Improving Work–Life Balance in Academia After COVID-19 Using Inclusive Practices

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review of paper “Improving Work-Life Balance in academia after COVID-19 using inclusive practices” Societies  - July 2025

This paper addresses an important topic in contemporary academia with a focus on work-life balance (WLB), especially in the post-COVID era. The authors have written a clear and comprehensive literature review with specific emphasis on pertinent themes and strategies to develop more inclusive workplaces in academia. The paper is accessible and useful for a broad international audience, although most of the material is more relevant for academics in developed country contexts.

The comments and suggestions below are both conceptual and empirical and will hopefully lead to further improvement of the paper.

1. Revisit the concept of intersectionality as it is used in this paper. This term does not just refer to “identity-based inequities” as outlined on page 3, lines 96-97. Intersectionality has been developed by feminist and legal scholars to address how people with overlapping identities confront multiple forces of oppression. See Crenshaw (1991), Collins (2015), Mattheis, Murphy and Marin-Spiotta (2019), and other noted works on intersectionality, specifically in the context of the workplace. As a whole, lays out the diverse social identities and levels of marginalization, but not in the sense of how these social identities intersect in ways that affect WLB challenges in academia.
2.  The paper offers several country examples of WLB challenges as case studies in the analysis. It would be helpful to develop some sort of typology or generalization about the cultural and political economic contexts within groups of countries that contribute to better WLB (e.g. social welfare states in Scandinavia) and, in contrast, that impede WLB. This is hinted at on page 7, line 305, but could be developed more and earlier in the paper.
3. The methods are somewhat cursory and could be explained in more detail (Section 2). I have questions about the 300 selected articles, for example, and the academic disciplines, number and list of countries in which they are published, the years of publication, and direct or indirect relevance to WLB. In addition, the search could have been expanded with articles relating to this topic that include keywords such as care labor or remote work.
4. Consider including more theoretical and legal aspects of WLB in the overview of results in Section 3.1. There is relevant work on anti-discrimination, bias, and civil rights in employment that inform these approaches to WLB. Issues of hiring, firing, and workplace harassment impact WLB and academic climate that may be country specific, but worth mentioning in the discussion of theoretical and structural issues in workplaces.
5. Expand the discussion of WLB in academia from a focus on faculty to graduate students (and others). The authors mention PhD candidates (page 5, line 179), but there is rich literature and studies on their experiences in terms of home and domestic responsibilities while studying, doing research, and teaching. See Sheppard, Reades, and Freeman (2023), Kaplan and Mapes (2016), and Maddrell et al (2016) for more in-depth analyses of PhD students in higher education.
6. The title of this article indicates a focus on WLB in academia. This is mostly the case, but there are lots of examples and discussion of other sectors and occupations. These are somewhat distracting from the academic focus and can be pared back as a whole.
7. Some confusing reference to Chapters 2, 4, and 5 on page 8, line 339-340. Do you mean Sections 2, 4, and 5?
8. The notion of telework and technology in work is an important emphasis in this paper. It would be helpful to have a more comprehensive framing of telework, remote work, and the fluidity of how technology affects our everyday lives as academics. Also, include more discussion of online teaching as part of this technological shift, especially during and post-COVID. Expectations of students for immediate responses, for example, hinder WLB.
9. Finally, mental health is a crucial dimension of WLB. This is alluded to in the discussion of disruptions during the COVID pandemic, but can be developed further with close attention to care labor, health and wellbeing, and ethics of care in the workplace. See Adams-Hutcheson and Johnston (2019), Peake and Mullings (2016), and a special theme issue of The Canadian Geographer 60(2), “Cultivating an Ethic of Wellness in Geography.”

In conclusion, this is a highly relevant and important topic in contemporary academia. The paper is well-organized and contributes to the breadth of literature in this field. I encourage the author to follow the suggestions above to further improve the analysis.  I look forward to reading the final paper.

Author Response

Please find attached the replies to the comments

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The reviewed material is a Review under the title “Improving Work-Life Balance in Academia after COVID-19 using Inclusive Practices” (blind)

* Is the work a significant contribution to the field? Indeed, maintaining a work-life balance in an academic environment requires conscious efforts and strategies aimed at separating work and personal life. It is important to set clear boundaries between working time and leisure, learn how to effectively manage your time, delegate tasks, take care of your physical and mental health, and find time for recreation and hobbies outside of work, therefore, the study is relevant.

Thus, the methodology used in this paper is a critical review of 300 published articles, the lessons learned from the pandemic are studied (p.1, 3-4): inclusive solutions, focusing on institutional boundary-setting, workload redistribution, hybrid work policies, and mental health support are presented.

The structure of the paper is presented in Figure 1 (p.4).

Based on the intersectional understanding of WLB, framing COVID-19 as a driver for structural reform (p.9-11), rather than an anomaly, and bridging WLB research and policy design (e.g., p.3) the author comes to a set of the conclusions connected to the key factors impacting work-life balance in academia (para 3.1, p. 4-8). Among them there are gender, parenting, ethnicity, migration status, social class, etc. looked at as the intersectional inequities.

For instance, it is concluded that WLB is a gendered construct, as the conversation often does not include women’s unpaid labor, and in academia women face additional pressures from traditional gender roles resulting in lower WLB satisfaction due to family responsibilities and perceived sacrifices (p.5), moreover, women disproportionately bear the burden of caregiving and domestic responsibilities, as well as the task of assisting children with homework, meanwhile in the corporate sphere, mother-friendly policies are linked to better financial performance for companies but at the same time academic mothers face additional pressures from the academic culture, which does not value dual identities as mothers and scholars (p.6). It is stated that both “Ethnicity can impact WLB.” and Immigrant status, and the individual attributes of the migrant worker, impact WLB satisfaction. Likewise lower social classes face challenges such as physical labor-induced pain among construction workers, affecting leisure and family time (p. 7). But the author does not provide any analysis on what to do or how to improve these situations in this part of the work. The solutions are given on the “Discussion” (p. 11-13).

As for the workplace policies, the author gives examples (of academic couples sometimes living apart, which leads to a unique form of work-life segmentation (p.8-9), etc.) but does not provide any analysis on what to do or how to improve these situations in this part of the work. The solutions are given on the “Discussion” (p. 11-13).

Thus, it is proposed to improve the WLB of academics, including the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and considering the intersectional inequalities highlighted in this work to: set institutional boundaries to flexibility, including equitable hybrid work setups; redefine productivity metrics and reduce faculty workload; use new frameworks for WLB; strengthen wellbeing and mental health in the campus community, to move to a culture of care. For all solutions that are proposed and that could result in policy changes, individual choices should be possible (p. 11).

In general, the work shines a new light on the literature on WLB in academia, based on he COVID-19 pandemic outcomes and calls for an inclusive view of WLB, in general, and in academia in particular.

* Is the work well organized and comprehensively described? The work includes all the traditional parts provided for in scientific articles (reviews, etc.)

* Is the work scientifically sound and not misleading? Considering the above the work is scientifically sound.

* Are there appropriate and adequate references to related and previous work? The work is supported by 300 references. Many of them cover foreign experience (e.g., # 9,11,17, 24, 27, 63, 75, etc.).

Thus, it is recommended that the material be accepted in its present form.

Author Response

Please see attached the replies to the comments

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf