Work-Life Balance and Academic Productivity Among College of Medicine Faculty During the Evolution of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The New Normal.

Background: Work and home stress, productivity, and self-care of academic medicine faculty in Spring 2021 was contrasted to faculty's experience in the Spring of 2020, both of which were relatively compared with the prepandemic period. Methods: A 93-question survey was sent to academic medicine faculty at an urban public university medical center in March 2020 and again in March 2021. Demographic, family, and academic characteristics, work distribution and productivity before and during the pandemic, perceived stress related to work and home activities, and self-care data compared with the prepandemic period were collected. Differences were assessed using chi-square or Fisher exact tests. Student t-test was used for the difference in mean values, while logistic regression was used to determine predictors of work stress. Results: Two hundred thirty-one faculty completed the survey in Spring 2020 and 118 faculty responded in Spring 2021. The proportion of faculty reporting increased work and home stress decreased in Spring 2021 compared with Spring 2020. A higher proportion of women compared with men reported increased work stress in both surveys. In Spring 2021, work stress decreased significantly for men but not for women. Home stress decreased significantly for women in Spring 2021 but remained stable for the men faculty. Research productivity increased for both genders in Spring 2021, but a greater percentage of women reported disturbed sleep and diet. There were no differences in home stress levels between genders when caring for young children. Conclusions: Men faculty are more likely to adapt to the "new normal" by lowering work stressors and increasing productivity, whereas women's continued high work stress and increased productivity may occur at the expense of decreased self-care. The challenges associated with having young children continue to affect the productivity and well-being of all faculty.

Work-Life Balance and Productivity Among Academic Faculty During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Latent Class Analysis.

Background: For faculty in academic health sciences, the balance between research, education, and patient care has been impeded by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study aimed to identify personal and professional characteristics of faculty to understand the impact of the pandemic on faculty and consequent policy implications. Methods: A 93-question survey was sent to faculty at a large urban public university and medical center. Demographic, family, and academic characteristics, work distribution and productivity before and during the pandemic, stress, and self-care data information were collected. Latent class analysis (LCA) was performed to identify classes of faculty sharing similar characteristics. Comparisons between latent classes were performed using analysis of variance and chi-square analyses. Results: Of 497 respondents, 60% were women. Four latent classes of faculty emerged based on six significant indicator variables. Class 1 individuals were more likely women, assistant professors, nontenured with high work and home stress; Class 2 faculty were more likely associate professors, women, tenured, who reported high home and work stress; Class 3 faculty were more likely men, professors, tenured with moderate work, but low home stress; and Class 4 faculty were more likely adjunct professors, nontenured, and had low home and work stress. Class 2 reported significantly increased administrative and clinical duties, decreased scholarly productivity, and deferred self-care. Conclusions: The pandemic has not affected faculty equally. Early and mid-career individuals were impacted negatively from increased workloads, stress, and decreased self-care. Academic leaders need to acknowledge these differences and be inclusive of faculty with different experiences when adjusting workplace or promotion policies.

Feminists wrestle with testosterone: hormones, socialization and cultural interactionism as predictors of women's gendered selves.

Sociology of gender has developed beyond a personality-centered idea of "sex-roles" to an approach that stresses interaction and social structure. At the same time, there has been a concurrent development in the psychological sex-differences and medical literatures toward including the biological bases of sex-typed behavior and gender identities. In this paper, while we conceptualize gender as a social structure, we focus only on the individual level of analysis: testing the relative strength of (maternal circulating) prenatal hormones, childhood socialization, and the power of expectations attached to adult social roles (cultural interactionist) as explanations for women's self-reported feminine and masculine selves. Our findings are complex, and support some importance of each theory. Prenatal hormones, childhood socialization, and cultural interactionism were all influential factors for gendered selves. While cultural expectations predicted only feminine selves, prenatal hormones were more robust predictors of masculine sense of self. While personality may be a relatively stable characteristic influenced by the body and childhood socialization, our results reinforce the importance of studying how the social world responds to and reinforces gendered personality.

A double standard for "Hooking Up": How far have we come toward gender equality?

While sexual attitudes have liberalized in the past half century, research is mixed as to whether attitudes have become less gendered over time. Recent studies on college students' sexual and romantic relationships suggest that a sexual double standard continues to organize sexuality on many campuses. Data from the Online College Social Life Survey shed light on students' evaluation of casual sex, or "hooking up." In addition to exploring gendered attitudinal patterns, we use gender structure theory to explore how individual characteristics and normative expectations of campus group affiliations shape attitudes. While three quarters of students do not hold different standards for men and women's hooking up, attitudes are more conservative than liberal, with almost half of students losing respect for men and women who hook up "a lot." However, men are more likely to hold a traditional double standard, while women are more likely to espouse egalitarian conservative attitudes. Individual characteristics, including age, religion, race, social class and sexual orientation are frequently related to sexual attitudes, as are number of hook ups, fraternity/sorority affiliation and varsity athletic participation.