Work–life satisfaction in academia: myth or reality?

Abstract

In India, there is an increasingly demanding work culture in engineering colleges. Teachers perform multiple roles which may expand and intrude into their personal lives and cause work–life imbalance. Initially, this work has compared WLS conditions among different groups of engineering and non-engineering faculty and recognized that problems at work were on the rise, upsetting personal lives of engineering faculty. There are clues of extended work schedules, relatively more workload and subsequent pressure making them tired and miss quality time to spend with their loved ones. In general, engineering faculty perceive both WFC and FWC. In particular, engineering professors perceive relatively less support and more WFC as they see more responsibilities in their careers. But, engineering assistant professors and PhDs perceive relatively more FWC as they see more responsibilities in their family lives. Predictive analyses show that SWLS and WFC are predictors of both engineering and non-engineering faculty WLS, having significant positive and negative impact, respectively. Recent study substantiates that job and family satisfaction of academicians in higher education decreases and increases due to work–family conflict and work–family facilitation, respectively (Murugan and Jayanth in Curr Psychol 36:193–202, 2017a. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-015-9400-4; Curr Psychol 36:812–822, 2017b. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-016-9470-y). Data were collected through personally administered questionnaire forms comprised of four constructs, viz. support for work–life satisfaction (SWLS), work-to-family conflict (WFC), family-to-work conflict (FWC) and work–life satisfaction (WLS). This study performed comparative and predictive analyses of the opinions supplied by a random sample of 931 faculty members working in engineering colleges in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. Implications were discussed at the end, which may help reduce work–family conflicts and enhance faculty functioning.