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Extensive research suggests that ideal worker and mothering expectations have long constrained academic mothers’ personal and professional choices. This article explores how academic mothers experienced their dual roles amid the unprecedented shift in the work-life landscape due to COVID-19. Content analysis of questionnaire data (n = 141) suggests that academic mothers experienced significant bidirectional work-life conflict well into the fall of 2020. Increased home demands, such as caring for young children and remote schooling, interfered with their perceived capacity to meet ideal academic norms, including a singular focus on work, productivity standards, and their ability to signal job competency and commitment. Likewise, work demands reduced their perceived ability to meet ideal mothering norms, such as providing a nurturing presence and focusing on their children’s achievement. Academic fathers experienced increased demands on their time but primarily described intra-role conflict within the work domain. Despite a pandemic landscape, ideal academic and mothering norms remained persistent and unchanged. The article concludes with implications for policy and practice in higher education.

PurposeThis research attempts to make sense of the experiences of two academic women who become mothers.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is an autoethnography. Applying the autoethnographic method allows us to discuss cultural phenomena through personal reflections and experiences. Our autoethnographic reflections illustrate our struggles and attempts of resistance within discursive spaces where motherhood and our identity as academics intersect.FindingsOur personal experiences combined with theoretical elaborations illuminate how the role of the mother continues to be dominated by such gendered discursive practices that conflict with the work role. Once women become mothers, they are othered through societal and organizational practices because they constitute a visible deviation from the masculine norm in the organizational setting, academia included.Originality/valueThis paper explores how contemporary motherhood discourse(s)within academia and the wider society present competing truth claims, embedded in neoliberal and postfeminist cultural sensibility. Our autoethnographic reflections show our struggles and attempts of resistance within such discursive spaces.

Academic Motherhoodtells the story of over one hundred women who are both professors and mothers and examines how they navigated their professional lives at different career stages. Kelly Ward and Lisa Wolf-Wendel base their findings on a longitudinal study that asks how women faculty on the tenure track manage work and family in their early careers (pre-tenure) when their children are young (under the age of five), and then again in mid-career (post-tenure) when their children are older. The women studied work in a range of institutional settings-research universities, comprehensive universities, liberal arts colleges, and community colleges-and in a variety of disciplines, including the sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.Much of the existing literature on balancing work and family presents a pessimistic view and offers cautionary tales of what to avoid and how to avoid it. In contrast, the goal ofAcademic Motherhoodis to help tenure track faculty and the institutions at which they are employed \"make it work.\" Writing for administrators, prospective and current faculty as well as scholars, Ward and Wolf-Wendel bring an element of hope and optimism to the topic of work and family in academe. They provide insight and policy recommendations that support faculty with children and offer mechanisms for problem-solving at personal, departmental, institutional, and national levels.

In Canada, women are earning an increasing number of doctoral degrees; yet, they are less likely to secure a tenure-track position. A feminist thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 20 academic mothers from two Canadian universities reveals the range of challenges that mothers encounter in relation to care on the tenure-track. First, the theme of “fear of post-partum academic erasure” captured faculty mothers’ experiences of feeling compelled to assert their physical and intellectual presence in post-partum during peak periods of infant care. The second theme, “the mommy tenure track and care choices,” encapsulated academic mothers’ experiences of feeling unsupported by the university in their pursuit of promotion and tenure given care responsibilities associated with motherhood. The final theme, “research while caring,” captured the tensions academic mothers experience between the research process and caring. The findings of this research are particularly relevant in a pandemic and post-pandemic environment, where academic mothers have seen their care work swell to unprecedented proportions.

Although intensive mothering ideology underscores the irreplaceable nature of mothers' time for children's optimal development, empirical testing of this assumption is scant. Using time diary and survey data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement, the authors examined how the amount of time mothers spent with children ages 3–11 (N = 1,605) and adolescents 12–18 (N = 778) related to offspring behavioral, emotional, and academic outcomes and adolescent risky behavior. Both time mothers spent engaged with and accessible to offspring were assessed. In childhood and adolescence, the amount of maternal time did not matter for offspring behaviors, emotions, or academics, whereas social status factors were important. For adolescents, more engaged maternal time was related to fewer delinquent behaviors, and engaged time with parents together was related to better outcomes. Overall, the amount of mothers' time mattered in nuanced ways, and, unexpectedly, only in adolescence.

Why are young women less likely than young men to persist in academic science and engineering? Drawing on 57 in-depth interviews with PhD students and postdoctoral scholars in the United States, we describe how, in academic science and engineering, motherhood is constructed in opposition to professional legitimacy, and as a subject of fear, repudiation, and public controversy. We call this the “specter of motherhood.” This specter disadvantages young women and amplifies anticipatory concerns about combining an academic career with motherhood. By specifying (1) the content of cultural discourses about motherhood in academic workplaces and (2) the processes by which these ideas circulate, produce disadvantage, and inform young, childless scientists and engineers’ career plans, our findings offer novel insight into mechanisms contributing to inequality in academic careers.

Dominant maternal ideologies impinge upon the career progression of academic mothers and non-mothers. Using “narratology” as a theoretical lens, this article offers insights into the working lives of academic mothers and non-mothers by drawing upon narratives collected by phenomenologically interviewing Palestinian women academics working at Palestinian universities. The analysis of the emerging persistent narratives shows that, as women, both mothers and non-mothers are influenced by socially constructed notions of “motherhood” and are accordingly put at a disadvantage within academia. In Palestine’s conservative, patriarchal context, academic non-mothers are expected to shoulder the burden of care within their families and to extend their mothering capacity to their students and co-workers. Furthermore, this study contributes to the contemporary debates on the tensions that exist between the prevailing discourses of the “altruistic mother” and the “career woman,” as well as the institutional demands that restrict women’s ability to simultaneously fulfill their work expectations and domestic roles.

A central question in family research is whether parents' social disadvantages, such as being a single parent or having low education, are becoming more concentrated over time. We contribute to this literature by examining long-term trends in the gap in single parenthood between more educated and less-educated mothers since the 1970s to around 2015, placing special emphasis on children's age. To this end, we rely on a unique compilation of censuses as well as labour force surveys from eight European countries representing different institutional and cultural contexts: Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, and the United Kingdom. The data were analysed using logistic regression models. Our results show that the gap in single motherhood between highly educated and less-educated women generally changed over the period: Single motherhood increased disproportionally among less-educated women. The gap widened most among mothers with young children (0 to 4 years) and somewhat less for mothers of children at age 5 to 9 years. For mothers with children aged 15+, the prevalence of single motherhood varied only moderately by the mothers' level of education.

Women (and all gender-discriminated people) are underrepresented in science, especially in leadership positions and higher stages of the scientific career. One of the main causes of career abandonment by women is maternity, with many women leaving Academia after having their first child because of the career penalties associated with motherhood. Thus, more actions to help scientific moms to balance family and academic work are urgently needed to increase representation of women and other gender discriminated people in Academia. Besides mothers, these rules may also benefit other groups such as mothers-to-be, fathers, caregivers, and women in general. Increasing women representation in science, including mothers, is critical because equality is a fundamental right, and because more diverse working environments are more productive and get to more optimal solutions. Here, we describe 10 simple rules that can be adopted in Academia to halt the abandonment of scientific careers by women after motherhood. We strongly encourage their implementation to increase gender diversity and equality in science.

Purpose This article focuses on female academics working in the universities located in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) and examines their experiences and strategies to balance academic profession and motherhood. Design/methodology/approach Adopting qualitative research method, twenty female academics working in the GBA’s universities were interviewed. The participants were classified into two categories: professorate track and teaching track. Using thematic analysis, several themes emerged from the interview data. Findings For the group on the professorate track, three key themes are highlighted: persisting in professional pursuits, taking up research responsibilities, and achieving work-family balance. Correspondingly, for the group on the teaching track, three themes are also found: struggling for a PhD degree, surviving at the workplace, and seeking work-family balance. Furthermore, the findings reveal the significance of a supportive family structure in the practice of career path as well as motherhood practice, regardless of the professional stages they are in. Originality/value This article contributes a collective portrait of academic mothers in the GBA’s higher education institutions. It reflects their challenges and strategies for balancing dual roles and provides pragmatic advices for policymakers and higher institutions to enhance workplace conditions for female academics.