Career shock or Business as Usual? Women academics’ experiences of a global health crisis

Gendered experiences of working in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic and the long-term impacts on academic careers are beginning to be recognized and the implications for policies considered. That COVID may constitute a career shock has already been advanced by Akkermans et al. (2020). A career shock can be defined as “a disruptive and extraordinary event that is, at least to some degree, caused by factors outside the focal individual's control and that triggers a deliberate thought process concerning one's career” (Akkermans et al., 2018: 4). This paper positions COVID as a case study of a significant global event. Employing ethnography, the narrative accounts of women academics provide insights into their experiences and ignite deliberate thought processes concerning the short-term and longer-term consequences of significant disruption to working and home lives and how these were managed by higher education leadership. Study participants include women academics from around the globe. Comparative analysis can enable explorations into the ways that a global health crisis has played out in different higher education contexts. Furthermore, sensitivity to the impacts of this period remains crucial to our current understanding of academic careers and how crises can unmake/remake gender inequalities in academia. The authors discuss implications for policies in science and higher education.