The No-Time Bind: Examining the Experience of Faculty Mothers During the COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

ABSTRACT As institutions across the country rushed to adjust to the realities of the spread of the COVID-19 virus, faculty parents were left to decipher how to manage childcare and their professional responsibilities while working remotely. Balancing work and home is a problem that has yet to be solved for working parents, especially working mothers. This study explores how cultural schemas and ideologies around work and family impacted how academic mothers adapted to the strains created by the COVID-19 shutdown in the spring of 2020. Quantitative and qualitative data from a novel survey was used to explore and analyze the gendered division of household labor and the professional impacts the pandemic had on faculty mothers. As predicted, faculty mothers experienced significant strain in balancing work and family, which was made worse by gendered divisions of household tasks and care work.