Merging of Professional, Personal Lives Disrupts Both Roles, Prof Says
Image by Ed Brennen
04/07/2020
Contacts for media: Nancy Cicco, Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu and Christine Gillette, 978-758-4664 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu
Working remotely to stem the spread of the coronavirus may place greater burdens on women – even those in dual-career families – due to their traditional roles as caretakers, according to an authority on how gender affects job performance who is available for interviews on the subject.
“Dual-career families usually make it work by managing boundaries between work and home lives and building in necessary support systems. But amid the COVID-19 crisis, in a matter of days, these boundaries have collapsed and support systems such as child-care help from family and friends have disappeared,” says Beth Humberd, an expert in how parenting affects career success for women and men. The challenges women already faced with increased work demands and the shouldering of household and child-care responsibilities are even more pronounced in the current environment, she says.
She is available to discuss:
- How work-family routines that may include taking care of children and aging parents have been disrupted;
- How employees’ personal lives affect their productivity and employers’ perceptions of what their work output will be;
- How workplaces can reconsider their cultures and norms to better support families.
Humberd, an assistant professor of management in UMass Lowell’s Manning School of Business, has conducted extensive research on gender and the workplace. She an associate in the university’s Center for Women and Work and teaches courses on topics including organizational behavior.
To arrange an interview with Humberd via phone, email, Skype, Zoom or another platform, contact Nancy Cicco at Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu or Christine Gillette at Christine_Gillette@uml.edu or 978-758-4664.