for childcare faced
the greatest challenges in trying to manage different and conﬂicting demands. Usually, all
of the interviewees with children expressed dissatisfaction with the way they were
handling their demands. This is how one participant describes the role of her husband
when she had a small child at home:

It was a challenge having a small child and having all of the things that go

with that—child illnesses, etc—and starting a new career as an academic

and trying to ﬁt it all in. As an academic, it is much easier than it would

have been in high-school teaching, which does not have certain ﬂexibility.

I have great ﬂexibility in terms of when I taught. Especially earlier, I

worked all the time. I was committed not to have my children in a ﬁt“-

time daycare, and my husband did have a ﬂexible schedule too at that

time. It was incredibly challenging, and I was very lucky that he could

help with that, and helped me to be able to do it. The challenges are there

are not enough hours a day to ﬁt it all in. [Tenured, medium institution, 46

years old]
Like many of the other participants in this study, one faculty member views the

emotional support of her husband as extremely important for her.

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Easier for me was having an incredibly supportive spouse in those early
days, with my ﬁrst child especially, when he managed his schedule and
could be home sometimes. That was amazing. That helped so much. And
it is really helpful to have a spouse. [Tenured, medium institution, 35
years old]

Another participant also stressed the importance of keeping her career after having
children and her appreciation for her husband’s help.

After my son was born, it was really nice to go back to work once a week,
in the evening, when my husband could be home with him, and still get
out, and still keep my career. I was doing only two hours a week, but I was
still able to go back to work. [Part-time instructor, community college, 39
years old]

Even with her husband’s support, one of the interviewees decided to stop working
while her children were young. She described how frustrated she felt being a stay-at-
home mom:

When my daughter was born I resigned my position, so I could stay home
and be a full-time parent. I stayed home until my son was born two years
later. I was a little bit ﬁ'ustrated being home all the time. As much as I love
being with the children, I felt that I wanted the opportunity to work
professionally again. [Continuing contract, large institution, 46 years old]

Later in the interview, this same participant disclosed her feelings toward being a full-
time mom, and her concerns about being a role model for her daughter:

When I was staying home full-time, there was an occasion when I was
getting dressed to go out somewhere. While I was in front of a mirror
putting on make—up, my daughter was sitting on the ground beside me. She
was very young. I think she was maybe three or four years old. And with
all the adulation in her voice that you can imagine, she looked at me and
said “Mom, when I grow up, I want to be nothing, just like you!” And
there was that moment when my lipstick ﬁ'oze. And I thought “Did she say
what I thought? She just said she wanted to be nothing!” She clearly put
into words something that I’ve been thinking of too. What kind of
modeling am I doing for my daughter about what women do in the world?

Without their husbands’ support, two participants had to rely on other kinds of

support networks, such as extended family, babysitters, and daycare. Three other

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participants were single parents during the start of their academic careers, and one of
them had no available money to pay for outside help. Their situations made management
more complicated, and they faced more problems than the other participants in trying to
manage the employment-family interface. A participant who was divorced from her ﬁrst
husband and trying to continue her studies so she could pursue an academic career, talked
about some of the dilemmas she had to face in her life:

I really wanted to go back to school, but how am I going to do this and the

babysitting? My mother was working full-time, my father wasn’t there,

and my sister was working. I had to continually try to get adequate

daycare, which was just so difficult because it wasn’t a part of the college

scene. Even though I was a relatively young woman, daycare on campus

was basically for faculty because they could afford it. So, that was the

major problem: how can I be a good mother, go to school at night, and

work ﬁrll-time with piano lessons and all of that? [Tenured, medium

institution, 52 years old]
Her coworker also explained how difﬁcult it was for her to take care of her one-year old
son and still work:

I had a one-year old son. I was a single parent, and I went straight from

College to Graduate School—500 miles away from anybody I knew—and

I had no idea of how hard it was going to be. And it was a good thing,

because if I had some idea I would have not have done it. I found it

extremely difﬁcult, particularly when he was very little, because little kids

get sick quite a bit. [Full-time lecturer, medium institution, 30 years old]

Mentoring was a frequently cited source of support that participants could rely
upon. Mentors helped those in the initial stages of their careers to buffer the challenges of
managing conﬂicting demands, offering them guidance and encouragement. The
importance of mentors was cited by everybody, no matter what kind of family situation
they were in. “I think that I have been very, very fortunate to work with mentors, both

male and female mentors, who also valued family life and understood my appreciation

95

for it. I think that they have buffered some of the challenges.” [Continuing contract, large
institution, 46 years old]

I was hired with another person to launch a program in Master’s and PhD.
So he has kind of become a mentor for me as we develop these new
programs. And, in this sense, it almost becomes a family-type situation:
you have your stresses, you have your celebrations, and you have the same
sort of things you experience in a family situation. [Untenured on tenure-
track, large institution, 29 years old]

At the same time that having a mentor at the workplace helped female faculty
members to overcome many difﬁculties, the absence of one was indicated as a source of
stressors for female faculty members.

The professor who ended up being my dissertation chair is a woman. So I
thought at ﬁrst this is going to be really helpful. She’ll understand, she had
a difﬁcult childhood herself, had adopted children, and had gone through
some political stuff at work about being a woman. It turns out that she was
harder to deal with than most of the guys, which really shocked me. I felt
very uncomfortable because I thought, "Here’s a sharing experience that
we have.” Not that I wanted to take advantage of that, but at least she
would understand where I’m coming from, that I cannot do this because I
have to go home and take my son out from the daycare. She couldn’t
understand at all. And I think that this is a characteristic of a certain
generation of women in the academia because they had to ﬁght so hard to
be accepted that they became worse than the worst of the men. [Full-time
instructor, medium institution, 30 years old]

A coworker on this same campus also expressed her discontent not having a mentor. Her
situation was a little different ﬁ'om the other participants because she is African-
American. Because most of the academic setting is composed of Caucasians, she faced
problems in ﬁnding a role model. She put in this way:

The PhD was in the back of my mind, but as an African-American, it just

did not seem real to me, because I had no role model that could show me

you can actually do this. My 'mother worked in a laundry for 30 years.

Even though my mother was an intellectual giant, she did not know

anything about this. With the expectations of someone who was in her

early thirties, I thought that I had to get this degree now. [Tenured,
medium institution, 52 years old]

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Later in the interview, this same participant also talked about how things started to
change in her life when she found a group of African-Americans facing the same
challenges as she was, and how important their support was to the development of her
career.

Having a female mentor that helped me to understand that made all the

difference. Also, ﬁnding a group of women who were in the same boat

that turned into a group called “Sisters in Struggle.” They were all black

women working on a PhD, and mentored by women who had PhDs. All of

the sudden I had what I’d consider a critical mass of people saying “You

can do this. This is what you have to do. This is where you have to focus.”

I’m not sure if I had not inadvertently stumbled across that group if I

would have made it, because they forced us to come to meetings and say

“What have you done? Have you been to a Conference? Have you written

a paper? Are you having problems with research? Here’s where you go.”

So, I have this view that there’re some people out there, and they helped

tremendously. Those women made the difference for me. Having people

think that you can do it, and also having my mother. My mother was a
strong mentor for me, as well as my second husband.

Summary.

Female faculty members have indicated to prioritize either their family/household
or their employment environment earlier in life. Those who ﬁrst prioritized their
family/household life usually decided to work for a less demanding institution and/or not
to seek tenure status. Female faculty members who ﬁrst prioritized their employment life
delayed the formation of their families and/or decided not to have a bigger family.
Participants also indicated that their family members and/or close friends were their main
sources of support. The presence of a mentor also helped participants to overcome some

of the difﬁculties associated with the management of different and conﬂicting roles.

97

Employmentfamily management: Chrrent experiences.

The second set of questions covered the management of employment-household
in the present. Basically, the questions regarding female faculty members’ past
experiences were asked again, but with a focus on the present. Questions were asked
related to how they manage the employment-family interface, what decisions they had to
make recemly to accommodate different demands, and the support network that they
could rely upon.

To begin, participants were asked to describe their experiences in managing the
employment and family interface in the present. Overall, the interviewees expressed
mixed feelings regarding the management of multiple roles. Those with children were
unanimous in stating that their children’s needs and demands are not as high as they were
when they were little, but they now entail other kinds of burdens. Children’s
independence and self-sufﬁciency help participants to have more ﬂexibility and personal
time.

Now it’s a little easier because I actually sleep through the night and I

have rest, so I can think, I can plan, have creativity and have ﬁrn. The kids

are middle-school age—my youngest is in kindergarten and my oldest is

in 6th grade—after toddlers and diapers and before teenagers. So, it’s

pretty easy right now, and it’s pretty easy to ﬁt work while they’re at

school. [Part-time instructor, community college, 39 years old]

My job here has evolved in the way my family has grown. As my family

has grown and given me more ﬂexibility as well as personal time, they’re

not quite as dependent. My son would get up and make his own lunch.

And it’s not because I asked him or he has to, but because he wants to. So,

that frees me up to do something else: check my e-mail, do whatever I

want to do. That’s kind of nice. There’s a different kind of a ﬂow, and yet

it’s also more predictable [Part-time instructor, community college, 39

years old]

It’s crazy. I’m so glad my kids can drive. It makes such a big difference. I
think that it wouldn’t work; I don’t see how I could get to work if they

98

weren’t as mature and responsible as they are. I have a lot of success
thanks to their support. [F ull-time professor, community college, 47 years
old]

My son is eight years right now, so he’s got a little older, he’s more
independent, and I’ve been knowing him for some years, so I’ve kind of
ﬁgured out some of the shortcuts that I can make and can live with, I
guess. I’ve found a balance to a certain degree. [Full-time instructor,
medium institution, 30 years old]

Although children’s independence and self-sufﬁciency help participants to better
manage their multiple roles, participants are now faced with other kinds of demands,
typical of grown-up kids. These are not need-level demands, but demands related to the
different activities in which children are involved in on a daily basis. Respondents also
expressed how difﬁcult it is to manage all the activities in which a child is involved and
the demands of work.

They are similar in the way that I still ﬁnd it very difﬁcult to ﬁnd a time to
do everything. As I have said, I am still working on my dissertation, and I
should not have been. Almost everybody else is done, and I am not. That
is because I slowed down. There is a lot of pressure there. Time pressures
are still there. I do not think that it goes away. Ironically, I thought it
would be easier to deal with the scheduling conﬂicts when he gets older,
but it is not. He is in soccer, in karate, and I need to do all the driving. But
it is also easier because I have had experience with that. As I said, I had to
ﬁgure it out "Yeah, you need to ﬁnd a network of ﬁiends who would help
you out.” And I am married and my husband helps a lot. But he teaches 9
classes, so I still end up doing all of the after class stuff because of the
way our schedules work. [Full-time instructor, medium institution, 30
years old]

The challenge now is, as I tell my colleagues, the second job that I begin
when I leave here. And again it’s not the very painstaking and intense sort
of, really, child work that we do when the children are very young. But it’s
more spending six hours a day in a car taking them to the set of other
things, making sure that arrangements are prepared so that you know
where the children are at every moment. So, it’s basically time crunch.
[Tenured, large institution, 46 years old]

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When talking about how they manage their employment and family demands,
participants emphasized the role of a ﬂexible work environment in their lives. As was
true for their past management of experiences, female faculty members independently of
institution of employment continue to attach a very high importance level to a ﬂexible
schedule. A part-timer explained why she chose to not work full-time:

I think the perfect balance is home and work part-time. I wouldn’t want to
stay home full-time, and I wouldn’t want to work full-time. I really like
working in a community college part-time, where I can control my hours
each semester depending on the need. [Part-time instructor, community
college, 39 years old]

A coworker also talked about how her life has changed since she started her career, how
ﬂexible she can be in her employment, and how this ﬂexibility is dependent upon her
family demands.

What has changed is that I’m back to work more. I work here 12 to 15
hours a week, and on the top of that I have my course. I stick it into two
days. I work Mondays and Thursdays with very little exception.
Occasionally, my boss may want a staff meeting on a Tuesday. As long as
I can get home by three o’clock to pick up the kids, I can come to the
meeting. But sometimes I cannot make the appointments on those days, so
I say “Sorry, I already have a doctor appointment,” or any other
appointment scheduled. Sticking to those two days a week helps, and
that’s different from where I was when I ﬁrst started. And my kids are
older. They aren’t getting sick as they used to, they don’t need me around
as much, they like going to school and having their ﬁiends and their time,
and they look forward to those two days a week when their dad picks them
up and they do different things. In some sense, it’s the same because I
work part-time, I’m still a faculty, and I still teach a class. [Part-time
instructor, community college, 39 years old]

The ﬂexibility of the academic setting allows female faculty members to both have a
career and take care of their home demands, which helps them to coordinate their

different needs.

This isn’t the same as a university system. A community college is more
of a teaching system, so I don’t have the same levels of production, the

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same diversity of production. We still have no time. Our time is still
totally taken off by the academia, but it’s not the same. Our teaching
situation is very, very different. I still do travel, and sometimes I take my
family with me. Every night I do writing, reading or something. But the
ﬂexibility is just absolutely incredible. [Full-time professor, community
college, 52 years old]

I think that the schedules work well, and most of the time I don’t have lots
of responsibilities here during the spring and summer, which works out
very well for keeping up the place at home. So it really complements. I’d
have trouble now with my home situation doing a 40 hour a week job.
This is much more ﬂexible. [U ntenured on tenure-track, medium
institution, 45 years old]

The schedules in academia really allow for ﬂexibility. Even though you
work a bazillion hours a week, you have ﬂexibility when you’re going to
work those hours. And that has made it possible for me not to be an absent
parent with my kids. [Tenured, medium institution, 35 years old]

This department is very accommodating towards my scheduling needs,
which is nice because my husband teaches in another university. So, I get
his schedule and I can go to my department chair and say “This is what his
schedule’s going to be. May I work my teaching schedules around that?”
They’re ﬁne with that, which is just really nice, and it’s not true
everywhere. That helps. Again, the ﬂexibility regarding hours, office
hours, that kind of thing I can schedule whenever I want. Summer and
winter breaks are longer, and we can do a lot of interesting things together,
which is kind of nice. The ﬂexibility of the schedule is lovely. [Full-time
lecturer, medium institution, 30 years old]

A 47 year old, tenure-track assistant professor at a large institution said, “My department

is very supportive in terms of understanding that sometimes I need to leave, sometimes I

can’t be there.”

Career accomplishments also were attributed to the ﬂexibility of the academic

environment. One participant admitted that she would not have achieved what she did in

her life if she had a nonﬂexible job.

I’m fortunate that I work as a scholar in this area. That isn’t true for a lot
of working women, to be able to take time off to take care of their children
or to take care of aging parents, or whatever their particular needs. I’m
also fortunate because, as an academic, I have much more ﬂexible hours

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and time. So many things that I’ve been able to accomplish are because I
take my stack home, and other people cannot do that. I know from my
own experience and study that ﬂexibility and hours during the day are
very important for young children. These are things that need to be done to
make the system more accommodating to things that women and,
sometimes, men need to do for their families. [Tenured, large institution,
46 years old]

Participants also were asked how their employment and family lives complement
or enhance each other. Overall, participants stressed the importance of being a role model
for their children as one of the most important attributes of their work.

My work life in academia has deﬁnitely enhanced my home life in that
way. My two daughters are in school. I’m a bench mark. When I went to
college, I basically left my sister and mother behind. So, I think that it has
signiﬁcantly improved my family in that all of my sisters and my brother
have advanced degrees and are professionals. That and ﬁnancial
independence have been a blessing for our family. [Tenured, medium
institution, 52 years old]

Because my kids see how I feel about going back to school and being at
the school environment during the day, they’re excellent students. They
work very hard at their studies, they take it very seriously, and they know
that if they want to be successful as adults, it’s going to require them to go
to college. Both of them have decided that they want to get their Master’s
program completed as soon as they’re done with their bachelor’s. They’re
not going to wait like I did. It’s a good idea to see if that happens or not
because children come along, and marriages, and that’s kind of burning
for women, especially, I think. [Full-time professor, community college,
47 years old.]

I think that one way that my work life has enhanced my family life is that

both of my children are very, very proud of me. I know they brag about

my accomplishments to their friends and are pleased to have me meet their

ﬁiends. They’re interested in my work, and it’s not a feigned interest

because they both happen to be college students at the same university

where I have work. [Continuing contract, large institution, 46 years old]

Being able to advise their children on how to choose a career and a good school is
also important to female faculty members. Their employment life helps them to build on

their children’s experiences, and they feel that they could not have done that if they were

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not immersed in the education system. One of the participants expressed her thoughts this
way:

I feel that I was very fortunate, that I was very successful in ﬁnding really
good places for my children’s college. They went to really good schools.
And I knew exactly how to mold their precollege experiences with travel,
and reading, and course preparation to get them into really good schools. I
think that outside academia I wouldn’t know what was going on.
[Tenured, medium institution, 52 years old]

Two of the participants are working in areas in which their experiences at home may be
directly related to their experiences at work, and vice-versa. This is how one of the
interviewees, who has two disabled children at home, expressed how her work
complements her family life:

One of the biggest ways is that one of my specialty areas is accessible
design, and I have two disabled children. So, those areas actually
complement each other. I learned a lot ﬁ'om my kids and, consequently,
they have been exposed to things because of what I do. [Full-time lecturer,
community college, 50 years old]

For a single professor, work is not a place that complements her family life, but one
where she can focus all of her energy.

Because work’s an escape, work’s a place where I can put my emotional
and physical and mental energy, because I don’t have that outlet at home
to do so. I don’t have children, I don’t have pets, I’m not married, and I do
have a boyfriend. We’ve been together four years. But even after four
years, I don’t say it’s a casual relationship. We’re not married, we don’t
talk about marriage, we don’t talk about kids or adopting, anything like
that. So work’s a space where I can put that energy. And I think that
women who have to make other choices can spread that energy across
those interfaces of work and family. And I kind of just have work.
Depressing, but it’s ﬁne for me. [Untenured on tenure-track, large
institution, 29 years old]

Although participants admitted that they are satisﬁed with their current lives and

with the ﬂexibility of the academic environment, trying to ﬁnd a balance between work

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and family life is less than ideal. The interviewees’ struggle to ﬁnd that balance and not
to let their work interfere with their family lives, and vice-versa, was a concern.

It’s a dynamic process, and the balance is probably the hardest part—to
make sure that you have a balance, and that you’re not all about your
work—but on the other hand that your family is interfering with doing
your work. [Full-time professor, community college, 51 years old]

Three respondents also voiced concerns about ﬁnding a balance that would allow them to
have more time to dedicate to their family life. The ﬁrst one commented:

My husband’s a bigger baby than my children ever were. He’s more
demanding. He’s upset that I’m not home at 5 o’clock everyday, and I
keep telling him that I’m not an elementary school teacher, that I do have
to read and I do have to write. I have letters to write, I have reference
letters to write, I have students to coordinate, ﬁeld trips, all kinds of
reports, and I just have things I have to do. That’s the biggest challenge
right now, trying to get home. Get home before six, it’s my goal. [Full-
time professor, community college, 52 years old]

Her peer on another campus also stated:

It’s nice to have the ﬂexibility of an academic life. I can leave if
something happens to my son and I need to go pick him up from school or
something like that. I work a lot, we both work a lot. We still feel like
there’s a lot of time stolen from family, and we have this idea that we
should be able to have evenings and weekends somewhat clear, and it
always kind of gets squeezed, and smaller and smaller. I realize that I can
hear myself talking about how work and family are always at odds. I guess
that continues to be true. It’s just less painﬁrl than it was before, when
everything seemed like crisis management and now we’re into a routine.
[Tenured, large institution, 39 years old]

Most female faculty members indicated that their employment life has an
enormous amount of inﬂuence on their relationships at home.

It’s also a challenge for me to be away from my home because of the
multiple commitments, and being really involved in what I’m doing and
forgetting him [husband]. It’s not forgetting him because I don’t love him,
because I don’t care for him. Of course I do. But it’s all of a sudden being
in an environment where I wanted to be and seeing things that I wanted to
do because the opportunities are so much more, and recognizing that he’s
back there. He reminds me when he gets mad. He says “You can do this

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for all of your students, you can do this for the faculty, you can do this for
the Department Head, but you forgot all I ask you to do is just one thing —
just to ﬁll up the car, and it ran out of gas.” And he is right. [Tenured,
medium institution, 52 years old]

Another professor also talked about how she is struggling to get involved in her
daughter’s wedding plans, and not let conﬂicting schedules interfere with their

relationship. She stated:

Right now we’re trying to plan a wedding. It’s really challenging because
it’s the ﬁrst time in a very long time. It has not been challenging up until
the past few months. My daughter works a really unusual shift. She works
evenings in an intensive care unit, and our schedules do not match at all.
She’d like me to be involved in wedding planning, going to appointments
at ﬂorists, with the pastor of our church, with photographers, that sort of
thing. And it’s almost impossible for us to ﬁnd days and times to do that.
We’re still struggling with that right now because we manage not to miss
other opportunities, and we don’t want this to become the thing that we
have regrets about. [Continuing contract, large institution, 46 years old]

As these women indicated, having a ﬂexible job presents some problems, such as
not having a time frame to perform the work. One other participant also pointed to the
lack of a boss as a disadvantage of academic life.

...in a university or college, everybody else is going to let you do what
you want to do. If you want to punish yourself and do everything, just go
ahead and do it. The disadvantage is that there is nobody to stop you from
working. In a college, there is nothing to stop you from working. So, I
ﬁnally was able to get my load down to some reasonable point. This
semester is the ﬁrst semester that I have a reasonable load. I am just
learning to say "No." I am just not required to do it. And I am still here. I
am just not trying to dig to the bottom of my desk for being overloaded. It
will be great if I just keep saying "No,” and keep negotiating some
strength. [Full-time faculty, community college, 53 years old]

Even those married without children ﬁnd it difﬁcult to manage their husbands’
demands for free time with the demands of their career:
That’s what I mean about loving what you do. You don’t notice the time.

“Is it time to go home? I cannot believe it! Let me do one more thing, just
one more thing.” And then I get a call “Are you coming home for dinner?”

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“Oh, yes! Give me another half hour.” So, I think that would be a stress in
terms of relationships because I love what I do, I keep enjoying making
things good. [Full-time professor, community college, 51 years old]

In addition, as they advance in their careers, female faculty members ﬁnd it even
more difﬁcult to manage their different roles than they have in the past, due to increasing
demands at work.

My experience now is that when you think it’s going to get easier or
simpler you couldn’t simplify it. It never gets simpler. It always gets more
complicated; it’s always more piled up. Earlier on I had this utopia
thinking about simplifying, and being able to repeat things, and to be able
to follow a system for things, and it doesn’t really happen. [Full-time
professor, community college, 52 years old]

In academia it seems like a cycle. The more you do, the more you are
asked to do. So it seems like a spiral. Now I have more time to devote to
work, I spend more time doing work. It is a continuing cycle of
expectations. That is a challenge. It is always a challenge trying to balance
things, but it also seems so much easier for me now than it did earlier on.
The biggest challenge for me now is that I need to drive everybody to
different places all the time. One of the ways I do that is that I just bring
work with me. [Tenured, medium institution, 46 years old]

I guess that more responsibility, more pressure, more challenges to work
in things that it is harder to unwind, it is harder to do things that are related
to work. It is harder to just have quality time. We can clear that off at
family get togethers, but it would only take us minutes before my husband
and I were talking about work. I guess one of the large changes is that life
is not composed of as many bearable areas of work and interests as it used
to be. I used to garden, I used to do a lot of reading and sewing, and work
has become both my vocation and my application. [Continuing contract,
large institution, 46 years old]

Managing different roles also brings problems related to a lack of sleep, as this
same respondent continued:

I’ve talked to a lot of other women who also acknowledge that the way a

woman in academia manages to have quality family life and a successful

career is by learning to live with very little sleep. And I master that
technique. Until this day I only sleep about ﬁve or six hours per night.

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Trying to ﬁnd a balance between their work and family lives is a point of struggle
for female faculty members, even for those without children. For some, the need to bring
work home also creates a strain in family relationships.

I think that would be a stress in terms of relationships because I love what
I do, I keep enjoying making things good, but then still having enough
time to do ﬁrn things at home too. I’m not a person who leaves my work
here; I take my work home. I teach an on-line course, virtual college, so I
can get on-line while I’m at home and I don’t care what’s on television, I
can get on-line. I get involved. From the room next door my husband asks
what I’m doing in there. I’m talking to my students, or I’m checking up
the discussion call, or I’m putting together a new handout. [Full-time
professor, community college, 51 years old]

Contrary to that idea, one respondent said that although she likes her work, she
needs time to perform personal things. For her, time constraints and the need to have
personal free time is a matter of concern.

I feel like I didn’t have enough time to get everything done and to do the
job I wanted to do while leaving something for my personal life. I truly am
a person who believes that I love what I do here, but it is not my life. I
have got other things to do and other responsibilities, so it was challenging
at times. [Untenured on tenure-track, medium institution, 45 years old]

Differing from the idea of conﬂict management, a single professor without
children explained how she does not have to set priorities in her life. Her attitude towards
the management of life experiences is different from those who need to deal with
conﬂicting demands. She explained how she deliberately does not let her work and
family lives merge into one another.

I work Monday through Friday. I usually work 11 or 12 hours a day,
straight. Usually on Saturdays I take off and devote that time entirely to be
with my boyfriend. So, it’s either work or family. Because I live alone,
because I don’t see my boyfriend during the week, and I rarely see my
family, I can make that decision. When I look at my colleagues with
young children at home, they don’t have that. If their kids are sick, they
have to stay home, or they have to be home for dinner at six o’clock. I can
come to work at seven am. and stay until nine o’clock at night if I want.

107

To me it’s a freedom; it’s a blessing that I can do that. But that’s my
perspective. People would look at me and say “Oh that is pathetic. Don’t
you want a dog, or a kid to go home to?” No, I don’t. I like having the
absolute freedom to decide when I’m going to work, or when I’m going to
spend time with family. When I decide to work, that’s it. Work gets a
hundred percent of my attention. And when my boyﬁiend is here, or when
I have my family close, they get a hundred percent of my attention.
There’ s a ﬁrndamental split there. [U ntenured on tenure-track, large
institution, 29 years old]

As already presented, female faculty members advancing in their careers tend to
face more managerial difficulties. Nevertheless, those in a more advanced stage of their
career, such as those who already have tenure, for example, also expressed more
conﬁdence in managing their lives when a family situation is interfering with their work.

When you get started, you don’t know what it’s okay to say or not. I
continue to be as successful in academia as I used to be. I have three books
published, I have lots of articles published, I have done this stuff that
could get me anywhere and not just here. So, I have a lot more conﬁdence
in the fact that I would be a good academic and a good citizen, and be a
very committed parent. The conﬁdence makes it a lot easier now. IfI have
to miss something because a kid is sick, or if I have to do something
differently because of my commitment to my family, I have more
conﬁdence that I can still be a really productive academic. [Tenured,
medium institution, 46 years old]

I think I have come to a good pattern in my life. There was a time in my

life when I was in my 20s and 305 where I was, maybe, consumed with

achieving in my career. And I do not necessarily mean climb up the

ladder, and getting better jobs, but the quality of what I did, and not

feeling that I have done enough. [Full-time professor, community college,

51 years old]

In addition to career advancement, achieving job stability has helped participants
to be more conﬁdent when making decisions related to their careers, which leads to less
emotional stress. One participant talked about how attaining tenure ﬁeed her from some

of her burdens:

The tenure ball is off of my head. I no longer have to impress people. I no
longer have to be this way or that way. It’s different because I can take

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risks. And I like taking risks. And I took some risks when I was untenured,
but I know that I’ll take more now. And I know that would be satisfying
because they’re risks that I’d take for myself, and not risks that were
imposed by some other groups or individuals. I can now say that research
is of no interest to me. And that research is interesting to other people that
I’m not interested to work with. There’s a certain amount of power in
knowing who I am, and what I can do. [Tenured, medium institution, 52
years old]

Recent decisions made.

When talking about decisions they had to make recently in order to manage their
employment and family lives, many of the interviewees talked about a decision to reduce
their workload to an acceptable amount. This is how one participant described the recent
decision she made:

To cut back. When you get overloaded, you don’t get paid, and the
management doesn’t care. In the community college you can get paid over
time, because of our Union and contract. Because I coordinated my
program, they don’t want you to release, but ﬁnally somehow I negotiated
and got my load down to a reasonable load. So, I actually can be home at
night, and I have a week of work. I have my courses down to one course,
and I am coordinating a program and developing a program. And during
the overload I was teaching 3 or 4 classes, which is totally unattainable.

Totally unreasonable. [Full-time professor, community college, 52 years
old]

One participant stated that overload was starting to give her stress-related
problems, which made her step back.

I was having problems with stress, and it was starting to manifest some
physical symptoms. Because I tend to be someone who volunteers for
everything, I don’t like to tell people “No.” And I think that has probably
been the most difﬁcult for me, probably since Fall, to step back and say
“No,” and say “I’ll probably do this, but until these other things are done
I’m not going to do this.” [Untenured on tenure-track, medium institution,
45 years old]

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Teaching loads also led one participant to prioritize her teaching because she does
not have time to do other things. This is a problem that may inﬂuence her productivity as
a faculty member, and she is aware of that.

Because I’m a ﬁrll-time lecturer, I teach ﬁve sections per semester, which

is a lot, a lot of teaching. So, to do that well, and to have time to do

research, and because—it’s not that I dislike research, but it’s the least

important to what I’m doing—because of that, that’s the one that gets
squeezed. Unfortunately, that’s the one you’ve got to do to get

professional credentials. [Full-time instructor, medium institution, 30

years old]

A decision to reduce their workload was not cited by those working in a large
institution. This detail may be explained by the fact that they have more ﬂexibility in
when they perform their work. The ﬂexibility may be attributed to their not having as
high a teaching demand as those working in small and medium institutions, where the
teaching load is very high. Teaching times are rigid, and, as a consequence, a person’s
schedule is less ﬂexible.

One participant talked about her decision to take on a new responsibility and to
break out of the routine that she had already established in her life. Her decision was
based on her desire to enhance her career, but at the same time, she has to coordinate her
family life with this new responsibility:

I’ve taken a new responsibility this past year, so I’m not teaching this

year. It has really changed my work life and my schedule. It was a big

family decision whether or not I should do this because I could be doing

too much. When you’re going along with a determined course, you

already know what to expect. But when you want to do something that

will enhance your career and you’re really excited about it but you know

that it’ll break those really good patterns that you’ve established — it will

involve more travel — how am I going to do it? So, this was really a big

decision that I made last spring. It’s working out ﬁne. [Tenured, medium
institution, 46 years old]

In contrast, the decision to stay at the current position was also cited by one participant.

110

A consideration, which is probably common to any position that you have,
is whether you are maximizing the use of skills and being reimbursed
accordingly. Probably there are other positions where I could be making
more money at this point than I really am, for the amount of experiences I
have and the variety of skills that I have. On the other hand, this is
something that I enjoy doing. I’ve known these people that I work with for
years, and the commute is not huge. It is a trade-off always. The decision
is do I continue with this or is it something more satisfying? [Continuing
contract, medium institution, 55 years old]

Only two interviewees were responsible for the care of an elderly person, and one
was responsible for the care of two disabled children. Only one participant had made
recent decisions regarding elderly care.

I think moving our mothers here. It’s the biggest decision in terms of

impact on life. So, it became clear that we would be their primary

caregivers rather than allowing other siblings or other people to take care

of them. [Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 47 years old]

Later in the interview, she continued expressing her concerns:

Caring for elderly is very time consuming, emotionally tiring, and it’s very

difﬁcult to watch them declining. We’ve been dealing with that, and it’s a

big challenge. It’s a huge amount of time, and it’s not at all rewarding. I

mean, I’m watching my mother decline, and it’s not like raising a child

where the child grows and learns something. This is exactly the opposite. I

wouldn’t have chosen to do this if I’d realized how difficult it would be.
Nonetheless, we’ve taken on this responsibility and I’m glad that I’ve

done it. But I don’t like it.

Current support network.

According to the informal support female faculty members have, a husband’s
support continues to be an important factor in helping female faculty members to manage
their life demands. Overall, female faculty members who worked part-time when their
children were young and are now working full-time were unanimous in stating that their

husbands now have a greater responsibility in family matters.

lll

My husband and I tend to now share more of the responsibilities at home,
because before I was confused as part-time, which is true because I would
certainly be home before my husband, who commutes a long distance.
That’s kind of nice because now he has more, not that he didn’t have
before, but today he has more appreciation of what goes into doing things.
[Continuing contract, medium institution, 55 years old]

Although the support of their husbands is important and helpﬁrl, sometimes it is not

sufficient in alleviating women’s overload. A female professor expressed her

dissatisfaction with the difﬁculties she still faces in managing her innumerable demands:

Even though my husband does the cleaning, and the laundry—what else
does he do?—he doesn’t do all the yard work, but he’s in charge of it. He
hires people to help him, whatever. So he does all the inside and the
outside work, and I do the shopping and the cooking. Even though we do
have a very good division of labor, I think that ﬁnding a time to do all
those things on a daily basis is very intense. I told another colleague the
other day—it’ s like a race, and then you get to collapse at the end.
[Tenured, large institution, 46 years old]

Generally, husbands, partners, and boyfriends are also the closest people with whom

these women may share their experiences.

Certainly my boyﬁiend has been really important. He has been really
supportive. He’s in a totally different ﬁeld. So he’s kind of a window into
academic life. All of these things that I take for granted and assume to be
the norm he says “Why do people do that? Why do you think that way?
Why do you act that way?” He allows me to see into my life in ways that I
wouldn’t otherwise see on my own. [U ntenured on tenure-track, large
institution, 29 years old]

One of the participants talked about the fact that she does not like to share her work

problems with her husband, even though he is pretty open to listening. For her, when she

is out of the workplace she likes to forget about work

In my family, my husband loves to hear, but I don’t want to talk about it.
But he loves to hear it. When I leave work, I’m ﬁnished. When he wants
to hear it, and I don’t want to share, it’s a conﬂict. I try to ﬁnd other areas;
complementary areas rather than work. To me I just left work. I was there.
Twelve hours. I’m ﬁnished. Let’s play. Let’s go to the movies. I want to

112

ﬁnd out something else. [Full-time professor, community college, 52 years
old]

Contrary to that idea, a coworker on the same campus expressed how disturbed she feels
at not having her husband’s support.

Frankly, I cannot really talk to my husband about it because he is not as
supportive as I would like him to be. But now he has come to a place
where he has accepted it and supports it but... I know he has trouble with
my work because I love it, and it is really a competing for affections. He
wished that I loved homemaking as much as I love the teaching
environment. He gets jealous, I think. [Part-time lecturer, community
college, 39 years old]

Having a ﬁiend in the workplace also alleviates stress for some people. It helps
female faculty members to have a person who shares some of the same experiences they
do, and on whom they may count to understand their issues.

The people I work with, I’ve been very lucky. For the most part, people

that I interacted with had the same kind of understanding that we all have

to have to work together to get along. Establishing relationships right up

front, knowing that you cannot always get what you want, and also to

negotiate based on needs. Who has the greatest needs, how can we help

each other. That’s not to mean that we didn’t come across people who

were more dominant, or wanting more, or more insensitive. On the whole,

I think that the culture of the organization made us be ﬂexible with one

another. [Full-time professor, community college, 51 years old]

A 46 year old tenured professor at the medium institution commented, “There have been
many, many more faculty women who have children since I started here. And that has
helped me because they’re people who really understand what’s going on.”

The person I probably talk about the most is probably the most organized

person and efﬁcient person I’ve ever met, and she still cannot seem to get

on top of it. That’s good news for me, but maybe not for her. [Tenured,

large institution, 39 years old]

On the other hand, some participants had strong and very different feelings about

sharing their situations in the workplace. For them, talking about issues they face in

113

managing their lives may prevent career progress. A 30 year old full-time instructor in
medium institution said, “I don’t talk about that at work very much because I see that as
career limiting, frankly. There’s one person here who I really do talk about that
occasionally, but even then I’m kind of tied guarded.”

Because we’re both known in the ﬁeld, we cannot talk to colleagues, even
though our colleagues are also our ﬁiends. If we disagree—we don’t often
disagree—on a curricular matter or on a review of work, we cannot talk
about that with other people. We don’t talk. We absolutely don’t talk
about family planning anywhere. [Untenured on tenure-track, large
institution, 35 years old]

Informal support offered by a department can also help female faculty members in their
management process.

I think my department has been very supportive of women. We have more
women than men by one or two at this moment. One of my colleagues just
had a child a year ago and she just got tenure. Obviously we’re doing
something right because she’s able to go through those life changes and do
both of them. [Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 47 years old]

Our department now is about one-third females, and we make some
unilateral decisions on how we handle things, such as maternity leave and
other kind of things. We’ve been able to get away with that, we can do
that. Nobody bothers us. As long as we write our books we can do
whatever we want. [Tenured, large institution, 46 years old]

There is a lot of talk in academia about more ﬂexible tenure system. I
didn’t need it, but I know it’s needed. The system wasn’t based on
women’s life cycles. It was based on men’s, with women taking care of
the home and the family. As it is true for lawyers, doctors, and for many
professionals, you have to make your name in your ﬁeld just at the
moment you need to establish your family life. It’s very difﬁcult for
women. It’s just an incredible crunch at a particular moment in your life.
[Tenured, large institution, 46 years old]

Later in the interview, this same participant continued:
I feel so sorry for people who work with colleagues who don’t

understand how important both of those roles are, and that neither can be
neglected, and neither ought to be taken away simply because one has

114

children. I wish that all women could work in supportive environments, as
I’ve always worked in.

One Aﬁican—American respondent was shocked by the discrimination and the
lack of informal support she found at one institution. She addressed the issues of race
discrimination and isolation. This is how she expressed herself:

I hit tenure track and I found out that I had just begun. Being in a tenure
track position and coming in as the ﬁrst black woman in the department
has been a real challenge. I knew that would be, but I didn’t know the
extent of it. But I assumed incorrectly that things would be different, and I
was incredibly disappointed. . .that they were worse. The difference
between academia and corporate is that the process has a lot to do with the
support of your department, who are you allied with when you come in.
What does that ally mean, how much support are you going to get, how
many things are you going to be knowledgeable on and that you should be
knowledgeable on but the information is retained. It was a very difﬁcult
transition. I’ve seen favoritism before, and it’s not something that I wasn’t
aware of. I’ve been discriminated [against] before, but to see that in such
display, the corporate didn’t do like that. I was much more comfortable in
the settings in the 703 and 80s, where you say “This could be happening.
Probably this is happening,” but at least it’s not on your face. That was a
discovery of in your face type of racism that I encountered in academia
that has been shocking to me. That has been the real challenge. [Tenured,
medium institution, 52 years old]

Later in the interview, she spoke of her need to have a person with a similar
background to share her feelings; one who would understand the issues characteristic of a
black woman working in the academic environment: “The biggest challenge I face right
now is the isolation. It’s not easy to walk across campus and ﬁnd a black female faculty
to talk to. You never get that critical mass together to air your feelings.”

When talking about the formal support available to them, most of the participants
stated that they do not like to make use of formal support networks. However, those who
use them ﬁnd them both helpﬁrl and necessary. They also think that these networks of

support should be more inclusive and should promote themselves to those unfamiliar with

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their existence. The availability of formal support networks is helpful to female faculty
members in managing their employment and family demands.

This particular college has a lot of support. They have the Women’s
Resource Center, and I feel that because it’s a community college, it’s
very important. They cover anything from psychological issues, who
would be having ﬁnancial issues, and I think that they probably need to
promote themselves a little more. There are a lot of people who would use
their resources, but because of the nature of what they do they’re not real
obvious, and sometimes when you need help you need someone to come
along with a hammer and say “Here I am.” I wish they could ﬁnd a
dignifying way to promote themselves, so that people will use their
services. There are a lot of people here that could make use of what they
offer. Changing their name. It’s not just women. There are a lot of men
that need to have some support. It’s different ﬁ'om the counseling office,
because it’s not just emotional and psychological, and it’s different ﬁ'om
academic advising. [Full-time professor, community college, 47 years
old]

Our health care and our dental coverage are outstanding, and that makes it
much easier. With those things in place, we’re actually more at liberty to
think about having kids because a lot of health care at least is covered
[Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 35 years old]

Although most of the interviewees afﬁrmed that they do not make use of formal
support systems, when talking about which kind of support systems should be developed
or improved, most of the interviewees felt that more childcare programs should be
available. They also indicated that their children’s school hours do not coincide with their

schedules.

The other thing is before elementary school and after elementary school—
the hours between three and six—is just an ongoing struggle for working
people. It never gets resolved. Everybody says this is the most important
thing; childhood education is a key element about how our students
perform later. It is the lowest paid profession, and it is degraded, and
people who cannot do anything else, do this. It is insane. We were
fortunate to ﬁnd really good institutions for our children, but they were the
only one in the entire community. If they could not get in there we would
have virtually no options for them that we could have been comfortable
with. It simply should not have been that way. It is not simply a hinge for
working people. It has been good for the kids too. It is good for

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everybody, and it has been so underdeveloped in American society, and I
know it is not true for other cultures. We have been very fortunate, but I
know that there are other families that struggle about what their children
are going to do between 3 and 6, when they get home. It is crazy that this
situation happens. It is the simplest thing in the world, to work out
something that it is good for kids to do after school. [Tenured, large
institution, 46 years old]

I would like to see schools, elementary public education system, have
better childcare programs too, and being more accepting to the fact that, I,
for example, have a ﬂexible schedule and my son’s school has an after
school program, but you have to sign up in August and you have to keep
that same schedule all year around. And that does not do me any good
when one semester ends and in the next one my teaching schedule
changes. So I ﬁnd it very frustrating. [Full-time instructor, medium
institution, 30 years old]

Care of the elderly was another kind of support addressed by a participant who is
committed to taking care of seniors.

I think the university is going to have to come to grips with the fact that a
lot of faculty and staff do care for elder parents. And they are going to
think about on-campus-care facilities. We have day care for children. I
think that we’re going to have to start thinking seriously about that. That
probably wouldn’t be an option for me now because the mothers don’t get
out easily. It would’ve been an option when we ﬁrst came here, four years
ago. My mother could have been in a care facility where she could go on a
daily basis and have social interaction. And that would have eased the
transition that wasn’t a good transition. She was in one place, and then she
had to move to another place. If she had a place where she could have had
socialization, that would have been better. Involved in discussions about
increasing the levels of facilities within the university community, I know
that it’s not going to happen right now, given the other things. [U ntenured
on tenure-track, large institution, 47 years old]

Participants working in the medium and large institutions also suggested the
development and implementation of mentoring programs for new faculty. As new faculty
members do not have knowledge about the academic environment and the way it works,
the existence and availability of mentors would help them to unfold the intricate domains

of their careers, and make the process easier.

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Every single assistant professor needs to have a mentor, and that mentor
should be someone who has published, that knows the Conferences to go
to, that knows where to get that ﬁrst easy article published, that recognizes
that publishing is a function many times of who you know, and not of
what you know or have written, and let you not feel that you are isolated.
[Tenured, medium institution, 52 years old]

One of the participants working in a medium-sized institution addressed the need for that
institution to have a clear policy on maternity leave. She said:

Institutionally, this place for example, does not have a clear policy on
maternity leave, those kinds of things. I have a colleague who had a child
midterm and she did not have those kinds of support that were really
important for her. When she was leaving, she had to certify who was
covering her classes, and I do not think that is right. Those kinds of
support networks really need to be in place for those people who are
struggling to do things. [Tenured, medium institution, 46 years old]

For a participant working at a large institution, which already has a maternity leave
policy, the institution needs to create a paternity leave policy.

This institution doesn’t have a paternity leave policy. I’m happy that they
have the maternity leave, and allow us this ﬂexibility, but they can go
ﬁrrther. They can allow for a couple who’s having a child or who’s
adopting one, or who are committed to take care of aging parents or
something like that, to work out an arrangement whereby the woman can
be part of it, or the man can be part of it, if they’re both employed by the
university. Or the man may be, telling them that he’s taking a major role in
this, as well as his wife. It doesn’t make sense to me that this shouldn’t be
the case. And (this institution) doesn’t provide for paternity leave. IfI was
a guy I would be seeing it that way: “Why am I not supposed to be able to
take care of my child or my aging parents, or something?” That’s
ridiculous! There’s more that they can do about that, certainly. [Tenured,
large institution, 46 years old]

Only one participant indicated the role gender plays in a woman’s salary.
Although she did not address the need to establish salary parity between male and female
faculty members in her formal statement, after the interview was over she talked with the

researcher about this issue.

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I still earn, as a woman, much less than men, both in the ﬁeld and here,
although my skills are—mainly my computer skills—more advanced than
certain of the other male professors on campus who are in equal places in
their career. [Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 35 years old]

Summary.

In general, female faculty members who prioritized their family side during the
beginning of their academic career now dedicate more of their time to their employment
side. In other words, the decreasing demands of the family environment inform faculty
members that they may shift the focus and to invest more of their energy to the
employment environment in the present. Participants addressed some trade-offs
associated with neglecting their employment in earlier stages of life, such as (a) their
level of productivity is lower than their peers in the same stage of academic career; (b)
they did not have the opportunity to work for a more recognizable institution and, as so,
to have a better salary and economic support to develop research; (c) some participants
had to delay their tenure attainment; and ((1) some participants did not seek tenure status.

Participants who delayed the formation of their families and dedicated their time
and energy to the development of their academic career ﬁrst, were pleased with that
decision. This deliberate decision helped them to devote more of their energy and time to
the family environment and to become more involved in their children’s needs in the
present. Such participants do not feel guilty when they are not as productive in their
academic career as they might be expected to be because they have already achieved
tenure status, although they delayed the promotion process. Because of that, they expect

to shift the focus to the employment environment in a near ﬁrture.

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Future aspirations and concerns.

The last line of questioning was related to female faculty members’ future
aspirations. Some of them expressed some concerns with the future, while others had a
more positive outlook on the topic. When talking about ﬁrture aspirations, one married
participant without children indicated that she is uncertain which aspect of her life to
prioritize—work or family. For her, the possibility of having a child is dependent upon a
noninterference with work. She voiced her uncertainties in this way:

I don’t know if I’d like to have kids with my husband. Maybe I would,

maybe I wouldn’t. We really have to work out work arrangements, and

day care and childcare in ways that it wouldn’t involve huge compromises

for both of us. We’re not quite sure which position to make right now. We

have just too much work to do. [Untenured on tenure-track, large
institution, 35 years old]

Contrary to that idea, another participant stated that her future in academia is uncertain

and completely dependent on her abilities to manage and accommodate different

demands.

I’m really leaning whether I’m staying in academia, and that really

revolves around whether I can do this, whether I can make that balance as

effectively as I need to. I know that I can teach and raise a family. I don’t

know if I can do research and raise a family all well enough, and I cannot

stay as a lecturer forever, although I really enjoy teaching. [Full-time

instructor, medium institution, 30 years old]

Their future in academia was also a matter of concern for some of the participants
who are in tenure-track but still untenured. The current economic situation facing the
cc>untry, and the consequent budgetary cutbacks and increasing levels of unemployment,
were indications of concerns about the future. This is how one participant, who gave up

tenure after moving to a large institution, expressed her feelings:

Coming ﬁ'om a small teaching institution to a large research university in
this climate, in terms of employment, budgetary considerations, and a

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rising bar for tenure, this is very difﬁcult. This is much more challenging.
I gave up tenure to come here and I knew that I would have to do that. It
was made very clear to me, and I understood that, but the bar for tenure is
rising and it’s increasingly difficult to be conﬁdent you’re going to get
tenure. I think that I will. I think that I’m on track for it, but it’s a little
dark thing to realize that I gave up a tenure position. It was not that I
disliked it; it was that I wanted to be in a bigger university with more
challenges. [Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 47 years old]

Later in the interview, she continued: “I hope to get tenure soon, and that will take some
pressure off because being untenured in this day and age is really stressﬁrl because you’re
not sure. Here we’re with budget cutbacks, maybe position cutbacks.” Getting promoted
and performing some administrative roles are goals for some participants.

I’d like to move up the ranks, at least to associate professor.

Administratively, I don’t see that in my future. I did a lot of administrative

work when I was working at the hospital, and I’d rather stay with the

teaching. [Untenured on tenure-track, medium institution, 45 years old]

As an aspiration, I’d like to do more administrative work. It sounds kind

of sick, but I’d love to direct an undergraduate program; I’d love to direct

a graduate program. I could imagine, 15, 20, 25 years from now, being a

Dean, at least being a Department Chair, Department Coordinator.

[U ntenured on tenure-track, large institution, 29 years old]

A participant working in a small institution made an interesting comment
regarding her ﬁrture plans for moving up the ranks. Although her coworker had indicated
that “Academia has a reputation for being controlled, climbing up the ladders,” and that
this does not happen in a community college, this interviewee expressed her feelings
about the existing gap between instructors and professors in a community college:

I’d probably be here forever. I’ll be glad to be a professor at the end of this

year because even though with our system here—we just have instructor

and professor—there seems like a big gap between us. I guess I’ll feel

better about myself after I ﬁnish this year and attain that. I think that I’m

getting ready to go back to school and enhance what I’m doing now. [Full-
time instructor, community college, 50 years old]

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The researcher then asked her about the process of becoming a professor in a community
college, and she explained:

You have to work three years, and it just changed in our last contract,
which was two years ago. We used to have assistant professor, associate
professor, and you had to apply for each of those, provide documentation
and a committee would decide. That changed in our last contract, mostly
because part-time faculty could never be anything else. There were no
steps. It’s still just for ﬁrll-time faculty. Now, after three years in good
standing you can become a full-professor. You get observed by your
department chair, that kind of thing. For me that’s kind of neat because in
some way that became attainable and before I was very frustrated because
I couldn’t have any other title except instructor. That’s something I’m
excited about too, even though it doesn’t make any difference, but it’s a
psychological thing because there’s no change otherwise.

Investing in their own formal education was an aspiration for some participants
without a doctoral degree. All of the participants working in the large institution have
already earned doctoral degrees. Three participants working in a medium institution have
a PhD. Of those interviewees without a doctoral degree, one participant had already
submitted her dissertation to committee, and one was still working towards her degree.
The other participant did not mention a desire to earn an advanced degree. The data
gathered indicated that only the two full-timers working in that institution had expressed
a desire to invest in education and, possibly, work full-time after their children are grown.

I think that a PhD would be really cool, would be icing on the cake, but it

would have to come after. I did the Master’s before the family and I think

that would have to be after my kids don’t need me anymore. [Part-time

instructor, community college, 39 years old]

I could easily become tenure-track professor and do anything I wanted to

do. I made that decision when we got married and started having kids that

it wasn’t the road I would go. The truth is that I could still, after my kids

are all grown up, work full-time and accomplish some sort of goals or

career goals. I’ll still have time to do that. So, it’s worth it to put those

goals on hold for a while. [Part-time instructor, community college, 39
years old]

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Later in the interview, she continued:

I’ll probably continue to work part-time while they [children] are school
age. Then maybe as they go out to college I might look at ﬁrll-time work.
After they all got to college my husband said that I’ll have to work ﬁrll-
time to put them through college. Then he’s going to be supportive of me
working full-time.

Following the same rationale as the part-timers, those already working ﬁrll-time hope to
have more time to devote to their work when their kids are grown up. One participant
expressed her aspirations this way:

I’m hoping that as my children become older and independent, I’ll be able
to do more work. That they’ll be successful, happy, and increasingly
independent. 80 I’ll be able to deal more with a grown-up level as opposed
to a more needing level. I know that, from being a child myself, that you
always still need your parents. But they’re getting to the point where the
amount and the nature of the attention that they need are starting to
change. As they get older, there are other worries. I cannot certainly be
with them when they’re out with their friends, but I still need to worry
about that. I’m thinking about and looking forward to, and I’m not sure
this is going to happen, but I’m certainly hoping that it will, being able to
take 6 years to write my next book, as opposed to 12. That’s a payoﬂ‘ for
me. That I’ve got through this period and my work was delayed, my
ability to do my work, which I just love and I’m really committed to, and
which could be a ﬂoat due to this entire process of bringing up these
children. In a point, I’ll be able to go from 30 miles an hour to 70 miles an
hour again. It’s certainly an aspiration. The way we’ve worked out the
household and daily maintenance isn’t a burden; the children being there,
that makes it more difficult. [Tenured, large institution, 46 years old]

None of the interviewees, even those in a more advanced level in their career,
demonstrated an intention to retire or to leave their jobs. On the contrary, they intend to
continue working while they can contribute to their ﬁeld.

When some of our friends are talking about their retirement plans, right

now I cannot relate to that at all, even though ﬁom an age standpoint we

should be thinking about that a little bit more. I know it’ll happen, but I

cannot see that right now. It’s not relevant to me. [Full-time instructor,
community college, 50 years old]

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Personally, the project that I’m involved in is a really exciting project, and

I see it really developing into an intriguing place for me. I don’t see me

leaving this university. I think that this university is supportive in the ways

that I need to be supported, and ﬂexible in the ways that I need to be

ﬂexible. [Tenured, medium institution, 46 years old]

A 46 year old continuing contract working at the large institution commented, “I
thought about that at one point I would retire, but right now I’m really enjoying the
challenges of the work, and ﬁnding it meaningful enough, and having enough stamina to
continue to do it in the future.”

In addition to talking about their future aspirations, most of the participants
expressed some concerns about the future. One of the participants working in a small
institution showed some concern about her retirement plan, and how she will need to ﬁnd
a position after retirement.

The State of Michigan retirement plan is so horrible. I did a sample in the

computer, and my retirement came out to be the same as my father, who

retired 15 years ago. That’s just absolutely unbelievable. I’ll just have to

switch to a different college, and start another retirement. That’s what a lot

of other people do. They retire here, and then go to a private school to add

to their retirement system. That might be a goal. [Full-time professor,

community college, 52 years old]

When talking about their family aspirations, all of those participants with children
demonstrated a concern for their children’s educational attainments and their ﬁrtures:

I feel that I’m not ready to make any commitments. I’m just trying to get

my children through the professional degrees and marriage. These are my

goals. Having my children to graduate school is so immediate to me that I

haven’t made any long range plans. [Tenured, medium institution, 52

years old]

Although the majority of the interviewees were not responsible for the care of an

elderly person, ﬁrture concerns about parents’ health and the huge commitment that

taking care of the elderly implies were addressed by some of the participants. A 51 year

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old full-time professor at the community college commented, “When I look around me, I
and my peers are all in that point where parents’ health becomes a concern. What kind of
burden, stress, requirements of my time and my energy would be necessary?” Based on
her experiences in taking care of elderly parents, another participant talked about how her
life will change when she does not have to do this anymore.

In some point, I probably won’t care for elders. So I’m not sure if this is
an aspiration, but the reality is that my life will change dramatically when l
the mothers are gone. It’ll be easier in many ways because we’ll not have
this time constraint. I just have to be realistic that it’s going to happen
sooner than later. It would be nice to have time back again. I guess that’s a
personal aspiration. [Untenured on tenure-track, large institution, 47 years
old]

 

Two other participants also demonstrated concerns regarding ﬁrture obligations toward
their parents:
My parents aren’t young, but they’re still relatively healthy. So, the main
core here is whatever sorts of obligations that I’ll have towards them.
They’re already in their late 70s, and they’re very healthy and
independent. At that age, that sort of thing can change at any moment and
it’s pretty common for my generation these days to take care of aging
parents. [Tenured, large institution, 46 years old]
A 29 year old untenured on tenure-track at the large institution said, “My parents are
very, very healthy. They’re both [in their] 60s. But what if they become ill? What’s going
to happen?”
Although participants presented many different future aspirations, all of those

with children or elderly in their care have, as their future aspirations, the need for more

personal and leisure time.

125

Summary.

When talking about their future aspirations and concerns, female faculty members
with young children indicated that they want to devote more of their time and energy to
their academic careers in a near ﬁrture. Those who were untenured but on the tenure-
track system and childless indicated some concerns about having children and still being
a productive academician. Those participants who still were untenured during the time of
the interviews also indicated some concerns regarding the economic situation faced by
their institutions of employment and their future on the institution. In general, female
faculty members indicated some apprehension regarding their future obligations toward
their elderly parents, and how negatively this responsibility could inﬂuence their

family/household and employment productivity.

Female Administrators ’ Perceptions of Female Faculty Members ’ Issues

The ﬁrst ﬁve questions asked during the interviews with female administrators
looked at what female administrators perceive to be the issues faced by female faculty
members working at these institutions with regard to managing their employment and
family lives. Of the same importance was understanding whether female faculty members
encounter any barriers at the institutions. The last two lines of questioning were aimed at
identifying programs the institutions offer to help female faculty members manage their
family and employment careers, as well as whether there are any plans to develop new or
improve existing programs. All of the questions asked during the interview with female

administrators were intended to address the fourth research question: How do female

126

administrators of institutions of higher education perceive female faculty member’s
employment-household management problems and practices?

When talking about the status of women faculty members working at these
institutions, female administrators were unanimous in stating that women have many
opportunities to succeed, excel, and advance at their institutions, and that the institutions
are a very supportive environment for female faculty. In addition, female administrators
do not view female faculty members’ issues as being any different from other working
women. Flexibility was addressed as a major factor in helping female faculty members
manage their different demands, particularly by those administrators at the small and
medium institutions.

I don’t know if there is any difference from any other female professional.

Probably a little bit more ﬂexibility in their schedule. They don’t have to

be here nine to ﬁve. Being a professor, from my perspective, is probably

easier in terms of balance than a 9 to 5 type of position because there is

some ﬂexibility in your ability to set up your class time and research time.

The down side is the amount of at home time outside of class that we

probably don’t see on those working on a regular basis. [Administrator #3,

medium institution]

One of the administrators of the large size institution talked more speciﬁcally
about the time management issue. She was more speciﬁc about how the family situation
may inﬂuence how a female faculty member manages different roles (family-to-
employment conﬂict). In addition, she also pointed out the personal and family decisions
female scholars have to make to be seen as committed and responsible faculty members
(employment-to-family conﬂict). This is how she expressed her opinion:

Time management. The time that someone else might have without,

perhaps, the family obligation. If someone else can commit some 4 or 5

hours in the evening to their scholarship or their research and another

person has to prepare lunch or dinner or watch homework or wash clothes
and then in between all of that try to also commit some time out of a 24

127

hour day to scholarship presents some problems. I think the primary is the

time management. And I think also bias that people have about if women

really are serious and committed to this, they need to understand that you

may have to make these other sacriﬁces, which means given up on

whether it’s delaying or deferring having a spouse or a partner or children

because you are not going to be seen as a serious scholar if you are trying

to juggle children. You had the whole credibility piece that affects women

as they try to juggle farrrily and the academy. [Administrator #5, large

institution]

Female administrators also were asked about how they perceive the inﬂuence of
female faculty members’ home/domestic life on how they manage their work life.
Family pressures, whether they stem from childcare, elder care or nontraditional family
situation, such as single parenting, were indicated as problematic situations. When talking
about the inverse situation—how female faculty members’ work life may influence the
way they manage their home/domestic life—the administrators’ Opinion varied according
to the institution in which they are employed. Administrators working at the small
institution indicated that it may be difficult to set faculty members’ teaching schedules to
accommodate their family life, mainly because they often need to be teaching early in the
morning or in the evenings to assist nontraditional students. They also indicated that
female faculty motivation and commitment to their professional development are
important issues, since in their contract they do not have to do anything else but teach. In
other words, the amount of inﬂuence of the work on the family environment will be
individualized. One of the female administrators of the medium institution addressed the
importance of the ﬂexibility of both an academic career and technology in helping female
faculty members to reduce employment-to—family conﬂict.

I see less of a work environment affecting domestic life because they can

take it home with them, they are connected to the Internet, and they are

connected to their students through e-mail. The technology has in fact
made that almost seamless. [Administrator #4, medium institution]

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The two administrators working in the large institution addressed the issue of gender
dominated disciplines and the kind of support a woman faculty member will have.

If you have a discipline that has been historically male dominated, that
brings with it a lot of those traditions and that kind of work culture, it can
make it extremely difﬁcult and it may not be the most welcome and
supportive environment for a woman, especially if she is the only one.
Faculty by nature is very competitive, and if the woman, her nature, let’s
say, is not to be as competitive or if she is socialized to be less
competitive, I think that can create, that can inﬂuence the quality of her
experiences here. I think we have certainly some sexism, and that can
inﬂuence. [Administrator #5, large institution]

I think it depends on where a woman is, on what discipline. If a woman is

in a discipline that is predominantly women, I think their perception of

what it is happening on campus is really different than if she is in a

discipline where she may be isolated, where she may be one or two, or

even the only woman in the discipline or department. [Administrator #6,

large institution]

In addition to the discipline, this same administrator also discussed how the gender
stereotyping makes women structure their family lives around work, prioritizing their
work goals and needs instead of seeking a balance:

I think they [female professors] are operating at the threat of the

stereotyping. They want to have families, but they are concerned that they

will be perceived by their male colleagues as not being a serious

academician. So they delay or they restructure their lives around, putting

the institution and their job ﬁrst, rather than their personal, family issues.

[Administrator #6, large institution]

Female administrators also were asked about programs offered by the institution
to help female faculty members with the management process. As expected, the umbrella
of programs increases according to the institution’s size. In general, the small institution
does not offer programs designed speciﬁcally for female faculty members. As indicated
by the interviewees, some of the programs offered by the institution are: (a) employee

assistance program; (b) wellness program; (c) health care program; ((1) dependent care

129

reimbursement; (e) center for teaching excellence; and (f) community college leadership
program designed speciﬁcally for women. As to ﬁrture plans, administrators of this
institution are not working on the development of any new programs, and they were
unanimous in stating that they are concerned with the success of all faculty members, not
just female faculty members. The researcher also asked if the administrators, as
individuals, would like to see any program developed or improved. One talked about the
importance of childcare, and the other was more concerned with beneﬁts, such as the
development of a cafeteria-type of program. One of the interviewees also was concerned
about the development of programs designed speciﬁcally for women, and the importance
of ﬁnding out what needs to be developed.

I think that we will be going to more of a cafeteria-type of program. That

would allow a person to deﬁne their beneﬁts. Maybe they need more

childcare, maybe they need more elderly care, but they don’t need health

care coverage, for example. I see being open to that as an opportunity. We

need to encourage more women networking, more women supporting

groups. I think that women have a unique ability to come together and

have a great force. As an institution, I don’t know if we are getting into

that force, as we should from an administrative point of view. We have

incredible women on this campus, and I would hate to see anyone feeling

isolated. Perhaps, more formal support networks that would encourage

women to truly achieve their professional potential. I think that we really

have some brilliant, excellent teachers here but I don’t know what they

need. Perhaps it’s what we ﬁrst need to look at. Find out what our women

faculty do need and want and create a program from that. [Administrator

#2, community college]

The administrators of the medium-sized institution indicated that besides offering
programs that are used by staff and faculty members in general, there are also some
designed speciﬁcally for females. Some of the programs offered are: (a) employee

assistance program; (b) wellness program; (c) health care program; (d) childcare facility

on campus; (e) women’s center; (f) women’s commission that reports directly to the

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President; and (g) women’s association. These administrators indicated that the
institution is not working on the development of any new programs, but on the
improvement of the existing ones, and that they, in particular, agree with that.

At the large institution, administrators indicated that in addition to offering what
is required by law, they go beyond that. Some of the programs that are more directed to
women faculty are: (a) child and family care services; (b) formal and informal
mentoring; (c) women’s committee that reports directly to the Provost; ((1) faculty salary
cohort analysis; (e) development program for international women; and (f) brown bag
seminars. When talking about plans for the development or improvement of programs,
one of the interviewees stated the importance of targeting and recruiting women across
the disciplines. In addition, the issue of retention is being analyzed by administrators.

One part of the plan includes getting more women in here. Believe it or
not the representation of women on faculty it certainly has, I mean it’ s not
a huge progress, but at least the representation of women as faculty
continues to grow. There are a number of efforts that are made to try and
target and recruit women faculty across the disciplines here. That’s one.
Retention, we know that there are things that we need to pay particular
attention to women to assure that issues of tenure clock, does it toll or
does it continue if a woman has family during that process? Those are
issues that we continue to examine. Whether it’s expanding the child and
family care service, that’s something that’s also been looked at because
there is a question of providing on-site childcare. Is there more that we can
do there? Mentoring—that’s something that is currently being looked at, I
think, in more concrete ways by the Women’s Advisory Committee to the
Provost. Within the Science, Technology, Engineer and Math, there is a
committee that is currently looking at ways to recruit and retain women
graduate students who then may be the pipeline for women faculty, but
that committee is also looking at efforts and things that can be done to try
and deal with issues that are particularly around sciences and women.
[Administrator #5, large institution]

Administrators of this institution indicated that they are planning a project to

know the status of females working and studying in the institution, which will be

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implemented within a few months. This project aims to look at female issues—faculty,
staff and students—on campus. In addition to that, although administrators are not
working on the development of parenting programs, these administrators indicated the
need to have elder care and childcare available on campus. One of the administrators
thinks that when male administrators become more involved with the care of their elderly
parents, they will put more pressure on the development of such a program.

More of us are having to deal with seniors in our lives. I think we know

we need to have childcare. It’s just an issue of who wants to put money on

that. When male administrators have to deal with more of elder care, than

elder care will become the central priority. [Administrator #6, large

institution]

Summary.

The analysis of the data suggests that administrators of the small and medium
institutions, which do not offer as many female-directed programs, talked more generally
about the programs offered. On the contrary, the adnrinistrators of the large institution,
which offers a wider variety of female-oriented programs, talked more speciﬁcally about
those, without much emphasis on general ones. Administrators were unanimous in stating
that they do not know the statistics of the usage of such programs, which may give them
biased information regarding the importance of the programs to the lives of female
faculty members. In addition to that, female administrators do not recognize the unique
characteristics of the academic environment and their inﬂuence on the management of
employment-household demands. In general, female administrators are pleased with the

ﬂexibility of the environment without recognizing that some of its policies and the

overlap between the tenure system and the family/household demands make it inﬂexible.

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Because this study was structured based upon the conceptual model, the answer of
all of the four research questions and the previous discussion addressed the ﬁfth research
question: Does the new theory with a complementary conceptual model act as a support
for these inquiries in an integrated manner? As a descriptive model, the FJET Approach
helps in the understanding of the interactions and transactions between the organism and
the surrounding environments, and of the changes in the environments’ complexity over
time. A detailed explanation of the integration between the theory and the data analysis is

presented in Chapter VI.

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Chapter VI

Conclusions and Discussion

This chapter presents a review of the major conclusions of this study.
Comparisons between the results of this study and results of previous studies are
discussed. Following the conclusions, the discussion of the researcher’s suggestions for
outreach and policy, future studies, and theory development are presented. The researcher
concludes this chapter by presenting some of her personal experiences during the

research process.

Conclusions

The primary goal of this study was to develop and test an ecological model of the
employment-family interface that would provide a more general understanding of how a
woman/organism links the employment and family environments. The Family and Job
Environments Transactions Model (FJET Model) structured the empirical work. The
model helped the researcher to give equal focus to the family and employment
environments, and to acknowledge that these environments change over time. It also
helped in the conceptualization of the research questions in a balanced and integrated
manner. In this chapter, the ﬁndings of this study are discussed, as well as some
adjustments to the model that are needed for future work. The research process may be
explained in an ecological way—there were continuous transactions between the ideas
and the data gathered. As such, at the same time that the FJET Model informed the

research design, the data gathered also elucidated the Model.

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The researcher also tried to understand, ecologically, the positive and negative
outcomes of employment-household management. Following a review and analysis of the
research procedures and the data gathered in the study, the researcher has arrived at ﬁve
major conclusions.

1. Female faculty members’ current employment-household management is
inﬂuenced by past decisions made. As such, choices made earlier in life may explain how
an individual currently manages her life and balances her employment-family roles.

2. The complexity of women’s family and employment careers both positively
and negatively inﬂuences their lives.

3. Female faculty members rely on their more immediate environments as
sources of help, more so than formal networks of support, although they praise the
existence of them and wish that more were available.

4. When analyzing the data across the three types of higher education institutions
studied, it does not appear to be the women’s age, per se, that inﬂuences the way female
faculty members manage their lives. Rather, the institution’s size, the presence and age of
children, the availability of formal and informal sources of support, the work routine, and
the values and attitudes of individual women towards their career and family life
inﬂuenced the process of management. Because these data are strongly inﬂuenced by
factors such as the age-sex distribution of a ﬁeld's members, the sex composition of new
PhDs, and the grth of a discipline, the researcher must consider these demographic
factors before drawing any inferences about gender differences.

5. Female administrators are aware of the issues faced by female faculty

members in managing their different roles. As expected, female administrators know the

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support programs available to female faculty members. However, they do not know the
statistics regarding the usage of such programs by female faculty members. A detailed

discussion of each speciﬁc ﬁnding, and its insights, is presented.

The Transactions Between the Family and Employment Environments

The Family and Job Environments Transactions Model (FJET Model) was
developed by the researcher and used as the theoretical framework for the study. The
model integrates the Bubolz and Sontag (1993) input-throughput-output model, the
Deacon and Firebaugh (1988) management model and the theory of social exchange. The
Bates and Harvey (197 5) model is used in the integration of these three approaches. The
FJET Model helps in the understanding of the process of employment-household
management. The results of this study indicate that the FJET model supports the research
questions in an integrated manner (research question #5), and the following discussion
presents a linkage between the theory and the results of this study.

Regarding the theories selected for the development of the FJET Model, each of
them informs different aspects of the management of employment-household demands,
and no one proved to be more useful than the others. In other words, the integration of the
selected theories helps in the overall understanding of the transactions between the
different environments and of the management process, and the elimination of any of the
selected theories from the F JET Model would make it less useful. The Bubolz and Sontag
(1993) family ecosystem model helped in the understanding of the embeddedness of the
different environments. For most of the participants, this embeddedness is characterized

by the transactive nature of information—one environment informs the other. The

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Deacon and F irebaugh (1988) ecological framework for family resource management and
decision-making added to that information by providing a more speciﬁc understanding of
the management processes. As such, participants explained the management strategies
they use, which may be planned or not, to manage their different and conﬂicting roles.
Many of the participants also talked about the adaptation process that results from the
management process, and how difﬁcult it is when they make decisions to change some of
their routines and, as a consequence, to have to readapt. The social exchange theory also
contributed to this understanding by being more speciﬁc about the transactive nature of
the management process, as well as the costs and rewards associated with that. The
transactive nature of the information process helps many of the participants to
acknowledge the rewards associated with managing their employment and
family/household environments. For others, the energy drained from one environment to
the other makes them see more costs than rewards associated with the management
process. The Bates and Harvey (1975) model for the structure of social systems supported
the integration of these other models by specifying the ways individuals interact with
each other and with their environments, according to the different roles they perform. As
such, many female faculty members acknowledge that they try to set up boundaries
among the different roles they perform, helping them to manage the demands associated
with each role.

The integration of these different theories provides an ecological understanding of
the management of employment-household demands. The ecological and dynamic nature
of the FJET model is speciﬁcally designed for the study of employment-household

interfaces. The use of a designed model, with assumptions directly related to the

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understanding of the management of employment-household demands provides a more
detailed and better understanding of this interface than when general ecological models
are used. In addition to that, the FJET model gives visual emphasis to the changes that
occur in the systems over time. This particular feature helps in the understanding of the
dynamic nature of the systems under study, and contributes to the development of more

dynamic models.

Female faculty members’ management of demands.

The goal of the ﬁrst research question was to provide an understanding of how the
management experiences of women with their employment-family interfaces have
contributed to the complexity of their current employment-household management.
Brieﬂy explained, the results of this study suggest that female faculty members’ family
structure, family commitments and/or family values and attitudes may explain how
female faculty members manage their present demands and make their decisions. The
presence of children appeared to be a beneﬁcial factor for women’s psychological health.
The presence of children forces women to establish a balance between employment and
family, and also compels them not to overcommit to their employment. In other words,
the presence of children helps women to learn how to separate employment and family
lives. In addition to that, having children at an early age also forces women to learn
routines and time management, experiencing less spillover of employment into the
family/household environment. Women without children revealed an increase in self-
perceived autonomy, personal growth, and career advancement, thus pointing to some

personal developmental advantages. However, childless women tend to not establish

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routines in their lives, and to become more involved with their employment to the
detriment of their family/household lives.

As suggested in previous studies (Boles, Johnston, & Hair, 1997), those female
faculty members who indicated having more life complexity tended to perceive more
problems in managing the employment-family interface than those who experienced less
life complexity. Additionally, faculty members who consciously or unconsciously use
some activities that minimize the spillover of employment into family and/or family into
employment, such as clearly deﬁning roles, separating the employment and family
domains, or managing time more carefully, reported that they manage their demands
better than those who do not.

Female faculty members indicated that they tend to favor one side of their life
more than the other, although the side favored may change over time. While at one point
in time they may favor their family environment, at other times they may center their
energy toward their employment environment; while the sides may be imbalanced in the
short-term, they balance out in the long-term. For those with children, the process of
management and decision-making was an indication of family-to-employment conﬂict,
because their balance reﬂected their family priorities and commitments. Their family
priorities inﬂuenced the choices they made regarding whether to work part-time or ﬁrll-
time, whether to seek academic status, whether to work in a smaller or larger institution,
and/or whether to seek career advancement. When talking about the future, participants
with children indicated that they intend to have more time to dedicate to their careers,
although they are aware that they will be continuously needed by their children and that

time demands will be there. On the other hand, those without children proved to be more

139

career-oriented, and their career decisions were based on their personal choices, career
priorities, and commitments. Usually, they tended to make family-related decisions, such
as whether or not to get married, and/or whether or not to have children, based on their
career goals. As indicated by other studies (Toutkoushian, 1998; Stanﬁeld, 1998;
Rwampororo et al., 1986), single women without children are seen as more career-
oriented professionals than those married and/or with children. On the contrary, men with
children are seen as more career-oriented than those single or married without children.
Therefore, family-related decisions may be explained as culturally deﬁned decisions.

Whether they had children or not, female faculty members indicated that the
ﬂexibility to have work done in any place and time was an essential dynamic in their
lives. For many, technology is the key to achieve ﬂexibility. However, this ﬂexibility and
the use of technology come with a cost. For many participants, at the same time that
technology helps them to work while at home, it also helps to increase the level of
conﬂict with husbands/partners. In addition to that, technology also reduces the amount
of time the individual dedicates to the family/household environment, interfering and
conﬂicting with family/household activities.

During the process of life course management, female faculty members mainly
exchanged information and resources with their household members. During the process
of decision-making, participants indicated that they communicate with their partners and
children, and that their decisions were based on a common agreement. Although some
also included their peers, colleagues, and ﬁiends as stress-relievers, the opinions of their

peers were not ﬁrndamental to their decisions.

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Rewards and costs are the outcomes of the management process. Their rewards
were intrinsic in nature and attended to their psychological needs. Rewards were
indicated as personal fulﬁllment, interaction with other professionals, contribution to
their children’s education, and children’s pride in their accomplishments. The costs
associated with the process of managing different demands were the lack of personal and
family time, and an increase in the levels of conﬂict with partners. In general, participants
who expressed that their rewards outnumbered the costs were more satisﬁed with the
outcomes of the management process. For others, the transactive nature of employment
and family lives is the main outcome of the management process. As such, one’s area of
specialization can be useﬁrl in family/household activities, e. g., literacy or space design.
And the experience of using this in the household enhances her specialized expertise.

The second research question was how does the complexity of women’s careers in
their family and employment environments affect their management of employment-
household demands. The present ﬁndings indicate that both household and employment
characteristics inﬂuence how women manage their lives. Women’s past management
experiences in the employment-family interface contributed to the complexity of their
current employment-household management. This research goes beyond earlier research
by showing that not only do positive (Barnett et al., 1992) or negative (Carlson &
Perrewe, 1999) stresses occur when women manage different and conﬂicting roles and
demands, but both kinds of stresses occur.

In addition, previous discussions of women’s role management have tended to
focus on the family-to-employrnent dilemma (Schreiber, 1998), with a few on the

employment-to-family conﬂict (Duxbury et al., 1994; Grzywacz et al., 2002). The

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analysis presented in this study indicated that for some women, their academic career
choices also inﬂuence their family choices and adjustments. Moreover, one environment
cannot be analyzed separately from the other because the interactions and transactions
between the family and employment environments provide an understanding of an
individual’s management process. As such, some participants decided to ﬁrst earn a PhD
degree and get tenure, and then to allocate their energy to the formation of their families.
In other words, once their employment environments informed female faculty members
that they had achieved their goals, the women felt they could allocate more of their time
and energy to their family environments. Once their children got older and more
independent, their family environments informed women that they could shift their focus
to their employment environments. Thus, this study goes beyond earlier studies by
studying the integration of the environments, and by indicating that, for some women,
career choices also inﬂuence family choices and adjustments, while the inverse also is
true. Some female faculty members proved to be more family-oriented (family-to-
employment conﬂict), while others were more career-oriented (employment-to-family
conﬂict).

The ﬁndings presented in this study highlighted the various strategies involved in
making life choices. Overall, those participants who were family-oriented made choices
related to the duration of their work shift (e.g., part-time or ﬁrll-time) and/or job status.
Thus, their career development followed a different path ﬁom those who were more
career-oriented, supporting ﬁndings ﬁom other studies of work and family linkages
(Wentling, 1998). Similarly, this study emphasized that participants who were career-

oriented faced employment-to—family spillover. In this case, their family choices were

142

based on their career aspirations. These choices included whether and/or when to get
married, whether and/or when to have children, and the number of children.

In accordance with the results of previous studies (Grzywacz et al., 2002; Varner,
2000) during the process of managing multiple roles, career-oriented participants delayed
the formation and raising of their families. Aside from that, results of this study also
concur with previous studies which demonstrated that having children later in life has far
less dramatic effects on an academic career than having them in the initial stages (Mason
& Goulden, 2002). This study goes beyond prior studies by indicating that having
children later in life does not matter for those women who are not seeking academic
status. For instance, female faculty members working part-time or full-time at the small
institution did not indicate that having a child early in life inﬂuenced their career paths.
On the other hand, many of those working in medium and large institutions indicated that
having a baby before getting tenure will complicate the process.

Earlier studies relating the balance between employment and family lives and the
number of hours worked offered contradictory results. Some of them have indicated that
women who worked reduced hours perceived the balance between employment and
family lives to be more successﬁrl (Jacobs & Gerson, 2001). In others, employed women
reported that having a work schedule which allows them to spend time with their families
is one of their priorities (Rayman, Carré, Cintron, & Quinn, 2002). Results of this study
indicated that work ﬂexibility is the key issue. When comparing the data across the three
types of institutions studied, those with a rigid schedule, which requires the teaching of
more classes, had more problems in managing their demands than those who had fewer

classes to teach and, therefore, a more ﬂexible schedule.

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This study also goes beyond previous studies by gathering qualitative time-use
information to understand the process of managing different roles (Harvey & Pentland,
1999). The researcher felt that the subjective understanding of time-use issues might give
more insights into the process of management than quantitative time measurements.
Whereas time-use data gathered through quantitative techniques reﬂect researcher
structured conceptions of what women’s roles are, qualitative techniques allow research
participants to select information that is more relevant to them. Although none of the
questions asked were directly related to time management, they prompted the participants
to address this issue. Participants talked about the challenges they face in trying to
accommodate their different careers in a 24-hour period. For some women, this means
having to spend more time in their employment environments during the week to free
some of their time for their family/household environments during the weekend. Other
participants reported that they were constantly struggling to ﬁnd a balance between their
employment and family/household roles during the whole time.

The changes in the complexity of the family-employment interface through time
also were of interest to the researcher. Although the data were cross-sectional, the
questions asked during the interviews helped the researcher to understand how the
complexity of family and employment environments changes through time. In
accordance with previous studies, analysis of the results of this study indicated that the
family structure may be the most important inﬂuence on the difficulties experienced in
managing their different demands. When studying only female faculty members,
academic status and the size of the institution of employment are the main inﬂuences on

the complexity of the employment environment. Other factors also may have some

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inﬂuence on the complexity of the environments, such as employment structure, a
woman’s values, attitudes and goals, perceived sources of support, and employment
ﬂexibility. Part-timers did not indicate that there was a change in the complexity of the
employment structure. Among all of the participants, those working on tenure-track
indicated the greatest changes in employment complexity through time. Although for
part-timers and lecturers the complexity of the employment system does not change
through time, for those involved in other activities besides teaching, e. g., research and
publishing, the complexity of the employment system changes and increases.

Previous studies indicated that the complexity of a family’s environment tends to
increase and then decrease through time (Han & Moen, 1999; Haveman & Wolfe, 1994).
This study reached the same conclusions. When analyzing the family complexity, female
faculty members without children did not indicate a change in family complexity through
time, but they expressed concerns related to the increasing of family complexity in the
future. The presence of children was indicated as having a great inﬂuence on the
complexity of each environment and on the way female faculty members manage their
multiple demands. Participants indicated that they do not know when the complexity of
their family system will decrease, although the type of family concerns may vary over
time.

The management of different experiences entails a variance in the
interrelationship between the employment and family environments across space and
across time. Across space, female faculty members were either more family or
employment oriented. Those working in the large-sized institution were more

employment oriented regardless of the presence and/or age of children. The majority of

145

those working in the small or medium-sized institution indicated they were more family
oriented, regardless of the age of their children. The consequences of the management of
different and conﬂicting roles may be seen on the family and on the employment
environments. Family-oriented faculty members reported making choices related to
employment status and institution of employment, while those who are employment-
oriented delayed the formation of their families.

In addition, the analysis of these data supported the fact that the transactions
between family members or employees can affect third parties not originally involved. As
presented in previous studies, participants were unanimous in asserting that their
employment lives have a powerful inﬂuence on their family lives and vice-versa. They
also indicated that their management of experiences affects other individuals both
directly and indirectly involved in the process, such as their children,
husbands/partners/boyﬁiends, extended family, friends, peers, colleagues, and the
community. As such, problems in their relationships with their partners and children may
arise as a consequence of their management processes. Based on those ﬁndings, the F JET
Model should give a greater emphasis to environments beyond the family and
employment, and how the individual interacts and transacts with them.

Across time, as female faculty members advance in their careers and become
older, their management skills improve, which helps them to achieve a better balance
between both environments over time. It is important to acknowledge the transactive
nature of the environment’s complexity, as well as the active role an individual has on it.
As a woman manages different and conﬂicting roles and learns how to better cope with

her managerial strengths and limitations, this may lead her to be involved in more tasks,

146

 

 

taking more responsibilities, and, therefore, adding to the complexity of her
environments. In other words, women’s management skills may be seen as a function of
the environment’s complexity, and the complexity of their environments may also be
understood as a ﬁrnction of women’s management skills. The relationship is transactive.
Life management is affected by numerous interrelated indicators, and the main
lesson that female faculty members indicated that they learned over the years of trying to
balance conﬂicting roles is to accept that they cannot be superb in every role they
perform. In some sense, this understanding helps them not to feel guilty when they have
to make choices in their life. The interrelation between and among different aspects of
life as well as the difﬁculty in managing different experiences may be summarized by the
words of one of the participants in this study: “I’ve always dreamed of ﬁnding the plan,
the system of organization that would enable me to be present in both sides of my life. I

haven’t found it yet.” [Tenured, large institution, 39 years old]

Sources of help.

To understand how female faculty members interact and transact with others, it
was important to acknowledge the sources of help they have as well as the effects of
sources of help and stress in employment-household management. This understanding
was gathered by answering the third research question, which addressed the effects on
female faculty members of sources of help and stress in their management of
employment-household demands. Consistent with previous studies, female faculty
members prefer to rely on their immediate sources of help, such as husbands and

extended family. This choice may be explained by the fact that informal networks of

147

support do not compete with employment time, freeing female faculty members to have
more time available for paid work. Aside ﬁ'om that, those who demonstrated having more
family support indicated fewer problems in managing the employment-family interface
than those who did not have that kind of support (Lease, 1999). Although most of the
interviewees did not necessarily use the resources available at the institutional level, they
praised their accessibility and wanted them to be in place. Many of the interviewees
suggested the development and/or implementation of some resources that would not help
them but others who might need them. This idea may be explained by the fact that when
resources are available, the management of the employment-family interface may be
accomplished with less negative stress.

Only the small institution was unionized. Some female faculty members working
at that institution recognized the importance of the union to the stability of their
employment. The medium and large-sized higher education institutions were not
unionized, and female faculty members of those institutions did not address this issue,
which seems to have been a non issue to them.

In addition, the analysis of these data may explain the concept of restoration
developed by Keefe (1994). Participants do different things to accomplish the same
outcomes in their lives. For example, some female faculty members indicated that sharing
their experiences and problems with their husbands, partners, boyfriends or ﬁiends help
them to relieve some of their stresses. For others, forgetting about their daily employment
problems and performing activities not related to work are their stress relief outlets. Some

female faculty members also mentioned that talking with peers helps them to reduce their

148

 

 

 

stress, which is an indication that this stress relief function is not unique to the
family/household.

Extending the results of previous studies which contended that multiple role
planning may have a positive inﬂuence on employment performance and attitude (Kossek
& Ozeki, 1998), results of this study also indicated that this inﬂuence is extended to
family performance and attitude. In addition to having the immediacy of their
environment as a source of support, female faculty members also indicated that other
environments separate from the family and the workplace (i.e., the political and economic
environments) act as a source of help/stressor to them. The FJET Model helped in the
understanding that female faculty members have other sources of help/support outside

their families, such as their peers.

Female administrators’ perspectives.

The fourth research question addressed the way female administrators of
institutions of higher education perceive female faculty member’s employment-
household management problems and practices. This understanding also helps in
explaining the transactions between female faculty members and their employment peers.
Results of this study indicated that female adrrrinistrators were aware of the problems
female faculty members face either at the workplace, at home, or when managing both
sides of their life.

In accordance with the results of previous studies (Sastry, 1999; Townsend,
2002), administrators indicated that female faculty members tend to experience more

family-to-employment conﬂict than employment-to-family conﬂict. Those working in the

149

small and medium institutions were also more positive about how the ﬂexibility of the
academic environment might help female faculty in the management process. Although
female administrators acknowledge the issues female faculty members experience in
trying to manage different and conﬂicting demands, there is a need to develop policies to
support female faculty members. As indicated by female faculty members, there is the
need for changes in policies related to the tenure-track system (i.e., to stop the tenure
clock when a woman needs to take time out) and maternity leave.

As for the programs offered by the institutions, all of the interviewees were proud
of the existing programs and how helpﬁrl they are for faculty in general or for female
faculty in particular. However, they were not aware of the actual usage statistics of those
programs. This lack of usage knowledge may have prompted them to be optimistic about
how helpful those programs are for female faculty members. Based on the data gathered
through interviews with female faculty members, the interviewees do not make use of

most of the programs offered at the institutional level.

Discussion and Suggestions
Although this study does contain some limitations, it is assumed that respondents
were competent to answer the interview questions due to their high levels of education,
and that the interviews generated data that promoted insights into life management
processes. Its most signiﬁcant contributions may be:
1. This study may encourage other researchers to continue developing an

understanding of the intricate process of life management and decision-making.

150

2. Although this study was cross-sectional, the structure of the interview
questions asked of the female faculty members enabled the researcher to detect how the
employment-family interface may change over time.

3. This study may serve as a model for conducting additional in-depth qualitative
studies of employment-family management.

4. This study may direct researchers to continue deve10ping and improving
theoretical models to study the employment—family interface.

5. This study may motivate higher education administrators to consider the needs
of female faculty in the development, implementation, and improvement of programs
which are more suitable to their needs.

6. Besides getting female faculty members’ perspectives on their management of
different experiences, this study may help in the understanding of female administrators’
perceptions of how female faculty members manage their lives and on the institution’s

policies affecting female faculty members.

Outreach and Policy Development

Results of this study indicated that the development and implementation of
outreach programs that promote a sense of community that prevents avoidable stress and
increases the capability to cope with unavoidable stress is needed by women working in
academic settings. The ﬁrst suggestion for such programs would be the identiﬁcation of
personal, family/household, and employment life needs. Based on this identiﬁcation, it is
important to ensure that faculty members, their family members, peers, and

administrators understand the implications of the management of different demands.

151

Following that idea, brown-bag lunches should be encouraged at the institution level,
allowing faculty members to discuss management issues. Administrators of higher
education institutions should also work with third parties, such as churches, in the
development of programs that would help faculty members to discuss employment-
family issues, as well as seek other sources of support.

Systemic processes to mentor faculty members should be fostered. In addition to
that, it is important to have trained professionals available on campus, such as personal
coaches, who would help faculty members to examine every aspect of their lives, and not
be focused only on their academic careers. The development and improvement of spaces,
facilities and programs that promote cultural, psychological and social development are
also needed. Such facilities and programs should encompass, but not be limited to ﬁtness
training, family day on campus, and activities for older faculty members.

Regarding the development of new policies, many of the female administrators
interviewed think that some of the issues faced by female faculty members are not unique
to the academic environment. According to their point of view, a woman is going to face
the same management problems and gendered issues anywhere she works. As indicated
by female faculty members, the academic environment has some unique characteristics
that would differentiate it from other workplaces. For example, although it is a ﬂexible
environment, in which part of the work may be performed in any place, this ﬂexibility
may vary according to the Department and/or the College, as well as the administration.
At the same time, the academic environment is considered inﬂexible because of the high
number of hours faculty members have to put in to keep up with their employment

demands. In addition to that, academia may be considered an inﬂexible environment

152

because of some of its very inﬂexible policies. As an example, the time when the faculty
member needs to be more productive to get tenure overlaps with the formation of the
family. Although none of the women interviewed in this study addressed this issue,
delaying the formation of the family may bring some problems. For example, some
women may experience infertility problems, and then decide not to have any children
because of the high costs of fertility treatment. Others may also face problems in ﬁnding
a partner, because the more specialized the individual is, the more difficult it is to ﬁnd a
life partner, as well as jobs at the same place. There is also some inﬂexibility built into
the system. As such, when comparing faculty members with clerical and technical
positions, faculty members do not have the opportunity to accumulate vacation time, for
example. Administrators of the larger institution may beneﬁt ﬁ'om addressing the
perceptions of many women that working at a large institution and enjoying a high
quality of life are incompatible.

To address the inﬂexibility issue, administrators of higher education institutions
should also work on the establishment of plans for new policies and the improvement of
new ones that would affect faculty members. Policies such as maternity leave need to be
revised and the creation of paternity leave policies are also of great importance in today’s
environment. In addition to that, it also is important to develop policies related to elder
care. As indicated by participants in this study, the existing tenure-system policies also
need to be revised to attend to the needs of the increasing number of women in academia,
as well as of the increasing diversity of family/household structures. The development
and implementation of such policies should be directed not only to females, but also to

males. Today, males also have to manage different and conﬂicting demands.

153

 

 

Future Research

Although the FJET Model was conceptualized as a dynamic process of
transactions between environments and an individual that occur at different points in
time, it is recognized that cross-sectional data do not allow a complete understanding and,
therefore, complete inferences regarding participants’ past experiences cannot be made.
Although the questions asked helped to gather information regarding different points in
time, the implementation of designs that cover signiﬁcant periods of time in the life of a
person might be more helpful in acquiring that understanding. Studies that focus on the
childbearing age, for example, would be helpful in explaining issues related to the
management of the employment-family interface for that age group.

A second suggestion would be to continue looking at the management of different
roles, not just in terms of conﬂict, but focusing on the exchange process. Although
conﬂicts and stressors occur when an individual manages different and conﬂicting roles
and demands, the individual and family/household/employment members also gain
positive inputs and outcomes during the process. For example, the management of
different roles can be ﬁrrther informed by examining the role of gender and different
occupations in the management process. Furthermore, a better understanding of how
other environments, i.e. the religious, political, and/or socioeconomic environments, may
inﬂuence the employment-family management also may be of great importance,
particularly during times of crisis (e. g. war or economic recession) and to understand this
issue in different cultures. Which environment has a stronger inﬂuence on a woman’s

stress? Does her type of orientation (i.e., family or employment-oriented) mediate the

154

 

effect of the environment on a woman’s stress? How might variables such as religion and
political beliefs, among others, affect the FJET model?

A third suggestion would be to try the model on a variety of domestic types (e. g,
single with and without children, married with and without children, and divorced with or
without children), a wider variety of employment types, and a wider variety of organisms
(i.e., children and males). Can the FJET Model be applied to different situations? How
might the results of this study differ from the results of studies carried on with different
populations? What changes might be needed in the FJET Model to explain such results?

Another recommendation would be to develop studies which would focus on the
unique problems of higher education institutions of different sizes and types. Although
the results of this study have demonstrated that some of the issues faced by female
faculty members in managing the employment and family demands are the same, some of
their issues and choices in life differ according to the size of the institution where they are
employed. Moreover, it also would be recommended that part-timers be studied
separately ﬁom full-timers in small institutions, and lecturers from tenure-track faculty in
medium institutions.

This study was restricted to a small population of selected female faculty
members from three higher education institutions in Michigan. Therefore, a fourth
suggestion would be to conduct ﬁrture studies involving a larger sample size of female
faculty members in higher education. Individuals selected nationwide would be necessary
to avoid local idiosyncrasies, and to get a better understanding of how the cultures of
different regions may inﬂuence the management of demands. In addition to that, it is

important to recognize the special nature of the selected sample in making

155

recommendations for ﬁrture research. The study of different populations would provide
more opportunities to understand the management of the employment-family interface,
thus helping in the generalizability of the results. The use of men or children as linking
different environments, for example, would provide understanding of how different the
results of the study would be.

A sixth suggestion would be to conduct quantitative studies that would inform the
generalizability of the problems related to the management of the employment-family
interface. This type of study would provide information to the development of cause-
effect studies, and would answer the question: Are the ﬁndings of the small sample
replicated on the larger sample? It also would help to understand if the FJET Model could
be used to understand cause and effect issues, such as in a path-analysis study.

A seventh suggestion would be to control the sample for marital status, number of
children, children’s age, and interviewee’s age. The participant’s age per se does not give
much information regarding the management process. The way her family/household and
employment are structured affects what is happening in a person’s life and the decisions
that a person needs to make to accommodate different demands. In other words, a female

faculty member’s chronological age is less important than the changes in her roles.

Theory Development

Based on the researcher’s experience in developing the FJET Model, some
recommendations for the process of theory development are necessary. The FJET Model
is intended to be a general descriptive theoretical model to inform employment-family

management research. As such, it encourages more research from empirical assessments

156

of its assumptions, as they relate to enhancements in the employment and family
literatures. For example, the management of employment-family demands can be further
informed by examining cause-effect relations. What changes might be necessary in the
model to examine cause-effect relationships? What are the mediating variables of the
employment-family management? What are the conditions (e. g., gender, ethnicity, and
social class) under which cause-effect relationships in the model hold? The answer to
these questions will provide the basis for an explanatory model.

The FJET Model proved to be a good starting point to incorporate the system
dynamics and changes that might occur over time. Although the assumptions of the
ecological approach are centered on changes over time, the existing models are very
static. Changes and system dynamics can be better understood if human ecologists and
family theorists continue working on enhanced ways to incorporate system dynamics into
their models. What are the factors which “drive” the system? Could some of the factors
be internal to the system, such as changing attitudes about feminism, especially among
males? Could some of these factors be external, such as the economic factors affecting
the demand for and supply of faculty members? Are the ethnic differences in these

relationships explained by the same or similar factors?

Final Remarks
As the researcher reﬂects on the process of data collection and analysis, she
recalled many moments of disappointment and enjoyment. During the process of data
collection, many dilemmas arose, such as how to make the decision on the number of

participants, when to stop collecting data, and some disappointments related to obtaining

157

the desired number of participants in each age group. But after each interview conducted,
the researcher felt even more motivated to continue the process because participants
demonstrated their interest in the topic of the study, tried to share as much information as
they could, and were delightful people to be with. Each piece of information gathered
about the management of the employment-household demands also motivated the
researcher.

After the data were collected and each interview transcribed, the researcher
experienced some other types of concerns, such as data categorization and the uncertainty
of how to deal with overlapping data. Once such decisions were made, it was also
difficult to decide which quotes to use as well as the number of quotes to use. The
researcher wanted to give credit to the opinions expressed by research participants and, at
the same time, not to overuse the quotes making the report uninteresting to the reader.
Certainly, the data analysis and the writing of the results were a ﬁuitﬁrl learning
experience for the researcher. This study was the researcher’s ﬁrst experience with
qualitative research, which sometimes proved to be difficult and challenging. For
example, the researcher, not a native user of the English language, experienced many
challenges in ﬁnding and interpreting the appropriate language for a qualitative study.
The data analysis and the preparation of the written report provided the opportunity for
many thoughtﬁrl reﬂections.

After analyzing the data and ﬁnishing the written report, the researcher was
satisﬁed with the ﬁnal outcome of this study. All of the three gaps identiﬁed in previous
studies were addressed. The time dimension is incorporated in the FJET model and the

questions asked helped in the understanding of the management and decision-making

158

processes through time. In addition to that, the focus on the individual indicates that
female faculty members have some control over their environments, performing an active
role in linking and managing them. The development of a speciﬁc ecological model to
the study of the management of the employment-household demands also helped in the
better understanding of the management process, as well as of the effects of this
management process on the outcomes of the system.

The potential importance of this study may be summarized by its two most
valuable contributions to the human ecology and work-family ﬁelds. First, the main
contribution of the model developed is its dynamic nature. The inclusion of the process of
changes over time is one step ﬁrrther in the analysis of the organism-environments
interactions and transactions. Second, an equal focus on the family and employment
environments and on the positive and negative outcomes of the management processes
are important to provide a better understanding of how an organism manages different

and conﬂicting demands.

159

APPENDICES

160

APPENDIX A

LETTER TO POTENTIAL INTERVIEWEES

161

 

APPENDIX A

LETTER TO POTENTIAL INTERVIEWEES

November 10, 2002

Dear

 

I am a Brazilian doctoral candidate in Family and Child Ecology, at Michigan State
University, and a faculty member in the Department of Home Economics at the Federal
University of Vicosa, Brazil. I am interested in how female faculty members manage
both employment and their personal/family life. One undergraduate and two doctoral
institutions in Michigan have been selected as part of this study, and was
one of them.

 

I would like to ask to interview you to better understand issues faced by female faculty
members who work in your institution. If you would like to participate in this study, we
will set up a convenient time for you. The interview will take 60 minutes or so.

If you have any questions or concerns about this study, please feel free to contact me at
the telephone or address indicated below. For questions concerning your rights as a
prospective research participant, you may call the University Committee on Research
Involving Human Subjects at Michigan State University.

Ashir Kumar, M.D., Chair

202 Olds Hall, Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI 48824-1046

Phone (517) 355-2180 FAX (517) 432-4503
E-mail: UCRIHS@msu.edu

Thank you very much for considering participating in this study.

Sincerely,

Karla Maria Damiano Teixeira
PhD student — Family Studies
Dept. of Family and Child Ecology
Michigan State University
Phone: (517) 337-8081
e-mail: Qmianot@pilot.msu.edu

162

APPENDIX B

INFORMED CONSENT LETTER

163

 

APPENDIX B

INFORMED CONSENT

The management of the employment-household: A qualitative study to examine
lives of female faculty members

You are being invited to participate in a research project that is studying how
female faculties manage employment and family lives. If you choose to participate in this
project, you will be interviewed by the researcher and asked to answer a questionnaire
containing demographic information. The interview will be audiotaped and transcribed
for analysis. Any responses you offer during the interview and/or in the questionnaire
will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law. Your responses will be
combined with others, making your response conﬁdential, and your privacy will be
protected to the full extent of the law.

Your participation in this study is voluntary. Ifyou decline participation you will
not be penalized in any way. If you decide to participate you may choose to withdraw at
any time without penalty.

Ifyou have any questions regarding this project, please contact Dr. Dennis R.
Keefe, the Principal Investigator in this study, or Karla M. Damiano Teixeira at the
addresses below.

 

 

Dennis R. Keefe, Professor Karla M. Damiano Teixeira
107 Family & Child Ecology 504 Laurel Lane, apt. 102
Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48823
East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone (517) 337-8081
Phone (517) 355-7680 E-mail: damianot@msu.edu
E-mail: keefed@msu.edu

 

 

For questions concerning your rights as a prospective research participant, you
may call the University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects at Michigan
State University.

Ashir Kumar, M.D., Chair

202 Olds Hall, Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI 48824-1046

Phone (517) 355-2180 FAX (517) 432-4503
E-mail: UCRIHS@msu.edu

Your signature below indicates you agree to participate. Thank you very much for
your time.
Signature: Date:

 

 

164

 

APPENDIX C

CONSENT TO USE DIRECT QUOTE

165

 

APPENDIX C

CONSENT TO USE A DIRECT QUOTE

The management of the employment-household: A qualitative study to examine the
lives of female faculty members

This form gives your consent to use direct quotes, from this interview
participation, for the purposes of publishing this study. The interview will be audiotaped
and transcribed for analysis. Your identity will be kept conﬁdential and a false name and
false institution affrliation will be used to protect you. Only the researchers will know the
name assigned to you. Any responses you offer during the interview and/or in the
questionnaire will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law. By signing this
form you allow for the use of direct quotes in publications of this study and understand
that your privacy will be protected to the full extent of the law.

The use of direct quote is voluntary. Ifyou decline its use you will not be penalized in
any way. If you decide to participate you may choose to withdraw at any time without
penalty.

If you have any questions regarding this project, please contact me by telephone
or e-mail at the address below. You may also contact Dr. Dennis R. Keefe, the Principal
Investigator in this study.

 

 

Dennis R. Keefe, Professor Karla M. Damiano Teixeira
107 Family & Child Ecology 504 Laurel Lane, apt. 102
Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48823
East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone (517) 337-8081
Phone (517) 355-7680 E-mail: damianot@msu.edu
E-mail: keefed@msu.edu

 

 

 

For questions concerning your rights as a prospective research participant, you
may call the University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects at Michigan
State University.

Ashir Kumar, M.D., Chair

202 Olds Hall, Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI 48824-1046

Phone (517) 355-2180 FAX (517) 432-4503
E-mail: UCRIHS@msu.edu

Your signature below indicates you agree to the use of direct quotes in the
publication of this study.

Signature: Date:

 

 

166

d.-

 

APPENDIX D

QUESTIONNAIRE — DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

167

APPENDIX D

QUESTIONNAIRE — DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

 

Participant #:
Date:

 

 

 

 

 

1. Marital status:
( ) never married
( ) married
( ) in partnership
( ) widowed
( ) divorced

2. Marital history:

18’ Marriage! Divorce! 2'“l Marriage Divorce/
partnership? separation? partnership? Separation?

l l | |

I l l I Year.

3. Children’s history:

Gender Year born? at home? Marital status?

 

4. Are you responsible for the care of an elder or disabled person for at least 3 hours
per week?

( )yeS ( )no

5. Country of origin (i.e. where you spent most of your childhood):

 

6. Year you were born:

 

168

7. Highest degree obtained:

Year completed:

 

 

8. Status at main academic institution of employment:

8.1. What kind of tenure track are you in:
( ) tenured

(
(

) on tenure track but not tenured

) not on tenure track, although the institution has a tenure system.

8.2. What is your status at the institution of employment?
( ) professor
( ) associate professor

(
(

) assistant professor
) instructor

8.3. Do you work:

(

8.4. What is the duration of the contract of your appointment?

(
(
(
(
(

)part-time ( ) full-time

) unspeciﬁed duration, or tenured

) one academic term

) one academic year or one calendar year

) two or more academic years/calendar years
) other. Please, specify

 

9. Employment history:

 

 

 

169

Previous employment Tenure Tenured
(where?) track
I l I ,
I l l year
Lecturer Instructor Assistant Associate Professor
Professor Professor
I I I I I ,
l I I [ year
Part-time Full-time
1 l ,
l | year

APPENDIX E

FEMALE FACULTY MEMBERS: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

170

 

APPENDIX E

FEMALE FACULTY MEMBERS: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
I. First, let’s think back to when you were beginning your academic career. Could you
tell me what your situation was back then? We would like to hear about your
experiences then, especially as they relate to how your work life and your personal or
household life were possibly related.
- So it sounds as if things went pretty smoothly? Were there any challenges you
had to deal with?
- So it sounds as if there were a few challenges along the way? Can you tell me
more about them?
- So it sounds as if some of your experiences at work/home complemented or
enhanced your life at home/work? Can you tell me more about that?
QR
- You have mentioned some of the challenges you experienced relating your work
and your personal lives. Were there any ways in which they complemented or
enhanced each other?
- That is interesting. I would like to hear more about things that were done to help
make things work better (worse?)
- Can you think about anything in your situation that made things easier or harder
for you?
- Your home, the things you had to work with?

- The people you were working or living with?

171

 

- Your own personal characteristics?
2. What was the biggest decision you had to make then regarding work and household or
personal relationships?
3. Could you tell us about your current situation? Are there ways in which your
experiences now are similar to or different ﬁ'om your earlier ones?
- What is it like today trying to relate your work and your personal lives?
- What about today’s challenges?
- And what about the ways in which your work and home/personal lives
complement or enhance each other?
- What about things being done that make things better (or worse)?
- What about your current situation? Anything that makes things easier or harder
for you?
- Your home, the things you have (compared with what you had earlier)
- The people you work with or live with (compared with previously)
- Your own personal characteristics (How have you changed?)
4. What is the biggest decision you have had to make recently about your work and your
household or personal relationships?
5. Is there anyone with whom you talk to about your work/family/personal life balance?
Anyone you share experiences with?
- Who? (relationship)
- What do you talk about?
- How do these talks affect you or your situation?

6. Are there any support systems you would like to see developed or improved?

172

 

7. How would you describe your personal/family future aspirations? And your

employment ﬁrture aspirations?

173

APPENDIX F

DEMOGRAPHICS OF FEMALE ADMINISTRATORS

174

 

d3———

 

 

APPENDIX F

TABLE 3: DEMOGRAPHICS OF FEMALE ADMINISTRATORS

 

Date Type of Institution Office of Employment

 

3/12/2003 Community College Human Resources Center

 

3/19/2003 Community College Public Relations and Government Affairs

 

3/24/2003 Medium institution Employment and Recruiting

 

3/24/2003 Medium institution Academic Affairs

 

3/26/2003 Large institution Affirmative Action

 

 

 

4/14/2003 Large institution Women’s Center

 

 

 

175

 

 

 

APPENDIX C

FEMALE ADMINISTRATORS: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

176

APPENDIX G

FEMALE ADMINISTRATORS: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

1. First, could you describe your role at this institution?

2. Could you describe your perception of the status of women faculty at this institution?
- Is there anything special or unusual about their status on campus at this time?
- Any big issues facing them today?

3. What problems, if any, that you are aware of, do the female faculty members of this
institution experience in balancing the demands of their work lives and their family or
household lives?

- As you communicate with these female faculty members have they given you
any indication of how difficult it is for them to manage these demands?

- Have they indicated any key factors which seem to determine if the managing or
balancing task can be handled easily or with difﬁculty?

4. Do you think the experiences of the female faculty members here are any different
from those that the male faculty experience?

- Could you tell me a little bit about that?

5. In your opinion, what aspects of female faculty members’ home/domestic life
inﬂuence the way they manage their work and family lives?

6. And what aspects of their work environment here at __ inﬂuence the way they

manage their work and family lives?

177

 

7. Does your institution offer any programs to help faculty members to deal with such
problems?

(IF YES) - Can you tell me about them?

- Are they utilized by men and women?
- About equally or by one more than the other?
- Do the programs have to be designed or run differently for men or women?

(IF NO) - Could you tell me if you have ever thought about developing any?

- Do you think it would be worthwhile?
- What might such programs be like?

8. You have indicated that this institution has/doesn’t have support programs to help its
faculty members. What kind of plans are you working on right now that would help
faculty members?

- How do you think that this program would help female faculty members
speciﬁcally?
- Any programs that the institution is not working on but that you, in particular,

would like to see developed or improved?

178

 

APPENDIX H

CODING SCHEME

179

 

APPENDIX H

CODING SCHEME
1. Decision-making

Academic career. This includes all the decisions the individual made and that had
an inﬂuence on her employment choices and/or career advancement, as well as that
positively and/or negatively inﬂuenced a participant’s employment career deve10pment
(i.e., size of the institution of employment, employment status, and productivity, among
others).

Family career. This includes all the decisions the individual made and that had an
inﬂuence on her family formation, structure and/or size, as well as that positively and/or
negatively inﬂuenced a participant’s family career.

2. Gender

This includes all types of perceived gender discrimination faced by research
participants in the family, in the institution of employment, and related to the
management of employment-household demands.

3. Employment-family/household interface

Employment to family/household conﬂict. This refers to the negative spillover from
the employment to the family/household environment.

Family/household to employment conﬂict. This refers to the negative spillover

from the family/household to the employment environment.

180

 

4. Employment-family/household management through time

Childcare. This includes management issues related to childcare, such as lack of
support available, the need to manage participant’s schedules with their
husband/partner’s schedules, the changing nature of care and child’s demands through
time.

Flexibility. This includes the possibility to have work done at different places;
importance of technology (e.g., computer, internet, and e-mail system, among others).

Time issues. This includes the lack of personal and leisure time and issues related
to overwork
5. Sources of Help/Stressors

Employment. This includes the role of sources of help and strain at the
employment environment, i.e., Department Chair, mentors, and peers, as well as the
characteristics of the employment environment that may act as stressors or meliors for
research participants (e. g., availability of programs and policies, Unionization, stability,
productivity, and promotion, among others).

Familyﬂtousehold. This includes the role of sources of help and strain at the
family/household environment, i.e., spouse/partner, children’s age, communication
channels, and housework, among others.

Friends/community. This includes the role of sources of help and strain at the
environments beyond the employment and family/household, i.e., religious, political,

cultural, and the importance of friendship.

181

6. Future Aspirations/Concerns

Personal oriented This refers to the aspirations and concerns the individual
indicated and that would be self-directed, such as leisure and personal time, among
others).

Family/household oriented This refers to the aspirations and/or concerns
participants have and that will have an inﬂuence on the quality of life of their
family/household environment, such as children’s future, aging parents, and the changing
nature of family/household demands.

Employment oriented This refers to the aspirations and/or concerns participants
have and that will have an inﬂuence on the quality of their employment careers, such as
productivity issues, promotion process, and the changing nature of employment demands.
7. Characteristics of the Academic Environment

This refers to the characteristics of the academic environment participants praise,
such as ﬂexibility, as well as issues related to the size of the institution of employment,

workload, and work demands.

182

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

183

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Alcom, C. E. (2001). Career developmental differences in coping with stress related to
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