Two-body problem (career)

{{Short description|Dilemma for life partners in academia}}

The two-body problem is a dilemma for life partners (e.g. spouses or any other couple) often referred to in academia, relating to the difficulty of both spouses obtaining jobs at the same university, narrow specialism, or within a reasonable commuting distance from each other.

The inability of one partner to accommodate the other produces this central dilemma, which is a no-win situation in which if the couple wishes to stay together one of them may be forced to abandon an academic career, or if both wish to pursue academic careers the relationship may falter due to the spouses being constantly separated.Benton, Thomas H. (pen name of William Pannapacker) (2009). "[http://chronicle.com/article/Just-Dont-Go-Part-2/44786/ Just Don't Go, Part 2]". The Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 March 2009, accessed 21 June 2012. The term two-body problem has been used in the context of working couples since at least the mid-1990s.{{cite web|last=McNeil|first=Laurie|author-link=Laurie McNeil|title=REPORT ON THE DUAL-CAREER-COUPLE SURVEY|url=http://www.physics.wm.edu/~sher/survey.html}} It alludes to the two-body problem in classical mechanics.

More than 70 percent of academic faculty in the United States are in a relationship where both partners work, and more than a third of faculty have a partner who also works in academia.{{cite web|author1=Londa Schiebinger |author2=Andrea Davies Henderson |author3=Shannon K. Gilmartin |title=Dual-Career Academic Couples: What Universities Need to Know|url=https://gender.stanford.edu/publications/dual-career-academic-couples-what-universities-need-know|accessdate=19 March 2012|publisher=The Clayman Institute for Gender Research}}

Traditionally, this problem was solved by wives who supported their husbands' careers by interrupting their own, often combined with an academic advancement system that actively discriminated against women and especially married women.{{cite journal|title=Married Academic Women: "Go to the End of the Line"|first=Michele|last=Shover|journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies|volume=3|issue=1|date=Spring 1978|pages=56–61|jstor=3345994|doi=10.2307/3345994}} Some past overt sexism has been ameliorated, and many universities have instituted spousal hiring programs or other creative approaches to the problem.{{cite book

| last = Landau | first = Susan | author-link = Susan Landau

| editor1-last = Case | editor1-first = Bettye Anne | editor1-link = Bettye Anne Case

| editor2-last = Leggett | editor2-first = Anne M. | editor2-link = Anne M. Leggett

| contribution = Universities and the two-body problem

| contribution-url = https://www.privacyink.org/pdf/two_body_sigact.pdf

| isbn = 0-691-11462-5

| pages = 253–255

| publisher = Princeton University Press

| title = Complexities: Women in Mathematics

| title-link = Complexities: Women in Mathematics

| year = 2005}} Nevertheless, gendered pressure to compromise persists{{cite journal |last1=Wong|first1=Jaclyn|date=16 March 2017 |title=Competing Desires: How Young Adult Couples Negotiate Moving for Career Opportunities|journal=Gender & Society|volume=31|issue=2|pages=171–196|doi= 10.1177/0891243217695520 |s2cid=152139751|url=https://osf.io/s3cqf/}} and causes a disproportionate number of women to leave the academic workforce.{{cite journal

| last1 = Larson | first1 = Samantha June

| last2 = Miller | first2 = Annie

| last3 = Drury | first3 = Ida

| date = May 2020

| doi = 10.1080/15236803.2020.1759346

| issue = 4

| journal = Journal of Public Affairs Education

| pages = 506–530

| title = Reflections on tenure, the two-body problem, and retention in the 21st century academy

| volume = 26| s2cid = 219415508

}}