Coronavirus Pandemic Discouraging Academic Medical Center Faculty, Study Finds

• After the coronavirus pandemic began, faculty were more likely to consider quitting or scaling back to part-time employment than before the pandemic (quitting 23% versus 14% and scaling back to part time 29% versus 22%)
• After the coronavirus pandemic began, female faculty were more likely to consider quitting or scaling back to part-time employment compared to male faculty than before the pandemic (quitting 28% versus 15% and scaling back to part time 40% versus 13%)
• After the coronavirus pandemic began, faculty with children were more likely to consider quitting or scaling back to part-time employment than before the pandemic (quitting 29% versus 17% and scaling back to part time 40% versus 24%)
• After the coronavirus pandemic began, female faculty with children were more likely to consider quitting than female faculty without children than before the pandemic (quitting 35% versus 17%)

“In this survey study, the perceived stressors associated with work-life integration were higher in women than men, were highest in women with children, and have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The association of both gender and parenting with increased perceived work-life stress may disproportionately decrease the long-term retention and promotion of junior and midcareer women faculty,” the research article’s co-authors wrote.

Interpreting the data

Raising children is a major stressor for female faculty regardless of the pandemic, the research article’s co-authors wrote. “In our study, faculty who were mothers were more likely to consider leaving or already had or were considering reducing their employment to part time both before and since the pandemic compared with faculty women without children, highlighting the universal stress of caregiving independent of the pandemic.”

Working part time can exacerbate existing gender gaps at academic medical centers, the research article’s co-authors wrote. “In our study, women were 3 times more likely than men to consider or already be employed part time both before and since the pandemic. Part-time faculty perceive that they perform more unpaid work, have fewer research opportunities, a slower career trajectory, and may be less likely to take on leadership appointments.”

Academic medical centers should take actions to improve work-life integration, particularly for female faculty, the research article’s co-authors wrote.

“Better support of working parents, specifically working mothers, through flexible work policies, improved childcare and parental leave programs, more equitable sharing of unpaid care hours between women and men, and active acknowledgment of the effects of work-life conflict on academic productivity and fulfillment are paramount to ensuring academic medicine does not lose talented faculty and proactively combats gender inequity and gender-based advancement regression,” they wrote.