Hectic, ordinary, flexible
everyday life of a female PhD student with a family
Abstract
Combining work with family life is a topical and socially important question. This article examines how under-40-year old female PhD students with a family manage to combine the roles of a mother and a doctoral student in their everyday life and how they deal with the major and simultaneous challenges these roles bring. The focus is on the everyday challenges female PhD students face and the choices they have to make at the interface of family and study. This article is part of research examining the life course and future thinking of female PhD students.
Nowadays the atmosphere of planning is all-pervasive. Individuals are expected to plan their life course carefully. They should plan their careers carefully, only start a family after careful consideration, and combine the different phases of their life course into a meaningful and functional entity. Choices made in everyday life are partly based on estimates of past actions and forecasts of the future. A female PhD student is best able to combine family life and career if she is a full-time researcher doing research for her dissertation on regular working time. Doing research while working squeezes out time for other parts of life and often leaves them neglected.
