Science career/ life interference: the case of postdoctoral researchers in Belgium
(2013) The Fifth International Community, Work and Family Conference — Location: University of Sydney (17.July.2013)
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- The academic universe is characterised by the dominance of the symbolic figure of the researcher entirely devoted to his/her work, guided by abnegation and disinterest. Implicitly though, this figure leads to the assumption that the researcher may be discharged from domestic chores and family duties which are supposed to be taken by the companion/spouse, close relatives or external services. Academia constitutes in this sense a “greedy institution”, seeking to obtain from the individual his/her entire commitment and exclusive loyalty and at the same time reducing any involvement in other potentially competing roles and status (Coser, 1974). With regard to work conditions, postdoctoral positions are characterised by temporary contracts and by a strong competitiveness to obtain fixed term positions. Researchers are evaluated on the basis of their individual productivity, despite the lack of limits to such productivity and of consensus on criteria to asses the “value” of researchers. In addition, the pressure for professional investment is reinforced by a changing social context where academic work accelerates its rythme given the emergence of new demands based on the requirement to attract external funding; to enhance larger professional collaborations; to reinforce international networking, etc. The quality of work is increasingly measured by efficiency, productivity and international mobility criteria. Researchers are confronted to the expectation of producing more and “better” results in shorter periods of time that depend on the length of projects and contracts. This transformation is associated to the increase of “gypsy scholars” (Teeuwen, Hantke, 2007), employed on a temporary basis, with part-time jobs and with little perspectives of acquiring a permanent position. Our communication aims to approach the experience of scientific work among non tenured researchers, particularly in relation to their private and family lives. We have targeted postdoctoral research fellows working for the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) in Belgium. These research fellows are situated in a specific position within the life course, where choices concerning couple and parental projects become decisive, in particular for women, who may experience a mismatch between their “biological clock” and their “professional clock” (Etzkowitz et al., 2000, p. 141). They are very sensitive to work/life interference. Holding a PhD diploma, these researchers are highly skilled and have passed several tests of scientific selection which have disclosed the possibility of being able to pursue a scientific career. In order to understand the experience of researchers at the beginning of their career, our presentation focus on the analysis of the phenomenon of the interference between work and private life, given the specificity of the precarious conditions and difficult tensions that this category may go through. We present our first results of an exploratory research leading to a broader project currently “in progress”, that includes a longitudinal design with both quantitative and qualitative data (2012-1014). The exploratory results that will be described rely on data that was gathered during 2010-2011 via an online questionnaire (188 respondants of the 305 postdoctoral researchers). Our analysis frames the sociodemographic characteristics of postdoctoral research fellows in Belgium as well as their specific background concerning the organisation of the scientific career in this country. We have identified four subgroups by crossing sex and parental status – childless women, childless men, mothers and fathers – and reveal how interference of the scientific career with private life may be experienced differently by each of these groups. First, our findings show that the researcher profession is both, absorbing and appreciated. Researchers at the early stages of their career build a very positive representation of their professional activity and they strongly invest in it at a practical level (they work a lot) but also at a subjective level (they are inhabited by their research activity). This positive relationship to work is however put under tension given the career instability. Employment precariousness goes hand in hand with an evident concern with regard to the future, especially since these researchers realise the difficulty of obtaining a permanent position in an extremely competitive context. Second, autonomy in organising their own work and peer support constitute two important ressources to researchers who attempt to combine work and private life – hence, other social roles. Nevertheless, scientific work remains absorbing, sometimes consuming and leaves little space to other life dimensions. Leading simultaneously a scientific career and a private life, especially a family, is not an impossible challenge but a matter of conflict rather than of conciliation. Third, a conflictual perception is rooted in a very demanding and greedy academic institution concerning expected subjective commitment and objective investment (in terms of number of hours spent for research, availability for work, etc.). This tension is particularly experienced by female researchers and more accutely by mothers (although not all of them). The latter seem to consider that what they “give” to their family – stemming simultaneously from a social duty and a personal desire – represents something that they “lose” for their career. In contrast, fathers (although not all of them) express a more “positive” discourse and feel more supported within their family and their work. Shall several indicators and comments may lead to the understanding of the relative “pessimism” of mothers in regard to their scientific career, it seems more difficult to grasp which is the specificity of fathers’ “positive” discourse concerning their career, foremost in comparison to childless researchers (male or female) who are often used as a reference. Last, many researchers evoke the sacrifices that have to be accepted in order to be able to create their own legitimate place within the academic field. The acceptance of these sacrifices is considered as a most important condition to go through the selection filter for fixed term positions. We discuss that it is neither the sacrifices nor a strong implication in the scientific activity that are criticised by postdoctoral research fellows, but rather the high probability that these efforts will not be attain the main objective targetted by the majority: the pursuit of an academic career.
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Fusulier, B. (2013). Science career/ life interference: the case of postdoctoral researchers in Belgium. The Fifth International Community, Work and Family Conference, University of Sydney. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/65090