Flexible working policies at universities that are designed to make work life easier for parents and carers can reinforce gendered parenting roles, according to a growing body of research published this year. For instance, when workplaces offer flexibility, women end up taking on a greater share of parenting than men. Universities 'have all these policies in place, and we see so many women in science,' that many people assume that women can participate in work as much as men, says Cassidy Sugimoto, an information scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. But 'the problem is being solved with women carrying an extraordinary burden'. Research has already established that parenthood has a greater impact on the careers of female academics than those of men. Sugimoto and her colleagues wanted to find out how much parenting academics do, and how that affects their productivity. They surveyed more than 10,000 parent academics with academic or non-academic partners at...
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