WORKFORCE
campusreview.com.au
Way off balance
For academics, the lines between work and life
are often blurred amid pressure to produce.
By James Wells and Andrew Bracey
R
esearch has found that, in academia, work is life.
Sociologists Dr Nick Osbaldiston from James Cook
University, Monash University’s Fabian Cannizzo and
Christian Mauri from Murdoch University, surveyed 155 early- to
mid-career academics for the study Academic Work/Life Balance:
Challenges for theory and practice. Their survey found that average
working days for these academics were nine hours long. Nearly
all worked on weekends. The sample was taken from multiple
disciplines and a range of metropolitan and regional universities,
and was split evenly between men and women. The research is
published by The Australian Sociological Association.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
shows the average full-time working Australian clocks roughly
six hours a day. The survey identified the average working day
for research-only academics as 9½ hours. Osbaldiston and
Cannizzo hypothesise this is because most research academics are
contractually employed – meaning there is pressure to churn out
as many papers as possible to keep their job.
One of the most concerning issues the survey identified was
the minimal leisure academics have, compared with the rest of
the general population. In the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ How
Australians Use Their Time survey from 2006 – the latest year
available – the average leisure time for each Australian was 4 hours
and 15 minutes a day. The average for academics surveyed was 2
hours and 45 minutes a day. This didn’t distinguish between those
who had children and those who didn’t.
“We were a little concerned that academics were not making a
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distinction between work and life the way that perhaps a human
resource manual might,” Osbaldiston told Campus Review. “We
surmise one of the reasons is that most people we surveyed probably
don’t know where the line between caring and leisure is. Whereas,
those who have no children are more able to make that distinction.”
One academic told researchers, “I hate my work, but not my
job.” For academics, it’s administrative duties that are the trudge.
One academic confessed to the survey team, “We’re not really
trained to do some of the stuff we do, yet we have to do these
things on the run.”
Osbaldiston said: “Trying to keep their administrative tasks
in check so that they can keep time for their research is one
of those things that is causing a fair bit of angst, amongst
younger academics in particular, but I assume probably among
older academics as well.”
He explained that this theme continued through survey responses.
He said academics were more than happy to do research outside of
work hours. This blurs the line between work and life.
“They don’t really understand the whole idea of work-life balance
because their work’s their life,” Osbaldiston summarised. “I don’t
know if that’s a great idea or not. Just my own experience, when
you’re constantly under that sort of pressure to publish and work
long hours, and it kind of becomes an implicit expectation for you to
work in the evenings or on the weekends, that has a major impact
on stress levels, obviously, mental health also, and other things.
“I can certainly tell you that, from my own anecdotal experience,
when I’ve seen academics work too hard, they tend to burn out at
times pretty easily. We are hoping to kind of continue on with this
research over the next couple of years.”
Academics overworking was also a common theme in the recent
#realacademicbios hashtag campaign on Twitter.
Safe Wor