The Acceptance of Women as Academicians and Mothers When Working from Home (WFH) Becomes A Future Practice: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

With the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world today, higher education institutions need to change their teaching method from the physical classroom to the virtual. Some employees see this as an improvement opportunity, but some are not because WFH is never easy when they have a family.  Women as academicians and mothers are perceived to carry it heavier because they must juggle work and family. The situation can add up to stressful events when managing classes online and children simultaneously at home. Demanding work and personal duty are challenging to balance. Hence, this preliminary study explores these women's needs, support systems and acceptance of converting physical office settings into WFH as a future practice. The given research follows a descriptive research design and quantitative approach to fulfill the study's principal objective. Quota sampling has been chosen in this study that comprises a sample size of 165 women academicians as mothers. These women academicians are married and single/divorced mothers with children below and above 18 years old. They are also working in Malaysian public universities regardless of academic positions and responsibilities. A structured and self-administered questionnaire-based survey was used for data collection from the participants.  Based on the data collected, this research concludes that more than half of the respondents agree to have WFH as future practice with the capacity to WFH a few times a week.