Abstract:

Recent times have seen a more significant entry of women into universities. However, the gap rises as educational attainment increases (UNESCO, 2019). Women researchers are underrepresented in the highest positions within their professional careers. Therefore, horizontal and vertical segregation continues to increase to the detriment of women (UN, 2020).

In this context, the conflict between work and personal life is a phenomenon that has been present in the careers of women academics. The demands of today's academia are a permanent challenge for women in academia.

The work-life balance conflict is an individual woman's problem, but the roots derive from the construction of organizations under masculine norms (Madsen et al., 2017). The academy consequently reproduces male dominance (Dalati, 2021).

Indeed, some practices perpetuate the male-normative model in academia, where women are forced to accept positions with less research work to devote time to the family. These regulations may explain why some women leave academia (McCutcheon & Morrison, 2018). The lack of balance between professional responsibilities and family obligations emerged as a significant barrier to women's leadership in higher education (Shava & Chasokela, 2020).

The Covid-19 pandemic came to deepen existing gender differences in academia (Poneault and Rouzer, 2020) by amplifying the barriers women must face in advancing their academic careers in three crucial aspects of educational evaluation: teaching, service, and research (Malisch et al., 2020) and thus, the conflict of reconciliation has intensified for female academics due to the confinements imposed by the pandemic (Walters et al., 2021).

For this purpose, 26 female academics from 2 universities were interviewed in-depth (Kvale, 2011). The grounded theory guidelines (Charmaz, 2014) were followed for the analysis, and QSR-Nvivo software was used. Results show the existence of a work-life balance conflict, a conflict that has intensified in the context of the pandemic.

Keywords:

Work-life conflict, female academics, covid-19.