Traditionally, most information on job satisfaction comes from surveys or focus group meetings undertaken by individual institutions or from the NSOPF. The results of many of these surveys suggest that women’s job satisfaction falls below men’s (Holden, 2001; Trower and Chait, 2002). Two recent national surveys have examined satisfaction with academic careers.
The NSOPF:04 asked several questions regarding satisfaction, although it did not probe very deeply into issues of workplace satisfaction. Four questions and responses from this survey are shown in Table 4-3. The mean responses show that female faculty are significantly less satisfied with their salaries and workloads than male faculty. Women are marginally less satisfied than men with their jobs overall. Men and women do not differ in their satisfaction with their benefits. This latter point is important, because some have interpreted the frequent finding that women are less satisfied with their jobs as indicating that women are generally more dissatisfied than men (or are more willing to express their dissatisfaction). The data in Table 4-3 show that women are less satisfied than men in particular areas rather than as a more general matter.
The Study of New Scholars, “Tenure-Track Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey (Trower and Bleak, 2004)”[81] examined full-time tenure-track faculty at six research universities. Important findings of the survey included “Females were significantly less satisfied than males with the following:
• Elements of work and expectations;
• Expectations for how to spend time;
• Expectations for research output;
• Expectations for the amount of outside funding needed;
• Time available for research;
• Resources available to support work; and
• Professional assistance for proposal writing and locating outside funds.
Relationships
• Commitment of the department chair to their success;
• Commitment of senior faculty to their success;
• Interest senior faculty take in their professional development;
• Opportunities to collaborate with senior faculty;
• Professional interactions they have with senior colleagues;
• Quality of mentoring they receive from senior faculty; and
• How well they fit in their department.
Diversity, Salary, Work-Life Balance
• Racial diversity of the faculty in their department;
• Ethnic diversity of the faculty in their department;
• Salary; and
• Balance between their personal and professional lives (p. 2).”
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TABLE 4-3 Satisfaction of Faculty with Employment by Gender
SOURCE: National Center for Educational Statistics, 2004 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF-04). Tabulation by NRC. |
Individual universities have found similar results through surveys on their campuses. A 2002 survey of faculty at UCLA found the following: “Compared to male faculty, women feel less influential, rate their work environment as less collegial, view the evaluation process as less fair, feel less informed about academic advancement and resource negotiation, and rate the distribution of resources as less equitable.”[82]
Dissatisfaction is an important concern. First, it is an obstacle to the success of faculty efforts in all areas of professional activities. It can have a negative effect on the collegiality and group decision making of a department. It may also be picked up on by undergraduate and graduate students, who may in turn feel discouraged about academic careers. While dissatisfaction may reflect problems in the workplace environment, it may also reflect pressures outside the workplace that affect women more than men and make it harder for them to get their work done.