Opportunities and Constraints: Gendered Family-Life and Career Trajectories of Academics in Iceland and Canada

Abstract

Academic institutions reproduce the dynamics of gendered power relations and maintain gendered inequalities, a process exacerbated by neoliberalism in higher education. In this article, we study how the interplay between conditions within academia and welfare issues affects academics' decision-making regarding their careers and family life trajectories in different welfare regimes. We draw on open-ended interviews with 26 men and women working in higher education institutions in Iceland and British Columbia, Canada. The findings reveal how these academics live their lives in different, yet strikingly similar, ways. The study contributes to the dialog on the relative impact of welfare regimes and gender relations on struggles of academics around work–life balance; competing work responsibilities and family commitments; and gendered patterns in care, and housework. Our findings contribute to clarifying how higher education institutions and different welfare state policies are eclipsed by gendered power dynamic at the couple level in both countries.