IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v28y2021i6p2235-2251.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Story time is my duty”: Expatriate academic fathers' experiences of balancing their work and home lives

Author

Listed:
  • Martina Dickson
  • James Dickson

Abstract

An academic's life is acknowledged to be the one with constant pressure to publish, as well as fulfilling teaching and other tasks. Much has been written about the academic mother's experience, where professional gain is often reported to be at personal expense. Academic fathers' experiences are less explored, and usually situated within their own home countries. This article presents a qualitative narrative research of male faculty parents working in the United Arab Emirates in the Arabian Gulf. The ways in which the academic fathers “perform” fatherhood, strive to find balance in their lives, and create space for the necessary work of academic research are explored. The findings indicate that where work pressures are experienced, their home support systems (namely spousal support, but also paid domestic help) compensated for this in a way which does not appear to incur self‐sacrifice or career impact. The academic fathers generally reported feeling supported and validated by their organizations and host country.

Suggested Citation

  • Martina Dickson & James Dickson, 2021. "“Story time is my duty”: Expatriate academic fathers' experiences of balancing their work and home lives," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 2235-2251, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:6:p:2235-2251
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12741
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12741
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12741?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cecilie Thun, 2020. "Excellent and gender equal? Academic motherhood and ‘gender blindness' in Norwegian academia," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 166-180, March.
    2. Ashlee Borgkvist & Vivienne Moore & Jaklin Eliott & Shona Crabb, 2018. "‘I might be a bit of a front runner’: An analysis of men's uptake of flexible work arrangements and masculine identity," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(6), pages 703-717, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lucia Cervi & David Knights, 2022. "Organizing male infertility: Masculinities and fertility treatment," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 1113-1131, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. 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.
    2. Daile Lynn Rung, 2023. "COVID-19 and Policy-Induced Inequalities: Exploring How Social and Economic Exclusions Impact ‘Temporary’ Migrant Men’s Health and Wellbeing in Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(13), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Julia Gruson‐Wood & Carla Rice & Jess Haines & Gwen E. Chapman, 2022. "The emotional toll of postfeminist fatherhood," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 256-272, January.
    4. Anna Maria Górska & Karolina Kulicka & Zuzanna Staniszewska & Dorota Dobija, 2021. "Deepening inequalities: What did COVID‐19 reveal about the gendered nature of academic work?," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 1546-1561, July.
    5. Esmée Hanna & Brendan Gough, 2020. "The impact of infertility on men's work and finances: Findings from a qualitative questionnaire study," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 581-591, July.
    6. Omar Manky & Sergio Saravia, 2022. "From pure academics to transformative scholars? The crisis of the “ideal academic” in a Peruvian university," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 971-987, July.
    7. Ashlee Borgkvist & Vivienne Moore & Shona Crabb & Jaklin Eliott, 2021. "Critical considerations of workplace flexibility “for all” and gendered outcomes: Men being flexible about their flexibility," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 2076-2090, November.
    8. Dounia Bourabain, 2021. "Everyday sexism and racism in the ivory tower: The experiences of early career researchers on the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the academic workplace," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 248-267, January.
    9. 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.
    10. Maria Bastida & Alberto Vaquero García & Luisa Helena Pinto & Ana Olveira Blanco, 2022. "Motivational drivers to choose worker cooperatives as an entrepreneurial alternative: evidence from Spain," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 1609-1626, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:6:p:2235-2251. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.