Meeting the needs and expectations of dual-career academic couples— while still ensuring the high quality of university faculty—is the next great challenge facing universities. This according to Standford University's report: Dual-Career Academic Couples: What Universities Need to Know (August 2008)
Academic couples comprise 36 percent of the American professoriate—representing a deep pool of talent. The proportion of academic couples (i.e., couples in which both partners are academics) at four-year institutions nationally has not changed since 1989.
What has changed is the rate at which universities are hiring couples. Academic couple hiring has increased from 3 percent in the 1970s to 13 percent since 2000.
And universities in the US are being to take notice and devoting attention to dual-career issues. In recent years, a number of conferences and collaborative efforts have sprung up, and university hiring practices are evolving to keep pace.
There are three key reasons for taking a new look at couple hiring:
Excellence.
The study suggests that couples more and more vote with their feet, leaving or not considering universities that do not support them. Support for dual careers opens another avenue by which universities can compete for the best and brightest.
Diversity
The new generation of academics is more diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity than ever before. With greater diversity comes the need for new hiring practices - and one of these practices is couple hiring.
Quality of Life
Faculty today are a new breed determined more than ever to strike a sustainable balance between working and private lives. Couple hiring is part of a deeper institutional restructuring around quality-of-life issues. To enhance competitive excellence, universities are increasingly supporting faculty needs, such as housing, child care, schools, and elder care, in addition to partner hiring.
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