Departments and institutes need to contribute to improving research practices for academics at all levels on the career ladder. While there is a growing literature providing specific strategies to cope with busy academic life, collating these disparate advice pieces into a coherent framework is a daunting task and few capture multifaceted advice by ECRs for ECRs.
The need to improve work–life balance is recognized for researchers at all career stages. In the academic context, work–life balance needs to be examined with regard to spatial and temporal flexibility, employment practices, and employee habits. These systemic issues are making it increasingly difficult to maintain an efficient, productive, and healthy research enterprise.
For instance, a recent international survey of over 2,000 university staff views on work–life balance found that many academics feel stressed and underpaid and struggle to fit in time for personal relationships and family around their ever-growing workloads. Research focused on the higher education sector has revealed that poor work–life balance can result in lower productivity and impact, stifled academic entrepreneurship, lower career satisfaction and success, lower organizational commitment, intention to leave academia, greater levels of burnout, fatigue and decreased social interactions, and poor physical and mental health, which has become increasingly prevalent among graduate students. The academic system’s focus on publications and securing grant funding and academic positions instead of training, mentoring, and mental health has skewed the system negatively against prioritizing “The whole scientist”. The increasing prevalence of technology that allows work to be out of the office can also exacerbate this conflict. Increasing hours at work can conflict with obligations outside of work, including but not limited to family care commitments, time with friends, time for self-care, and volunteering and community work. Work–life balance can be defined as an individual’s appraisal of how well they manage work- and nonwork-related obligations in ways that the individual is satisfied with both, while simultaneously maintaining their health and well-being. ECRs may also find themselves constrained by the culture and management style of their laboratory and principal investigator (PI).
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The current hypercompetitive culture is particularly impactful on early career researchers (ECRs) employed on short-term contracts and is a major driver behind the unsustainable working hours reported in research labs around the world, increases in burnout, and decline in satisfaction with work–life balance. This is further strained by competition for job and funding opportunities, leading to many researchers spending significant time on applications, which takes away time from other duties such as performing research and mentorship. Academics report less time for research due to increasing administrative burden and teaching loads. The current academic working environment often prioritizes productivity over well-being, with researchers working long days, on weekends, on and off campus, and largely alone, potentially on tasks that may not be impactful. Academics today need to manage many tasks during a workweek. Before major shifts in the nature of academic work occurred, academia was historically seen as a rewarding and comparatively low-stress working environment.
The ability to strike a perceived sense of balance between work and life represents a challenge for many in academic and research sectors around the world.
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