A Multiple Narrative of the Work-Life Relationships of Academic Women

The relationship between work and life, has become a concern for women since they joined the work community and played social roles and has led to many tensions and stresses for them. The extent of these tensions is related to the nature of women's jobs. Working as a faculty member needs a constant presence in academic organization and so a fulltime concern for them. The question is how they can manage these two in-conflict fields. This paper, using a qualitative approach and thematic analysis of 26 semi-structured interviews with academic women (of Tehran and Allameh Tabatabai universities  and several research institutes) using Max Q.D.A software, tries to provide a typology of strategies that the academic women have used to solve the conflict between work and life. At last, 4 main categories (strategic type) for work and familial relationship including 12 sub themes, 35 concepts and 177 phrases have been extracted. The four main types of strategy are: minimalistic familial life, familial life-based on supportive capital, self-suspension and Holy suicide.