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‘If you put pressure on yourself to produce then that's your responsibility’: Mothers’ experiences of maternity leave and flexible work in the neoliberal university

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  • Kate Huppatz
  • Kate Sang
  • Jemina Napier

Abstract

Women remain underrepresented in senior positions within universities and report barriers to career progression. Drawing on the concepts of Foucault and Bourdieu, with an emphasis on technologies of the self, this article aims to understand mothers’ academic career experiences. Interviews were conducted with 35 non‐STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine) academics in Scotland and Australia, to reveal the gender dimensions of parents’ academic careers, in neoliberal university contexts. The data suggest that there are tensions between organizational policies, such as maternity leave and flexible work, and the contemporary demands of academic labour. New managerial discourses which individualize and make use of moral systems are particularly effectual in driving women to take up marketized research activity and compromise leave entitlements.

Suggested Citation

  • Kate Huppatz & Kate Sang & Jemina Napier, 2019. "‘If you put pressure on yourself to produce then that's your responsibility’: Mothers’ experiences of maternity leave and flexible work in the neoliberal university," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(6), pages 772-788, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:26:y:2019:i:6:p:772-788
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12314
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    Cited by:

    1. Lalarukh Ejaz & Vadim Grinevich & Mine Karatas‐Ozkan, 2023. "Women's informal entrepreneurship through the lens of institutional voids and institutional logics," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1254-1272, July.
    2. Jean S. Clarke & Cheryl Hurst & Jennifer Tomlinson, 2024. "Maintaining the meritocracy myth : A critical discourse analytic study of leaders’ talk about merit and gender in academia," Post-Print hal-04479149, HAL.
    3. Jennifer C. Davis & Eric Ping Hung Li & Mary Stewart Butterfield & Gino A. DiLabio & Nithi Santhagunam & Barbara Marcolin, 2022. "Are we failing female and racialized academics? A Canadian national survey examining the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on tenure and tenure‐track faculty," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 703-722, May.
    4. Laurie Cohen & Joanne Duberley & Beatriz Adriana Bustos Torres, 2023. "Experiencing Gender Regimes: Accounts of Women Professors in Mexico, the UK and Sweden," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 525-544, April.
    5. Thais França & Filipa Godinho & Beatriz Padilla & Mara Vicente & Lígia Amâncio & Ana Fernandes, 2023. "“Having a family is the new normal”: Parenting in neoliberal academia during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 35-51, January.

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