Getting Closer or Further from an Academic Tenure Position: Post-doctoral Researchers’ Work/Life Interference in Belgium

Fusulier, Bernard;Barbier, Pascal
(2014) Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN). “Changing Work and Family Relationships in a Global Economy” — Location: New York (19.June.2014)

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It is generally acknowledged that academic research is both thrilling and time-consuming. It appears as a « greedy institution » (Coser, 1974) demanding time and loyalty. On the one hand, this representation of « research » still fuels today’s expectations toward researchers and, on the other hand, it shapes the way researchers see their work. This extended availability has kept increasing due to the growing competition between researchers and also to the latest craze for international mobility. Our current diachronic research (2011-2014) is centered on post-doctoral researchers funded for three years by the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) in Belgium. What interest us most is their work/family balance while carrying out their scientific carreer. These researchers are interesting for two reasons. First, they have both never gained such recognition as researchers and never been so closed to a tenured position in the academic field. Second, they are at a turning point in their life course (28-35) when children (Etzkowitz et al., 2000, p. 141), marriage and house purchase are common preoccupations. In other words, a period when family may turn into a greedy institution. First results based on the exploratory research (188 online questionnaires and 30 interviews with researchers) enabled us to distinguish four standpoints regarding scientific carreer related to sex and parental status – childless women, childless men, mothers and fathers. First, some researchers are immersed in research, leaving apart their leisure, family and social life, as research is considered by them as social life. Their commitment relies mainly on a specific conjugal and familial situation (single, childless). Others on the other hand are « optimistic » about their future, as they think that academic research shouldn’t prevent them from achieving their work-life balance successfully. They add value to the autonomy and the freedom that they think they have at work. Events in the family or working life blend in harmony with the events in the working or family life: the birth of a child is seen as schedule-structuring and another way to be more efficient at work. Others are shared between the requirements of the academic research and the requirements of private life. The choices they make in favor of one or the other leads them to feel guilty. This feeling of guilt is usually felt by mothers. The last group consists of researchers who stepped back from competition, on account of an uneven cost-benefit analysis – high sacrifices in private life without reward in their working life. This paper will examine the private and occupational events that can account for the transition from one type to another. The material we will use consists of the second series of interviews carried out currently with the same researchers and among whom more specifically mothers and fathers. This interest for postdoctoral research fellows may shed light on broader concerns about work-life balance and interference.
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Fusulier, B., & Barbier, P. (2014). Getting Closer or Further from an Academic Tenure Position: Post-doctoral Researchers’ Work/Life Interference in Belgium. Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN). “Changing Work and Family Relationships in a Global Economy”, New York. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/194870