Social Science Grant Examines Impact of WSU Work-Life Policies
Project Overview and Link to ADVANCE Initiatives
To increase the participation of women in academia, the National Science Foundation Institutional Transformation Program supports Work-Life Initiative for academic institutions. The program provides assistance for tenured and tenure-track women faculty to overcome difficulties with balancing their professional and personal lives. The conditions of academic life are particularly hard for female scientists who have care giving responsibilities such as child care, which is a possible cause of underrepresentation of women in academic sciences, with its additional requirements for laboratory hours (Halpern, 2007). Survey results from almost 400 Professionals Opportunities for Women in Research and Education (POWRE) awardees for 1997-2000 show that the most significant challenge for women faculty is balancing career and family. 71% of respondents consider this problem as a barrier for women scientists and engineers in academia (Rosser, 2004).
Considering this problem, many universities have adopted work-life policies to increase retention and promotion of women faculty in academia. The policies may provide flexible work scheduling, paid maternity leave, childcare and eldercare assistance, family leave policies, part-time and other flexible tenure track career options. The implementation fo these policies should help universities to attract and keep high-ability women and men, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers. Moreover, researchers believe that these policies may enable female scientists to keep their research agendas moving forward while they care for young children. Better child care policies will decrease the emotional and temporal burden of childcare responsibilities for faculty women and enable them to focus on their work (Xie and Shauman, 2003; Stewart and Lavaque-Manty, 2008). As Etzkowitz, et al. (1994) claim “If the objective is to significantly increase the number of women pursuing high-powered scientific careers institutions accommodations will have to be made for women who wish to combine family with career” (p.16). Ward and Wold-Wendel (2005) also mention that personal and institutional accommodations may have effects on those who choose to enter academia and on the overall quality of higher education through faculty productivity, satisfaction, and retention as well. Access to work-life benefits may also influence on the publication productivity of married women. Fox (2005) finds that married women scienctists have higher productivity than never married women and divorced and separated women. In addition, his study shows that women with preschool children only have higher productivity in comparison with women without children or women with school children. This can be case of using famly responsive policies by these women or it can be the case of providing friendly environment in the departments supporting promotion of female faculty in fields. Although, it is emphasized that across universities, wide variation exists in the accessibility and content of work-life benefits available to faculty (Bristol, et al., 2008). Thus a key to address the underrepresentation of women in STEM academic disciplines may be through assessment, improvement and implementation of family needs accommodation programs.
The implementation of work-life policies is expected to have positive impacts on recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in STEM disciplines. Moreover, practicing these policies may positively affect a faculty member’s ability to obtain tenure. As a result, the objective of the proposal is to measure how work-life support policies enhance recruitment, retention, and promotion of female faculty at the Washington State University.
The disciplinary and conceptual framework for the study: The disciplinary framework of this study is from the field of economics with insights from sociology.
Discussion of the literature informing the research and testable hypothesis
In previous work, Woolstenhulme, Cowan, McCluskey, & Byington (2011) analyze the effect of partner accommodation policies on recruitment, retention, and productivity. They find that joint hire individuals publish on average 0.7 more times per year than their otherwise colleagues. Fox (2005) notes that when a woman married to a scientist, the average effects of productivity are positive. Since female academics are more likely to be married to male academics, then they may consider other options of work-life polices when they attempt to navigate the difficult challenge of simultaneous tenure and parenthood.
We propose to assess available work-life policies at the WSU following a standardized protocol. These policies may include maternity leave, paternity leave, adoption leave, dual-career partnership, extension of the probationary period for family responsibilities, part-time faculty appointments, extension of the tenure clock, child care and other policies aimed at ameliorating conflicting work and non-work demands. If these work life policies are available and used by faculty, then the model may predict that the university may tout flexible work arrangements as a way to attract and retain a talented and diverse faculty.
This project will focus on faculty in STEM disciplines and we propose to consider women’s academic career at three distinct stages. According to Wolfinger, et al., (2008), these stages are: 1) tenure-track employment; 2) promotion from assistant professor to tenured associate professor; 3) promotion from associate to full professor.
Second, to measure the impact of family needs accommodation programs at the WSU, we propose to follow the approach of analyzing the impact of being married or the presence or non-presence of children discussed in the paper of Fox (2005). She assessed family characteristics and their impacts on productivity through marital/household status and parental status.
Third, we propose to examine and compare WSU experiences of application of work family programs with other universities using the same approach of analysis. A comparative analysis involving other universities with different work-life arrangements may answer questions about the influence of more readily available programs on sustained participation of women scientists.
Data and Methods
We will use the data from Washington State University and information on available work-life policies. In addition, we will use the productivity data from annual review data. The sample will include tenure-track and tenured faculty members of STEM groups. We will apply econometric tools to measure the impact of work-life policies on retention and promotion of women scientists at WSU.
Expected Findings
The research is likely to inform WSU policies and practices and the ADVANCE program’s goal of increasing women’s representation in STEM fields by measuring the impact of work-life policies and ADVANCE’s initiative programs on recruitment, retention and promotion of STEM faculty members. Our analysis of policies will help STEM women in improvement of their work-life experiences.
