Parenting as a moderating factor for research productivity and work-life balance: Evidence from philippine women academics

Abstract

Higher education institutions (HEIs) demand from their faculty excellent teaching output and substantial number of quality productive scholarship, hence, balancing work and family demands becomes a central challenge among academics to maintain a healthy work-life balance. The decision to have children and family shapes the career trajectories of academics as well as their research productivity in particular. Striking a balance between attending to family matters and becoming scholarly productive is a tall order among Filipino women academics, having a culture that is just beginning to adopt to the more egalitarian aspect of attending to family matters. The empirical result of this study shows that indeed, parenting is a moderating factor between work-life balance and research productivity among Filipino women academics. Female faculty members in particular are susceptible to a balancing act between family commitments most especially in producing quality researches. Family life still pervades within the spectrum of research productivity on one side and work-life balance on the other end among women academics.