The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021) / Chapter Skim
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2 October 2020 Women in STEMM Faculty Survey on Work-Life Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
2 October 2020 Women in STEMM Faculty Survey on Work-Life Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Pages 27-46
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I really miss going to my office for many reasons, but being able to compartmentalize work and home ….is one of them. –STEMM woman associate professor 1 This chapter is based on the commissioned paper "Boundaryless Work: The Impact of COVID-19 on Work-Life Boundary Management, Integration, and Gendered Divisions of Labor for Academic Women in STEMM," by Ellen Ernst Kossek, Tammy D
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This chapter includes findings from a national faculty survey conducted in October 2020 to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women STEMM academics and that was conducted to gather original and timely data on post-COVID-19 pandemic work-life boundary and domestic labor issues specific to women in STEMM.2 This survey asked women faculty in STEMM fields to compare how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them between March 2020 and October 2020. PREFERENCES AND CHANGES IN NUMBER OF DAYS WORKING AT HOME The survey asked respondents to indicate their preferred and actual number of days working at home or on campus, both pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic.
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. Across the sample of women STEMM faculty, all reported significantly lower levels of boundary control after the COVID-19 pandemic began than before, and women faculty with childcare responsibilities reported significantly lower levels of boundary control during the COVID-19 pandemic than their women counterparts without children, including those with eldercare responsibilities.4 Survey respondents echoed these quantitative changes in their comments collected as part of the qualitative portion of the survey.
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It is manageable, but psychologically is harder for me to keep the lines blurred, especially since I am just in my living room." EFFECTS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON WORK PRODUCTIVITY, WELL-BEING, CHILDCARE AND HOUSEHOLD LABOR, AND ELDERCARE Effects on Work Productivity The survey asked respondents how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their personal and professional work outcomes, with the results summarized in Figure 2-1. Almost three-quarters of the participants mentioned the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their work.
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FIGURE 2-1 Summary of effects of COVID-19 on the work effectiveness and productivity of women in academic STEMM from the October 2020 survey.
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Effects on Childcare Figure 2-2 summarizes the challenges and coping strategies related to childcare demands reported in the survey. Nearly three-fourths of responding faculty with children reported a negative effect from increased childcare demands.
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FIGURE 2-2 Challenges and coping strategies related to childcare demands reported in the October 2020 survey.
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A married assistant professor with young children shared the following: We are trying to stay in our bubble, so we don't have any childcare for our two kids. We don't want to bring in babysitters or have day care unless ab solutely necessary.
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One associate professor described the following: I am on the verge of a breakdown. I have three children doing virtual school ing full-time who need my attention throughout the day; they all have different break schedules and seemingly interrupt me every 10 minutes.
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Figure 2-3 provides a summary of the challenges and coping strategies related to eldercare demands reported in the survey. Responses generally reflected three issues: demands associated with moving the family member from their initial care facility either to another facility or to have their parents move in with them to avoid exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic; the need to provide increased domestic support, such as household cleaning or ordering groceries, to minimize their elder's risks to the COVID-19 pandemic or the loss of paid support to provide eldercare; and concern over distance from the family member for the family member's well-being.
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FIGURE 2-3 Challenges and coping strategies related to eldercare demands reported in the October 2020 survey.
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Figure 2-4 summarizes boundary management tactics and other coping strategies that survey respondents have adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most popular separation tactic involved the use of technology to hide the home space during videoconferencing, whereby faculty set up video meeting backgrounds to protect home privacy.
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FIGURE 2-4 Boundary management tactics and other coping strategies reported in the October 2020 survey.
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As one associate professor with children commented, she and her spouse now "go ‘back to work' after the children are in bed and it is still not enough time to keep on top of everything." Another assistant professor with children commented on the demands of juggling childcare/e-learning: "I can't get work done productively during the day, so work bleeds over until late evening. Regularly work from 9-midnight and start at 3 AM now." Another temporal strategy for those with children involved setting up a coordinated work schedule with a partner, with periods of integration and separation to cover shared caregiving.
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An assistant professor with children stated the following: Many faculty were expected to manage childcare demands by themselves. We were told to have backup childcare this semester in case schools closed (they are virtual part time)
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A number of respondents stated that they did not feel that a tenure clock extension was an effective means of reducing workload during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather, those respondents noted that what they needed was an acknowledgment that these years will result in much lower productivity.
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While the academic tenured and tenure-track faculty's third most common concern was on the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on social interactions with peers and students, for non-tenure-track faculty the third most common concern mentioned was a negative effect on teaching. Key concerns included a large increase in workload and stress resulting from technology problems, having to offer multiple formats to students, developing new content, and a lack of clear directions from administrators on decisions that could help planning.
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There is no fallback in these times of pandemic. – Postdoc, married with children Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Desired University COVID-19 Pandemic Organizational Supports In general, the views of tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty were similar regarding how academic institutions were helping women faculty manage challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and how their academic institutions could improve.
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– Assistant professor of practice, married without caregiving responsibilities While there was no consensus on the further practices academic institutions could adopt to help non-tenure-track faculty beyond the same workload reduction and childcare recommendations that some tenure-track faculty wanted, it appears that extra teaching support for grading and technology support for converting courses to virtual formats might allow non-tenure-track faculty to have respite from their higher teaching loads. CONCLUSIONS Between March and November 2020, there was little guidance regarding institutional policies -- both structural and cultural -- that indicated what will be most helpful (see Chapter 6 for more on this topic)
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. Work support interventions, such as greater administrative help in managing the added demands associated with learning new technology platforms for online teaching, are critical in reducing stress.
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