A systematic review on work-life balance to increase productivity among female faculty members: Preliminary findings

Abstract: Ample literature exists regarding work and family/life matters among faculty members (Berheide et al., 2020; Carvalho et al., 2018; Mazerolle et al., 2018; Pasamar et al., 2020). These studies show faculty members are working in high-pressure environments with high workloads, multifaceted demands, high expectations, and stressors. This work overload and stressful environment results in faculty members working long hours in order to complete their tasks.
Female faculty, while working for the same hours as their male counterparts, bear more responsibilities at home due to social expectations ascribed to them (Berheide et al., 2020; Carvalho et al, 2018; Hermann et al; 2013); Pasamar et al, 2020). These responsibilities include taking care of children, parents and parents-in-law, siblings, and doing domestic chores, which take a large portion of their time. As a result, women professors experience anxiety, exhaustion, and guilt of not perfectly completing various tasks of their lives, surrounded by unrealistic standards imposed on them (Berheide et al., 2020; Hermann et al, 2013; Pasamar et al, 2020).
To date, WLB has been reported in areas such as the management field (Beigi & Shirmohammadi, 2017), economics, management, and psychology disciplines (Kuschel, 2017), among employees in organizations (Beigi & Shirmohammadi, 2017; Kuschel, 2017; Wood et al., 2020), dual-earner couples in India and the United States (Munn & Chaudhuri, 2016), mother counselors (Hermann et al, 2013), and academics (Beigi et al., 2018). There is a gap in the literature synthesizing the factors affecting female faculty members achieving their work-life balance (WLB), WLB activities/strategies, and outcome of these WLB activities/strategies.
Therefore, this SLR aims to investigate the current state of WLB for female faculty in HEIs, as represented through empirical research published in peer-reviewed journals between the years 2010 and 2021. 2010 was selected as the starting year of this review due to a comprehensive review conducted by Bianchi and Milkie in 2010 on work and family during the 2000-2010 decade. The following research questions will guide this study:
1. What are the characteristics of the included studies about WLB of female faculty published in peer-reviewed journals between the years 2010 and 2021?
2. What are facilitating and/or inhibiting factors affecting female faculty maintaining a balance between their work and personal life?
3. What types of WLB activities/strategies have been developed or implemented for/by female faculty?
4. What are the outcomes of the identified WLB activities/strategies?
Based on the guidelines of the Campbell Collaboration (2019) and the inclusive systematic review registration form by Van den Akker et al. (2020), we conducted a protocol to conduct this review. To be included for review, each study has to be 1) empirical research, 2) published in a peer-reviewed journal in English between 2010 and 2021, and 3) focused on WLB for female faculty in HEIs.
We searched for two key concepts: female faculty and work-life balance using subject headings, synonyms, and related terms from five popular databases in social sciences: ERIC (EBSCO), Education Source (EBSCO), APA PsycInfo (EBSCO), Human Resources Abstracts (EBSCO), and Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO). All publications were exported to Rayyan QRCI for title, abstract, and full-text screening. Then we moved to the coding stage using MAXQDA 2022.
We followed the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram to summarize our selection process (Figure 1). We initially identified 3,246 citations from the electronic search, then we removed duplicates and excluded items based on the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The process resulted in 85 studies, which forms the present review’s data set.
Findings from the included studies were grouped in alignment with the research questions (RQs), regarding characteristics of included studies (RQ1), factors facilitating and inhibiting WLB of female faculty (RQ2), WLB activities (RQ3), and outcomes of WLB activities (RQ4). For RQs 2, 3, and 4, findings were synthesized using thematic summaries (Gough et al., 2017). We identified several preliminary findings from included articles. First, organizational and social support were the two factors fostering female faculty to achieve WLB. Second, heavy workload and parenting/childcare responsibilities were the main sources hindering them from achieving WLB. Personal strategies adopted by these women professors included time management, boundary management, and seeking support from family and friends.
Findings from this review will be used to help policy makers, university leaders and managers, and department heads to better optimize their resources to meet the needs of female faculty members, improve the quality of life among women professors, and enhance the overall higher education system.